Update

Hello All!

Sorry I've been MIA for the past week. One of the many circumstances of picking and choosing where to spend my energy... my other responsibilities won. But I'm back with you now! This past week was insane. I'm starting to realize I may have, once again, over-extended myself by committing to too much. BUT, I can fix it. I think.

Currently I'm committed to working on 3 websites, in addition to this blog. Luckily all of that can be done while sitting at a computer, which isn't too physically demanding. It's just time consuming and brain draining at times. I know all my fellow bloggers can most certainly relate. In addition, to the  3 websites, Joy and I are currently planning Faith, Hope, and Fibro's 3yr Anniversary in February, we have our weekly group meetings, I'm planning (and executing) Christmas shopping for 26 people, wrapping said gifts for 26 people, then there is rehearsal on Wednesday nights at church for Sunday singing, Bible Study after rehearsal, Church on Sunday, and I'm back to working 40hrs a week M-F.

Yes. I'm insane. However, I'm not complaining about any of it, please don't misunderstand. I am HAPPY to be involved with such wonderful people and events. And I am EXTREMELY thankful for my job. In fact, this job has been such a HUGE blessing to Jeremy and I. 6 months ago, I was basically bed-ridden and on the verge of losing my job. This is a HUGE improvement. The most important thing for me is to find the "happy medium," though. So far, I'm doing much better at pacing myself. Some may see it as procrastination, (which I also do), but in this case I'm just making sure I'm taking care of myself a midst all of the responsibility. There's no need for me to land myself in a mess of pain, which will inevitably turn into resentment, during the holidays.

Historically speaking, Christmas has been a really hard time for me. This year is my first Christmas as Mrs. Baylee Bass, and I am doing EVERYTHING I can to make sure it's one of the best Christmas' in my life in spite of the fact that not all circumstances are ideal. 

Have a Holly, Jolly, Fibro Holiday!

I'm hoping you all had a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving with family and friends. A trend I've noticed with those suffering from Fibromyalgia is, we all tend to be perfectionists, over-achievers, a bit (or a lot) OCD, and extremely driven. As someone without Fibro could imagine, having such an A-Type personality make its all the more frustrating when we can't be The Hostess with the Mostess, make every side dish and dessert in our cookbooks, and feed the entire neighborhood. In other words, we like to over-extend ourselves. We were mostly likely this way before we were diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. And now, we feel even more repercussions and find it harder to bounce back. 

As great as it may feel to be told how great your great-grandmother's biscuits came out, or how easy you make the perfect Turkey look, lets be honest, it doesn't feel good enough to over come all of the pain and fatigue you get to deal with for the next few weeks....and just to do it all again for Christmas? 

STOP THE INSANITY!!!!

There are things we can do to keep ourselves from suffering through the holidays. Things we can do that might even allow us to ENJOY the holidays. 

"I already enjoy the holidays," you say. 

Well, you can't tell me you enjoy being bed-ridden after making your perfect feast, just so everything can be perfect, in your mind, for that one day.

"It's what my friends/family expect from me," you say.

Let me explain something to you. Your friends and family will not love you any less if you ask for help. They will not love you any less if you relinquish some of the responsibilities. They most certainly will not love you any less if you ask to have dinner at someone else's house this year. But if you demand to be the only one that cooks, and demand the get together be at your house every year because it's the most central location (or whatever reason you use), they will almost always let you do all the work. 

In order to relinquish those responsibilities though, you've got to be honest with yourself first. What are you able to do without over-extending yourself? What shortcuts can you take that really, (be honest), won't make that big of a difference?

We aren't just talking about cooking here. Let's talk about cleaning, eating, shopping, wrapping gifts, and something most people enjoy with holiday celebrations, alcohol.

CLEANING

If you do end up being the one having the holiday get-together at your house, instead of cleaning the entire house from top to bottom, clean the areas that will be used, and shut the doors to the "off-limit" areas. No one has to know you haven't vacuumed your guest bedroom closet. No one will honestly care :)

FOOD

If you've done your research about Fibro, you know there are certain foods that make us feel worse, and some make us feel better. Do yourself a favor, don't eat the ones that are going to make you feel like crap. And if you do get the urge to consume every sugary treat your Aunt Sally made, maybe try to do it in small portions. Remember, just because you're on Holiday, it doesn't mean your Fibro is too. Also, if you have grandkids, nieces, or nephews, this is a great time to teach them how to make some of the family recipes! Let them do the hard work while you sit back (comfortably) and supervise. 

SHOPPING

Black Friday is already over with, but there is still one day left of the weekend sale, then of course Cyber Monday. Not to mention all of the other amazing sales you'll see over the next few weeks. Whether you have 20 people to buy for, or only 2, shopping is stressful. If you haven't already, I recommend looking online at your favorite stores before going into them. Many websites let you check in-store availability before you make the trip to the crowded shopping center. If the store has it in stock, many will let you purchase your product online and pick it up in the store. If they don't have it in stock, then you can go ahead and take advantage of purchasing it online and having it shipped directly to your home! No trips to the mall or fighting crowds are necessary! Seriously, take advantage of the awesomeness that is Technology.

