Thank God

I was getting a little worried about the fact that I bought plane tickets awhile ago to go home for Thanksgiving, and I have this new retail job that requires you to work Black Friday. I hadn't had a chance to talk about it with the store manager, although I did mention it at my interview. Last night when I was working with the assistant manager I asked her what she thought the chances of me being able to get that weekend off were. Her response only made me worry even more.

This morning I went in to pick up my schedule, hoping that the SM would be working. Thankfully she was so I approached her and asked her as nicely as I possibly could, explained that I bought these plane tickets way before I even had this job. She acted kind of ticked off at me, but she gave me the weekend off. I'm not allowed to ask for any other days off this holiday season which kind of blows because I wanted to plan a weekend in Leavenworth in December to see them light the Christmas lights, but oh well. This is the one thing about retail that I hate more than anything, they expect you to give up all your holidays and your life to work some crappy job for minimum wage.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm thankful to have a job and to be bringing in some money. But this whole last year while B and my brother were deployed made me really realize how important family is. This is our first holiday season actually together in the same place and I want to have memories of us doing special things together, not memories of me working some crappy job. I don't like working somewhere where they don't think family is important, because it's really important to me. And honestly I don't know when I'm going to have a chance to see my family again. I want to spend quality time with B and make memories with him, but I hate that I always have to work on the weekends and that I'm pretty much not allowed to take time off.

It makes me kind of miss American Eagle back in Minnesota. I know I complained about working there, and some of it really did suck, but the people were always great. I loved the people I worked with. They were all so nice and understanding, and all of the managers were really great, Especially the store manager. She was understanding. The year my brother graduated from OSUT it was right before Thanksgiving and we were going down to Georgia, and she told me I could have Black Friday off since we might not be back in time. She was so understanding and I was so grateful for it. I actually did end up coming home the day before Thanksgiving and I worked Black Friday.

At the end of the day, I feel like money and jobs come and go, but family is always there and you can never replace memories you have with those loved ones. I don't want to miss out on anything.