My first half-day of work at the gas station today. Herein, I shall attempt to document a few thoughts and observations.

• This job is by far the lowest stress job I've had. Ever. My first day was focused exclusively on running the cash register. Basic operation on that has a super-quick learning curve. Within minutes, I was ringing up customers with ease.
• The manager is very easy going and friendly. He and I get along well.
• I get get as many free fountain drinks and popcorn as I want while I work. Not that I like to drink much soda or other chemical-laden liquids these days, but still a nice gesture.
• I know already that if I work at this job for very long at all, my biggest challenge will be finding a way to prevent myself from going numb with boredom.
• bouncing beat me to posting this thought, but during my shift, I was thinking that I'm going to have to watch Clerks again very soon.
• One exception to the "Easy learning curve": Cigarettes. There are so many tiny little variations that matching what the customer asks for with what they actually want becomes a non-trivial exercise. Each brand literally has rows upon rows of packages that look nearly identical, but they aren't, and the labels don't make it obvious at all. Also, withen each "model" of cigarette are variations in packaging. Some customers prefer the "box" type of packaging; others prefer the "soft" wrapping. Insanity! I propose one of two solutions to this problem: 1) Everyone who works in tobacco company marketing divisions be rounded up and shot, or 2) Move the cigarettes in front of the counter so people can pick what they want. We could still refuse to sell them to minors, but adults could select their own preferred type, just like with the beer. But that would just make things too easy for everybody, wouldn't it?

Philosophical musings. Sitting in this particular chamber of the belly of the beast gives me yet another perspective from which to analyze things. What I have right now are half-formed thoughts, so articulating them into words presents a challenge.

...

...

Honestly, nope. Not ready yet. If I try to force it out right now, it will just be shit. It needs to gestate a little longer.

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Tonight, Yanthor hosted a gaming night for several of his coworkers here at the house. Though he had said I was welcome to join them, initially, I was a little uncertain whether to attend, as it seemed like it might be a little awkward for me to stick my nose in at an event that was obviously a gathering of people from his company. But he assured me that he had talked to all of them about my presence ahead of time, and they were fine with it.

I'm glad I joined. There were only 4 people besides him, Anya, and I. So not a large crowd. The plan was that it would be a general table game night, but the poker mini-tournament ended up consuming the whole evening. We weren't playing with real money, but he did issue prizes to the top 3 winners in the form of Best Buy gift cards.

Due to a combination of paying too much to stay around in some of the early hands, and lousy luck, I got knocked out first. In a twist of hilarity, the person who had never played before managed to win the evening! I have never seen so many straights before. It was nuts.

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I'll rest now. Luckily, my shift tomorrow doesn't begin until 1500 again, and like today, it will be 4 hours. (The manager told me it generally works better to train people in 4 hour increments, as they tend to retain more of it easier.) However, I want to get some sleep. This is a lot of changes for my little head to process, and... well... these little earthquakes. Doesn't take much to rip us into pieces.

Yada yada. Thanks Tori. I needed that. Out.