GIFT WRAPPING

Not only is this a time consuming task, it can often times be a physically draining task. Do you have grandkids, nieces, nephews, neighbors with kids? Pay them a nickel for every gift they wrap! Not only will they be learning the value of working for their money, your pocket book won't suffer from paying some expensive service in the mall to wrap your gifts for you! (Obviously you can pay them a little more if they're old enough to know the value of a Nickel these days haha). The gifts may not be wrapped perfectly, but they'll have charm and it will be a story to tell your guests that will make them go "Awww!!!"

ALCOHOL

As many of you know, my husband and I have recently decided to no longer drink alcohol. This was our personal choice based on how it was affecting our lives (and mostly interfering with my medication.) All of us can admit, drinking with friends at Holiday parties is fun, but it's not usually worth it for how crappy we feel the next few days. No, I'm not talking about a hangover. I'm talking simply about how alcohol interferes with our medications. Many of us are on anti-depressants (Cymbalta being the most common). Those of us who have been taking anti-depressants for some time know that missing a dose is BAD BAD BAD. Well, drinking alcohol is almost the same as missing a dose. You might as well be flushing those pills down the toilet (and they are NOT cheap!) So, instead of drinking the spiked eggnog, champagne, or hot-totti, perhaps you can enjoy some sparkling white grape juice, or hot cider instead. 

Hopefully I've been able to give some of you a few ideas on how to make your Holidays a little more doable. I know most of this is easier said than done. I'm a control freak, I'll be the first to admit it. But I've learned not to sweat the small stuff (most of the time haha.) The most important thing is to enjoy and cherish the time with your loved ones. Being able to do that in the least amount of pain and stress is what we dream of, right?

The Life of Retail: Oh, the Humanity!

(My retail friends and fellow retail retirees will appreciate this.)

Oh my, where do I even begin. 

Retail is one of the most common jobs in the United States. From small businesses to big corporations such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Macy's, retail is everywhere. It is what I consider one of the many unfortunate necessary evils in our world. There are so many things that go into making a Retail business successful. This post will be speaking mostly about the bigger Corporations.

Several roles are required to run a large Retail business. Remember the PC game Sim's Theme Park? You created this huge theme park and had to place workers everywhere to run the place. Little messages would pop up and alert you to complain about puke not getting cleaned up fast enough from one of the roller-coasters, or the trash not getting taken out fast enough. It was intricate, and unless you could effectively manage all of these little imaginary people, your customers would walk out because your bathrooms smelled or you ran out of corn dogs. Sometimes you'd get so many notifications it'd get over-whelming. Ridiculous for just a game right? Welcome to retail.

Let's rewind the clock to five years ago, when the economy still sucked, but it sucked just a little less. 

There was a different team for everything....

Inventory: Received the truck, pulled down the big items like TV's and large appliances, performed carry-outs for customers, did weekly counts of the items in the store, and they sent back items to manufacturer's that were "past their date of selling".

Merchandising: Stocked items, put signs up in the store, changed all of the prices and set the new ad on Sundays.

Loss Prevention/Asset Protection: Basically security. They watched the cameras, greeted customers as they came in, and said good-bye as they left. Checked receipts, called for carry-outs.

Customer Service: Returns/Exchanges

Cashiers: Rang stuff up (duh)

Sales: In my previous employer's terms that would mean MP3, TV's, Audio, Computers, Appliances, Cameras, and Media (CD's/Movies/Video Games) were all separate. 

I think you get the idea of the separate department thing now. Each of these departments had their on personal supervisor and manager. That's A LOT of sups and managers. And that's just at the store level. When you start adding in District and Territory support, corporate teams in charge of writing the HR policies, the out-sourced call centers for HR support, payroll, accounting, marketing....then you have the international relationships. It's fascinating how many people are involved, just so people can walk into a brick and mortar store and buy a new release movie every Tuesday, or a new TV because the most recent thunderstorm zapped theirs out. 

Now fast-forward to the present. The thousands of people who made up that very corporation...take a third of it away. The amount of different roles in the store, cut it in half. In stores that used to run 6 managers, they now only have 3. Where there used to be 8 supervisors, there are only 4. (Yes I'm sure you understand the concept of "half" but I'm shooting for context here.) Keep in mind, even though the number of employees has decreased, the number of tasks and responsibilities to run the business has not decreased.

I get it. The economy SUCKS right now. Sure, cut the amount of jobs. That will save boat loads of money. Everyone is doing it. But what does this mean for all of the store level employees? More work and more responsibilities. Aren't all of the District, Territory, and Corporate employees affected too? What about the ones who lost their jobs at the Corporate level? Well I'll tell you what happens. Most of them will receive a large severance package that will keep them going for quite a while. And those who didn't lose their jobs? Well they still get to work Monday through Friday, leave at 5pm, and spend evenings, weekends, and holidays with their families. They get to take 4 or maybe more vacations a year because the business will run without them.


