I was really worried about my first close all by myself, and while I don’t think it was a complete failure, it was definitely a bit of an adventure. I’m not even going to embellish this one. It is pretty entertaining on its own merits.
(Note: I’ve decided to use fake names for my coworkers because I am not sure how they feel about me talking about them on the internet. Not that it will really help, but at least I can feel like I am providing some kind of anonymity.)
First of all, I started the day thinking that I was going to be closing with Bill as my delivery driver. (Most times there are only a manager and a driver working on a close shift.) I was not excited about this premise because Bill does not know how to do managerial things, so if I couldn’t remember something I would be up the creek. The store manager called me that morning for an unrelated reason, and told me that Bill had quit, effective immediately, that morning. (I suspect that this is related the yelling match that he had with another driver two nights prior.) She also told me that it didn’t matter to me, because my closing driver was supposed to be Dimitar (who does know how to do managerial things). So I went in to work at 5:00 armed with that knowledge, thinking that my close might not be a disaster after all.
I got to work and the store manager informed me that Dimi was not my driver after all. It was supposed to be Diego. This was troubling, because he does not know how to do managerial things, or even basic non-driver things, so he would be no help at all. (Especially combined with the fact that I find his accentreally hard to follow.) Then about an hour into the shift, the manager gets a call saying that Diego has just found out that he is getting deported, so he has to quit, effective immediately. Dimi was at work at the time, so we asked him to stay and close (even though he had already been there since 10 AM) but he was feeling fairly unwell, so he opted to go home and sleep. We called in the assistant manager to close with me, which meant that I probably wasn’t going to fail. Bully for me.
The night went on fairly uneventfully. The store manager went home, the assistant manager drove deliveries, there was a little rush, we dealt with it, the night went on. Then, at about 9:30 or so, Mr. Assistant Manager called me up while he was on a delivery and told me that he had blown a tire and had no idea when he would be able to get back. At this point I had no idea what to do. I texted the store manager and she said to call Dimitar, so I did. I told him the story, and he grumbled and thought about it for about a second and then said “Fuggit. I’ll be right there.” (I later found out that he was only hesitant about coming in because he was in bed and full of Nyquil.)
I called all of my delivery customers and told them the story, and they were all very amicable about it, and agreed to come pick up their orders. Great. Now I had just called in Dimi and dragged him out of bed to not make any deliveries.
After that the night was fairly uneventful. Dimitar, in his true fashion, was not upset at all, (or at least didn’t seem it) and said that I should have called him right away instead of waiting. Assistant Manager came back after Dimi had been there for about half an hour, and then he left and the we finished the close, (very late,) after I dropped the scale on the floor and broke it. But that was one of the less concerning parts of my evening. Hopefully my next close goes smoother.
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