Target, what can I say it’s been good to me and it’s been bad to me but through almost three years now, I see myself as a different person. When I first started working there I was nervous and very neurotic, always wondering what people thought of me and how they perceived me. I thought my supervisor, Maria C., didn’t think too fondly of me because I was slow and unresponsive to anything she wanted me to work on but I found out later on she was appreciating all the work I was doing and I just needed to speed it up more. From this, I was always trying my hardest in departments where I was set to work such as Toys, Sporting Goods, Home Decor, and HBA but I never got the recognition I thought I should have gotten. I was always bitchting to people about how we weren’t good enough as a team and we needed faster results but I wasn’t aware that I was getting stuck in that zone of always working and never having any fun. I was too worried about my own self-image and how it would be looked upon if the team didn’t perform as well as it should have. What I’m referring to is the wave where we worked as one team and we just pulled every product forward in order for it to look straight. However, along came JB, who for all intents and purposes was friendly and kind towards me but his idea of work was much different than it was for the rest of us. His idea of work was to come and hang out which was something I adopted for the better part of a year until the remodel of Target Westgate started. I found this idea of coming to work to hang out made me lazy and unresponsive to actual work because I got accustomed to just being like JB which was something I should have pointed out to myself but I was too stubborn to realize it. Yes, it’s nice to relax at work once in a while but to say it constantly makes it seem as if work really doesn’t really matter to you and you are just doing it for kicks. It was sad to believe this because every time me and JB would be together it was just talking all the time but other people saw this and they too saw that they can pull it off as well. I realized after that I shouldn’t given people the impression that it was cool to be talking like we did because if one person then it must be ok but then I thought it set a bad example for other people as well. So one way it made me a worse person was by thinking that work was all play and fun but the truth is I shouldn’t have taken it for what it was because I was a veteran leader who was looked upon as knowing their stuff. Another way in which it has made me a worse person is by buying into people’s bullshit, inside and outside of work, I remember when a guy I used to work with Daniel R. would talk about how he knew the system of target and how he knew all the insides and outsides of the politics. This guy was cool as a person but in terms of being a very reliable worker he seemed to exaggerate his accomplishments which were hard to believe. He would tell me how he was talking to one girl and then he would tell me about this other girl he was talking too which made me question as to what he was looking for in these girls. At the end of his run, he ended up getting terminated for attendance but we all knew he would bullshit us once again when he told us he quit before they fired him. Another person’s bullshit that was hard to believe was a guy I used to consider a good friend in Mike Z., now Mike Z. was a cool guy at first but I soon saw what my good friend Ricardo pointed out to me when he first saw what he was like as well. Mike would tell me about how San Jose State is almost easier then West Valley which made it almost seem as if the guy knew more than the school system itself. He also would tell me about how he learned to only look out for yourself at Target which made it seem as if all we were there for was a paycheck and nothing else but along the run we could use some help at least. Another guy that’s bullshit was pretty funny was a guy by the name of Pedro. This guy is sad honestly, he pretends he is Target’s savior and he lies right through his teeth. He was telling other people before about how a good friend of mine John S. didn’t like electronics but he went and told other executives about it and was sad to say the least. He also pretends every single female cashier in the store is ripe for the picking because they have little to no experience in retail and every guy has to be nice right? Yeah right! He’s also lied several times about promotions that he’s been passed up for because there were really no opportunities to do so. Another way in which it’s made me a worse person is that I feel I make myself feel certain things about certain people and sometimes they were wrong other times they weren’t. For example, whenever a new person comes into work I already destine them for failure sometimes and there are times when I’ve been wrong about that. The perfect example of that is Golondam, who has turned out to be a heck of a talent and I feel I enhanced her when I gave her encouragement and later one she started asking more questions which showed more eagerness to learn. Another one is Tamara, who is an awesome person and a good friend because I judged her right away on her appearance based on the fact that she had braces and she was short which said to me no she is not fit for this job. Another one I was wrong about was Alex Russell, who is a guy that started around last Black Friday and at first I didn’t know what to think of him cause he was so big but once I got to talking to the guy I saw we had a lot in common with music, movies, life, and work. One last one I was wrong about was Stella who I do miss dearly but at first I thought she was just a total bitch but once I started talking to her I saw she had a great mind, an even better personality, and more dynamic to her than any other girl would. One last way that it has made me a worse person is by how I’ve been tired and worn down from the place. I have school usually two days a week till 4 and the other days till about 1:20 which if you look at it allows me to basically just be at work and at school and it leaves me very little time for seeing my home. These days, with school and work, I feel a bit more tired and by the time the end of the week comes on thursday I feel more calm and relaxed that I can finally sleep a full 8 hours or more. I didn’t used to feel as tired but with more pressure on me to perform to increasingly high standards I feel a bit burned out and more willing to begin a job hunt within the next few months but I feel I can give it one more Christmas but who knows what the future holds, only I can control it.
Just Another Day... 