..have been listening to every song possible about quitting your job. It just feels so good to leave on good terms and have it all in the past. I’m so close. I have six days of work next week, and then the couple of days I come back during my photo supervisor’s vacation, and then I’m done. My manager and supervisor took the news so well, but they don’t want me to leave because nobody kills the line like I do. There’s just no one else in photo that can achieve that balance.. I only do it because I know how much it sucks to be the only one up there ringing and have no backup and a line of seven people. So I just do my damn job. That’s why my manager is offering to let me not work on the weekends and work one or two days during the week. I mean it is a tempting offer.. It has been soo good having money in the bank, paying off every single dollar of my vacations, and having tons of money left over. But the health risks are just way too much.. and your health is priceless. All those photo chemicals, benzene in the developer, and the BPA on the receipts (Fuck you, CVS). Not to mention the stressstressstress. My sister said that I am not the same person I was before I got this job, and if it doesn’t go away when I quit I need to go see a psychiatrist.

I don’t necessarily disagree.. If anything, stress is more harmful than all those chemicals combined. A couple of people in the store have told me to just tell my manager I don’t want to do photo and just be a cashier because of my health issues, but it’s not that simple. He wants me back because I CAN do photo. Being in photo tests every single skill you have, and I am far from mastering any of it. It tests your patience, your ability to multitask, how to deal when you fail spectacularly and things go wrong, how to lie and bullshit to customers to cover up mistakes, constantly constantly constantly tell people bad news, and figure out a whole bunch of technical stuff that no one teaches you on your own. I am not at all saying that I have become great at doing any of this stuff, but I can at least tolerate it. I know how things run after five months, and just getting THROUGH those five months is amazing to me.

If our first manager was still there I would have quit a long time ago. No two weeks notice, nothing. I would have just stopped showing up. There were mannnnny many times that I contemplated doing just that. But somehow, I stuck it out. And I think I owe that to Joanna, who has had the balls to work there since October of last year somehow, and got me this job in the first place. I have learned so, so, so much from working there. The absolute most important thing that I have learned is how to deal with negative people. This is something that you cannot do without tons of practice, and CVS gave me that practice. Every day. 1 out of 4 customers. This is something that I never had any skill in dealing with before I took this job. Negativity from strangers used to affect me so much, it could ruin a a moment, a day, a week, or longer when I would let it get to me.

I think everyone should have the experience of dealing with people, because it really is something that will make you happier in the end. You will no longer be burdened with other people’s negative bullshit. It will roll right off your shoulders, just the way it should be.

This job also desensitized me to seeing people I haven’t seen in years. I have always been hiding in my own skin. Always walking low key around the neighborhood, not wanting to run into anyone I knew “before.” As in before I was sick. I thought it would be an awkward thing, but this job seriously alleviated my fears. It became something good, something that helped make the time go by faster and helped me get back in touch with people I hadn’t seen in years.

I also learned how to talk to strangers. How to have conversations. I’m twenty years old now. Someone asked me how old I was the other day and I said nineteen. I just forgot.

What has changed? What has changed in me now that I’ve entered this new decade of my life? I guess it’s just time to grow up. Time to have the guts to do the things I want to do and not give a shit what anyone thinks. Time to get all of my shit together and stop procrastinating and wasting time. Time time time. It’s all about time in the end. Something that doesn’t even exist. A metaphor for events. That’s the best thing I learned during sophomore year. Speaking of, 33 days until I go back to my other home.