I’m Okay

I’m not great, I’m not terrible. After a very rough start to the quarantine and social distancing, I’ve settled into an equilibrium of sorts. I’m not at my best – I managed to have a pretty good few weeks from February to mid-March. The anxiety and depression were very low, happiness was up. I’m definitely not there anymore. So, still regressed to an earlier point in my mental health journey, but not regressed to a point that’s as bad or worse than the worst I’ve dealt with.

My new job is okay. I like that they switch the employees out every 1-2 hours so you’re assigned a different task. I don’t have to be on the registers for an entire shift. That makes the shifts go by pretty quickly.

Most of my coworkers seem pretty nice. There are a few people that kind of have that ‘resting bitch face’ vibe, and one of my primary trainers was really giving me the vibe that he reads books on how to human, because I definitely felt like I was interacting with a practiced facade the whole time and not a real person. Otherwise, some people seem reserved but nice, and some seem sincerely friendly, but all seem to understand the need to at least try to get along, which is refreshing given that my last retail experience involved a couple of employees that would openly bicker with each other because their relationship had gone south and they’d broken up.

The guy that heads the store seems like a decent human being. His management style is to continue doing things the baseline employees are doing, so I’ll see him helping out with sanitizing the carts & greeting customers, sweeping floors, bagging, etc. This is not what I expect from my bosses, and it freaked me out a little when I’d been assigned to the primary register, was feeling flustered because of it, and noticed the person that had just stepped up to help with bagging was my boss. I think I may have visibly jumped a little, but luckily he was looking at the customer and not me. (I’d seen him help other people with bagging and even take register duty here and there, so I know it wasn’t just him checking up on a newer employee.)

I’ll admit I was at first feeling kind of hostile and suspicious when I noticed him helping out around the store that way – but then when I sat with the feeling, realized it’s because I automatically expect people with any power and authority to be douchebags, or at the very least people that make sure you know there’s a difference between being a baseline employee and being in management / being in charge. Having someone act in a way that’s counter to that expectation set off a reaction of suspicion and cynicism.

I’m definitely wishing I could have been in my own place before the social distancing / quarantine thing started, though. Still annoyed that I’m stuck with my ex at a time like this. I’ve had the distinct impression he was calmer and happier because he knows I’m not going anywhere (and it irritates the hell out of me to think he feels more at peace because I’m caged and socially isolated) but he still gets pissy and acts like a jerk over petty things. He was upset the other day because I asked him to open a jar of sauerkraut my son and I had both failed to open – he wasn’t upset about being asked, he was upset because I hadn’t asked sooner. He was upset yesterday because I was going to open a can of corned beef hash and apparently that’s been assigned to the emergency stash and shouldn’t be considered available.

But yeah, overall, surviving without sinking too low.