Today, I returned to work my shift in the deli. How exhausting.

Though I'm quite confident that I'll be severing my employment there soon, I stopped short of making the final confirmation when the manager asked today. I will wait one more week before I choose for certain.

Though I started the workday today with an upbeat, energetic vibe, I found that as the day (evening) dragged on, the place noticably wore my spirit down. Having been out for a week, I was able to come back in and observe the process with a more analytical eye. To repeat what I told a coworker earlier, after six months in that place, I'm more than ready to move on.

Morale among the deli staff seems to be at a near all-time low. Or maybe I was just noticing it more. Whatever the case, I found my strength to be insufficient to transcend it for very long. Overwhelmed by the current, I sunk with it.

It might almost be said that the place is going through a personnel crisis. Maybe that's an exaggeration. Maybe not.

I was informed by a coworker that the newest member of the staff, who was off today, could likely be fired if she doesn't pull it together soon. This hit me as a shock, since I've known her to be enthusiastic and helpful, albeit inexperienced.

Apparently, she's been showing up late for work consistently during the past week. Very late. 2 or 3 hours, in some cases. According to sources, she's also has been very sloppy with the cleaning. The assistant manager told me that it has become virtually intolerable.

The problem? Though I'm not clear on all the details, it appears that the new girl has been getting stalked by her now ex-boyfriend. She recently left his lazy, refuses-to-get-a-job ass behind, and he was not happy about it. Apparently, at some point during the past few days, the police were even called into the store when he showed up to hassle her and other people she was talking to during her break.

Despite this, she declined to file a restraining order. (Why? I don't know. Like I said, she wasn't there today. But assist manager believed this to be a very bad decision. Based on my rudimentary knowledge of the situation, I might tend to agree.) She ended up talking to the police for over an hour while on the clock, which was also apparently a point of contention.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Finding out about this helped to explain at least part of the reason for everybody's inexplicably glum mood when I entered.

Now I'll be talking about of my ass for a minute, because my knowledge of things is sketchy at best. Were I in the decision-making position, my tendancy would be to cut the girl a little slack. She's obviously going through a personal crisis. She leaves her boyfriend (which sounded like a good idea, based on what she told me about him), and he turns Dr. Jekyll on her. Things are expected to be rough for a bit.

OTOH, I'm not the one who's had to work with her during the past week. Repeated extreme chronic tardiness is obviously not good. Especially in the case of this job, it makes things harder on everybody else who works there. (Things don't get done, or people end up missing their breaks, etc etc.) Ditto for sloppy cleaning.

I dunno. I guess I'm also biased because I know what it's like to get fired from a job while in the midst of a personal crisis. (Admittedly, mine was of a vastly different nature, but it did cause me to lose productivity, act unprofessionally, and deviate from my usual patterns. So in that regard, it could be considered similar.)

When one's life is already going topsy turvy in the first place, losing a job is one hell of a way to compound an already unstable situation. So.... That sucks. I hope things turn out for the best there.

That situation, combined with the fact that the normal chef is still recovering from a car accident injury, and another person (me) is on the verge of resigning his position, is a formula for personnel crisis in the making. Of course, there's also the ever-looming antics of upper management. What does all this add up to? One majorly burned out deli crew.

I feel a slight twinge of guilt at the thought that my leaving all of this behind could add to making things harder for all of them, at least in the short term.

But then I remember. There's always something, isn't there? Last month, this month, next month. The place always seems to be on the verge of collapse, but somehow, it manages to hold together and continue to exist. It will do so, with or without me. My participation in the process is optional. Wearing myself out, day in and day out, in the hope that things will get better if I only push a little harder only makes it worse.

It is out of my control. Just as it should be.

This rambling isn't even turning out quite the way I had planned. My initial theory was that I would go a different direction with it. But it has not gone there. It has come here instead. How profound an insight to make on a sleep-deprived brain at 2 am.

This back-and-forth schedule shifting is wreaking havoc with my sleep schedule. I should have gone straight home to bed after work tonight. I was planning to do that too. But then, at the last point of decision, I just had to come here, read the latest postings from yanthor.net, and write this. So here it is.

Must drive a few blocks to bed before my eyes involuntarily go shut. Sorry to everybody whose email I haven't replied to yet. I'll get to it eventually. Tomorrow I work another shift. Wednesday morning, car tune-up. (Not certain exactly how long that will take.)

But right now, sleep. Peace.