Why I Love... My Colleagues

Hello!

Continuing on with my 'Why I Love..." series, by taking it on a slightly different spin this week. This time, it's why I love the guys that I work with. (And why I wish I could take them to any and every job I ever have from this point on.) The picture is slightly different, because I'd bulk taken the other photos, and since I took those, people have left and people have joined in my work, so for ease, this post will have a different picture.

Okay. So currently, I work in a shop with 5 other people. Russell, Jess, Chloe, Karen (missing from the above photo) and Lindsay. They're all great, and I love them.

We work really well as part of a team because we each have our strengths and our weaknesses. My strengths, for example, are in customer service; engaging in conversations and relating to my customers. My weakness would be in merchandising. But, with each weakness, somebody else has a strength. So, Jess, Russell, Chloe and Karen are all able to support me when I struggle to merchandise, and because of that, I'm learning and improving. We're a bit like a well oiled machine, everything just flows really smoothly.

We all also get along really well, and that's probably to do with the fact we're, for the most part, all within the same age range. So we can make jokes and references, and everybody else can understand and laugh at them. Even at times when we have a rough patch at work, as it happens sometimes, we all talk to each other, share our thoughts and feelings, and we're able to resolve things quite quickly. We communicate well, and it's something I've not experienced this well in a job before.

We kind of bounce off one another. I'm the first person to admit that I am a ditzy person. (I do have some smarts, though.) so I may tell a story about something I've done, or am planning to do, and I may say something really stupid for a second, or my story might be really crazy, and that opens me up to a lot of jokes at my expense, and it's all really funny and in good humour (If embarrassing at times.) We just have a lot of fun together, and they're the reason that I decided to stay at this shop instead of transferring back to the store in my home time. I thought I should write a small paragraph about everyone. (I'm going down the rota for this.)

Russell is probably one of my best friends; both in the shop and outside of the shop. In fact, he's probably the male version of me. We have a crazy amount of similarities, and we can basically talk about anything and the other will completely understand. I remember how surprised I was when I found out that he also liked kpop and then we had a mini discussion about CL. I can tell Russell anything, he's kind of my diary, in a weird way. Though, I will also say that he's probably also my biggest bully. So you suck, Russell. (But you're a really great manager.)

Jess has been in the company for a really long time, and she knows her stuff. She's really funny and she's carefree. What works well when we're on shift together is that I have a weakness when it comes to being, almost strict. Where I have some trouble with saying no to things (and something that I'm trying to work on), Jess is there to support me. I also really do love hearing her stories about when she's worked in Ibiza, and travel stories where things have gone wrong. She's also the go-to person to find about about deals and sales that different companies have going on, and if not for her, I wouldn't have purchased off Missguided last year!

Chloe and I share a love of stitch, and she's probably also the queen of Facebook stalking. (Sorry, Chloe.) Though, I will say that there are definitely times where she has matched my level of ditziness (like the 'Arrr' incident that we'll never forget.) I love working alongside her, and it's a shame that our rotas never really have us working alongside one another any more. Like Jess, she's really carefree about things, and has an undying love for Irn Bru and my mum's tablet. (Though, I can't say she's a fan of the new Bru recipe, so we won't talk about that.) Tomorrow is also her birthday, so here's a pre-happy birthday message to her!

Karen and I never really work alongside one another any more, which is a shame. I have such a high admiration for her organisational skills. I've no idea how she can balance two kids, the job and be consistantly organised for university, I struggled last year just balancing work and uni. Then, at work, her merchandising is consistantly on point, and she has everything tidied up. I've no idea how she does it, and I'm honestly in total awe of her. Though it is a shame that we never really have the same shifts any more.

Lindsay is the newest member of the team, and I still feel really bad because when she worked with me waaay back when she was a new start, I had her consistantly doing things in the shop to try and get her familiarised with things. Now, though, things are a bit more chilled, and we have a lot of conversations about memes or make up. Lindsay does enjoy a debate every now and then, but it's not something I tend to get into because I prefer not to debate. But, I do enjoy the meme conversations and when we share stupid stories about ourselves!

We all have our similarities and differences. We're not all exactly alike. We each have something in common with somebody else in the shop but equally have our unique traits, and it makes a fun and almost family-like working environment.

They make me like my job. Retail can be incredibly stressful in ways you have no idea unless you're actually working in a shop. (I once had a customer return 3 bags full of items with 4 receipts. Two receipts were out with the Christmas Returns policy, one reciept was okay, the other receipt had items that they weren't able to return on it. Added to the fact that for a bunch of the stuff in the bags, they didn't have a receipt at all. It took me 30-40 minutes to sort through it all and it was so incredibly stressful.) But with these guys, it's just really fun. For the most part. And I really will be sad on the day I leave them all, whenever that may be. I can't imagine not working with them any more.

So, yeah. I've been so lucky that I get to work with these guys, and have done since the latter half of 2016. They're pretty alright.

Do you get along with your colleagues?
Until next time, be excellent to each other.

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