Just a Reminder Only 9 Days To Halloween

Hi again,

Just a reminder that Halloween is only 9 days away and there is only a little bit of time left to get those costumes and party decorations. So get ready by shopping online and get same day shipping from one of, if not the best sight to get your children's costumes and costumes for adults. What did you decide you wanted to be this year? You want to be a witch or a gypsy queen. How about those Michael Jackson costumes for your kids? Or even Star Wars are still in this year. There are devils and angels and princes and princesses (such as Prince Charming, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and all the other Disney characters).

There are a variety of people and characters to be at buycostumes.com. Let's all have the fun we know we can have on one of the most celebrated days of the year.

Happy Halloween to all.

31 Days to Halloween. Who or What Are You Going to Be?

Hi and thanks for joining me in the Fitting Room today.

One of the most fun days of the year , Halloween, will be here soon. Are you ready? Need Halloween costumes? Costumes for kids or how about adult costumes? If you are not ready, you can get ready by going to one of the most popular places to get your costumes and party supplies online - buycostumes.com

In fact, all the holidays are coming up on us. They always seem to sneak up on us and then hit us with a big bang. Some people start preparing for the next holidays as soon as the old ones are over with. And then there are those of us who procrastinate and end up cramming in all our shopping and decorating and doing whatever else needs to be done at the very last moment.

This year instead of waiting until the last minute why not do something about the holidays coming up now starting with one of best and most fun one, Halloween. This day has become almost if not the most anticipated day of the year for kids and adults alike. Every year more of us seem to want to get into the spirit of Halloween than the previous year. Being able to dress up and change into someone or something other than who we are and that we fantasize about, well who wouldn't love to have that chance? It can be very exciting and fun. I know a couple of characters I would love to be for even a day.

What characters are popular this year? Well the mainstay of the wicked witch or the beautiful princess like Cinderella are always popular for the girls. Vampires and ghouls are always great for the guys. Wolverine and transformers are definitely in.

Getting great costumes and all those party supplies for Halloween from dusk til dawn is easy online at buycostumes.com. I am going to stick with the being the classic witch. One time when I was a witch I decided to dye my hair black. Now, being that my hair has been a light reddish brown most of my life I did not think it would be a big deal, but I ended up with all different colors in my hair. What a mess. I decided to stick to wigs from then on.

Would love to hear stories of Halloween from the very funny to the extremely scary. If you have any please tell us about them. Hope to hear some tales of Halloween.

I will be getting back with more about the holidays too.

I Need To Make A Change (sound familiar?)

Well they say absence makes the heart grow fonder. But I fear when it comes to blogs absence makes people forget about you. I suppose that is the reason consistency with posts is very important if one wants people to keep coming back.

If we are absent at a regular job too often the outcome is usually termination. So I am thinking I should be thinking of writing posts and paying attention to any blog as I would a job. So as of today I am committed to making a blog writing schedule just as I have a job schedule. Of course, the schedule I do for blog posting will have to be on a much more regular basis than my job schedule is .

Anyway, I know I have said this before, but once again I will say I am going to be more consistent and write posts on a much more regular basis.

Now about this job I have right now, I cannot say how unpleasant it is most days. Just like worked on Labor Day. At first I was happy to be able to get the time and a half, but then come to find out I have been scheduled for only 3 -3/4 hours. So even with time and a half I am still not making a full day's pay. But then my manager comes to me and says she probably will need me to stay until the store closes which would give me another 5-1/2 hours. Okay, I was feeling a bit better when once again she comes and tells me that someone else is going to stay instead because I am available during the days more. She is worried that I might end up working too many hours during the week if she needs me on another day. How is that for confusing? The way this lady thinks is very strange sometimes.

I should have told her that I needed the time and a half much, much more than this kid who lives with her parents and uses the money for clothing does. But you would think any grown adult would have enough common sense to know this.

Like I said before, I guess you can tell that I am not really happy at this job, or at least at this store. Honestly, I do not know if it would be any better at the store where my old bosses are, except that I know I had a lot more good things to say about the managers and I really do not believe I complained as much. In fact, my mother says I used to be, or at least I seemed to be, much happier and I smiles a heck of a lot more.


I know I need to find something better in my life. I do not have that much more of it and I would really like to love the life I lead. I love it when I can help people. I love to make people smile and laugh. I am good at that. So far I have only been able to do these things in very small ways, but everyone of them was so enjoyable and so very elating. To be able to do it in much larger ways would be so gratifying. I would really love to help kids. Homeless kids. Hungry kids. Kids whose lives at home are so bad that to be without a home seems better.

Right now I am so confused about my life how do I help someone else? I have to set things right with me and my home and then I can go on from there.

I must again reaffirm the fact that I have the most wonderful daughter in the world and she has and still does keep me going when everything else around me seems to be unraveling. So before my life unravels anymore I need to find a way to put it back together better then ever.

Employee of the Quarter

Thanks for stopping by.