The store level employees however work the nights and weekends and holidays, so consumers can wait last minute to buy gifts, so people can go buy a TV at 9 o'clock at night. (Who needs to buy a TV that late at night!?!?) I get it though. It comes with the territory, you say. That's what you sign up for when you decide to work retail. And it all comes down to money. People need to make money so they can support their families. Retailers need to make money, so they make their products available for more hours per day to be consumed, just in case someone might think, "Hey. I think I'd like a new TV," at 9pm one night. It's all about money. That's what makes our world go 'round. Money, money, money. 

So the pressure from Corporate starts coming down on Territory staff, then it trickles down to District, then they put pressure on the store Managers, which then gets transferred down to the store employees. The store employee who was once responsible for one department instead of four departments feels the pressure. Oh man, do they ever. They are expected to work longer hours, over-time, answer their personal phone any time of day even when it's their day off, and even expected to come in on their day off. What about their personal life? Well you can forget it. Unfortunately, it seems the money is more important.

This, my friends, is NOT what a person signs up for when they choose to work retail. Not if you're working part-time and getting paid minimum wage with no benefits or bonuses. When the head count gets cut, the responsibility increases for those that are left. But it's funny how the pay doesn't increase. Even if only the increase was a small amount, the money could still save money. It seems though that the majority of the bigger corporations have lost sight of the fact that it's their employees that make them the money they're so obsessed with. This brings me to my next point....

BLACK FRIDAY: The biggest shopping day of the year next to Christmas Eve. It's what every large Retailer spends their entire year planning for, and where you'll see fights break out over a "good deal" on the most popular toy of the year as early as 2am. When you choose to work retail, you inevitably sign up for working Black Friday. It's a non-negotiable. I'm sure you all have noticed though that over the years, the opening time has started creeping up a little earlier each year. When I first started retail, we opened Black Friday at 5 or 6am. (It was a while ago, I don't remember exactly.) The opening was early, but it allowed the employees who had to work the morning shift to at least spend a full day celebrating Thanksgiving with their families the day before, and get a semi-normal nights sleep before encountering the craziness that is Black Friday. This past Black Friday, my 6th in retail, we opened at midnight. MIDNIGHT! Employees working the morning shift had to show up as early as 10pm on Thanksgiving night. That day, our store was open a full 23hours straight. So not only did we have to come in earlier, some of us worked anywhere from 11-18hr shifts. Some of us were lucky and got to split them between two shifts and catch a nap at home in between. But several people commute to work, so running home and taking a nap wasn't really an option in between shifts. So in order to get enough rest to work the insane amount of hours that day, most people had to cut their Thanksgiving day festivities short. I personally went to bed at 3pm Thanksgiving day, to wake up at 8pm and get ready for my 14hrs of craziness. I got to see my family for 3 hours on Thanksgiving. Some "holiday" right?

This year, Wal-Mart has announced they will be opening their doors for Black Friday on Thursday at 8pm. This is two hours earlier than last year when they opened on Thanksgiving day at 10pm. They aren't the only ones either! See a list of retail store opening times here. 

First off, It's called Black FRIDAY!!!! For pete's sake. But, as we established earlier, its about making that extra buck. Who cares that the employees are going to be sacrificing time with their families. Now I will say, some companies are offering incentives to those willing to open on Black Thursday/Friday. Target is offering bonuses to their employees who will come open their doors at 9pm on Thanksgiving night. However, Wal-Mart is offering NOTHING. And I'm sure they aren't the only ones. And because of that, this is what they're getting.

That's right. As stated in the article, employees started their strike in October. A full two months before Black Friday. 160 employees walked out between 28 different stores. Now while this is a very small amount compared to Wal-Marts 1.4million US employees, it's a start. Tons of other strikes are planned for Black Friday that will include more people walking out, Flash Mobs, and other special surprises. What will it take to make this insanity stop? As also stated in the article, employees have attempted several times to organize a Union to stop the inhumane treatment. But Wal-Mart leadership retaliates on these employees by cutting their hours, basically forcing them to find other jobs to support their families. (I'm pretty sure that's illegal.)

Wal-Mart is just an example of the crazy treatment employees are receiving in the world of retail, where customers money comes first. As consumers, I must ask you, when dealing with anybody regarding business, please remember they are humans, too.They deserve to be treated as so, not as servants. Especially in a Retail environment. When it comes to the Holidays, namely Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, remember those employees have families too. And although they did sign up to work retail, they don't always get to choose the conditions they are put in just to make a living for their families. Furthermore, please don't be one of those jerks that walks in 5 minutes before closing on Christmas Eve, then get angry when they kick you at precisely at closing time. It's not their fault YOU waited until the last minute to buy your gifts. And it's most certainly not their fault YOU waited until the last day of the sale to come pick up the $199 laptop the ad said the store would only have 5 of. 

<Let the comments commence. Family friendly venting is encouraged.>