Tuesday Night Football !?!

This week for the first time since 1946 an NFL game was played on a Tuesday night. The scheduled Sunday Night game between my Philadelphia Eagles and the Minnesota Vikings was postponed due to severe snow storms on the East coast, and concerns over crowd safety, not at the stadium (though it is open to the elements) but on their journeys to and from the game. As a result I'm typing and watching the game recorded last night while I was working.

Since Black Friday it's felt like a War Zone at WalMart with the sales kicking off, and Christmas shoppers hitting us from every angle since. On several occasions I'd had one customer at the till with two or more queuing behind them, the phone ringing and a call already on hold, and more customers trying to attract my attention from behind me. The first two days following Christmas were just as busy with people returning unwanted gifts and spending their Christmas gift cards and money, while we tried to serve customers while simultaneously dealing with carts full of returns and restocking the shelves with new merchandise. On Monday we had the added fun of setting the new modules for DVDs, Blu-Rays and games, which requires moving almost every film and game title in the store, approximately 1500 titles.

Yesterday it was marginally quieter as many people returned to work, but suddenly the store turned into a Ghost Town around 8pm. I think there might actually have been more staff in the building than customers, and I had the luxury of doing the tasks of cleaning and clearing the decks without being interrupted every 15 seconds.  This sudden quietude may have been due to the Football game, or might just have been a return to normalcy; I'm hoping the latter. We've also had two new associates assigned to the Electronics team to ease the burden, though one is currently signed off work with two sprained wrists after falling downstairs so I haven't met her yet. There were no evening truck deliveries yesterday either, so the overnight backroom staff were tasked with emptying many bins to see what could be stocked to the shelves. 

I have a short shift today and a day off tomorrow, before a couple of lighter weeks scheduled. I have yet to see if my reduced hours will continue, or are a January blip. I aready have days booked off to watch the Ducks Bowl game on 10th January and the Superbowl in early February.