Do you get to vote for an Employee of the Month or Quarter or of the Year at your job? Well, we have Employee of the Quarter where I work. The Managers pick four associates that they feel are worthy of being Employee of the Quarter and then their peers vote for one of the four. And I am one of the four being voted on from the last quarter. It seems as if we have to wait for another whole quarter to find out who has won

I do think that it is a great incentive as the person who is voted Employee of the Quarter besides finding out how your peers feel about you, the winner gets a $50.00 gift card to one of the four businesses which our company is comprised of. Actually the employees are presented with many different incentives during the year.

I personally feel one of the greatest incentives the managers and administration can give the employees is to tell and show them how much they are appreciated; give them a pat on the back for a job well done; thank them for just coming in and doing their job. All of these can add up to uplifting the morale of the workplace.

Of course, most places have their pros and cons, especially if one is working for someone else. I believe our company is one of the few businesses where the management is taught that letting the associates know they are appreciated and thanking them for the work we do at least a couple times a day, especially before we leave for the day is very important. It does help us to feel we are appreciated. And of course it is always really nice to get a compliment on a job well done.

Well, I am up for Employee of the Quarter for last quarter. I was voted Employee of the Quarter the first quarter I worked at this company which definitely made me feel very special. I remember that we had to wait so long to find out who won that I had come to the conclusion that they had totally forgotten about announcing it. But, to my happy surprise, they finally did let us know the winner, which happily happened to be me. So now it seems as if we have been waiting again forever. I am not sure of the time frame they have for letting us know who won, but it seems like we wait a whole other quarter to find out. Last time I was told I won by a landslide which made me feel really great especially since our peers are the ones who decide. It is always very exhilarating to know that your co-workers feel good about the way you do your job, that they respect you and hopefully like you also.

Definitely there is a lesson to be learned in the way we treat people, especially those we work with when we are even nominated for Employee of the Quarter, let alone if we win that nomination. I always treat my co-workers the way I would like them to treat me. I have found by doing this the workplace can have a much better atmosphere and is much more conducive to making work a much happier and easier place to be.

Where Do All The Purses Go?

Where Do All The Purses Go? It is a fact that one of the main items that are stolen in retail stores are the purses.

First I have to tell you about all the that I have come in all the time who bring shoes and purses that they plan on buying. The purses have to be left out with me, but shoes can be taken in to try on with the clothes. Of course, many people just pick up some shoes that are like the ones that would be worn with the clothes they are trying on. Many times they just want to see how the dress or pants look with that type of shoe and/or purse before they make a decision on the clothes they want to buy.

I can understand wanting to know how a dress looks with a certain heel height or jeans look with a certain style of shoe. But when they bring in a pair of thongs (the ones worn on the feet) with a swimsuit I start wondering about how far does a sense of style go?

Then there are the women who bring in 5 to 10 different purses (and carrying them all instead of getting a cart), throw them on the floor and proceed to check out how they look in the mirror. Is the purse too big or too small? Does it hang too far down or does it look too short? Does it make them look too short or too heavy? I never realized other women went to such lengths to make sure they got the right purse. Of course with purses and handbags costing what they do today I suppose there should be more care in which one we buy. Many purses cost more than one complete outfit does. And now a purse is bought many times to complete an outfit, not just to wear as an everyday accessory.

And why am I letting you know how important purses can be to the shopper? In our stores purses have become one of the main items for theft. It has become such a costly item as far as loss to the store that now we censor almost all of them. And for the more expensive ones we now have a new censor that looks like a bike lock, definitely making the theft of a purse much more difficult and much more uninviting to the thief. Wallets and belts are also two of the main items most stolen on a regular basis. We censor all wallets and all belts no matter what the price.

I do not know what the numbers are but I do know that with the economy the way it is today the stores have become much more aware of doing anything they can to prevent loss in the stores. A lot of money is spent just on devices bought and people employed to prevent theft or catch the thief in the act. But still so much does end up getting stolen anyway.

Stealing is the reason we are so aggressive in the fitting room as that is one of the main theft areas. Checking clothes on the way in and making sure the same amount of items come out. Many people tell me they have only 8 items which is the max they can take at one time. But then when actually counted it could be 10, 12 or even more. Many places just take peoples word for the count but we actually have to have the clothes hung and count them ourselves. I know it can be an inconvenience, but it is also an inconvenience to the person working there also. When we get busy and there are people coming in and out it takes a lot of our time to count and check each item every person has. Many times people just walk right out because they do not want to wait which I can understand. I just wish that they understood that this is part of my job. I am not doing it to be mean or make it harder on them.

I just would like all the shoppers to know all these things we do to try and prevent theft is actually to help them out. If we can keep theft down then we can keep prices down. But the more stuff that is stolen, the higher the prices will go. No one wants to raise prices if it can be helped but the loss has to be made up somewhere.

So in conclusion, please be aware that all these things we do are not to inconvenience anyone or makes things harder for the shoppers. They are done to make it easier and keep prices as low as possible. Sometimes when people get upset about having to take the time to do this, I just show them that it really does not take that much longer. Sometimes I will try to joke about it and tell them that we will make this as painless as possible or try to lighten up the moment and most of the time it does work.

So thanks for taking the time to read In The Fitting Room With A.J. today.