So even though I'm employee of the month, I still feel terribly insecure. I find myself doing things and then being like.... "Crap. What if they interpret it as this horrible way and fire me?" Like.... I suck at adding and subtracting. So if I type in the wrong thing to the register or some person who (and I hate these people when they do this) suddenly comes up with the extra nickel so that they don't have to have me give them three pennies but I already typed in what they gave me...... I always wonder if I'm totally screwing up and giving them way too much change. And all the time I'm shorting people on change too and then having to call a manager to open up the register so I can give them the proper change blah blah blah. Though the latter is less math and just total absentmindedness.

So just the other day, they put these little cards up at the registers that are basically how to make small talk with customers while you're ringing them up. I, for one, found them a tad on the offensive side, like I really HAD been giving a "for dummies" guide for my job. Because seriously, the card says:

Before Transaction: "Did you find everything you wanted today?"

During Transaction:

After Transaction: "Thank you for shopping at the store! Come again soon!"

Yeah. Pretty much what we're saying anyway. And I thought it was hilarious how they left during blank. Like there should be a dead awkward silence there or something, since we couldn't think up something to say. And I pointed that out to Carmax and she thought it was hilarious too, so I actually wrote "Dead silence" on one of the cards in the during space. And in the conver with Carmax, she came up with "Medatative Hum," so I wrote that on one of the others. So I thought, what the hell, and put "crickets chirping," "stare unblinkingly at customer," and "joke about Oprah" (a piece of small talk I actually do frequently abuse, the book from her club has been selling like hotcakes). But after that, it struck me that that was probably kind of a smart-assy thing to do and I felt horrible only I had written it in ink and couldn't take it back and started invisioning myself being fired for being such a wise-ass.

And then, I was talking to Carmax (by the way, have I been spelling it wrong this whole time? I keep wondering if it's really carmex with an E) and she's like, just as insecure. She's convinced boss-boss doesn't like her, especially since there was some incident recently where she did something wrong in front of boss-boss. I myself really have no feeling one way or the other about boss-boss and suspect it's mutual. She doesn't tend to be around that much when I'm doing stuff, more intermediary managers see me day to day.

But anyway, we were both doing some task for boss-boss the other day, and she made some tiny mistake, and boss-boss had no way to know which one of us did it. And this really horrible, mean, petty part of me was shouting, "Tell boss-boss it was carmax! You don't want to be blamed for someone else's mistake!" But thankfully there was another voice going, "Jesus Christ! Don't be such an asshole! It doesn't even matter, and you'd be stabbing someone in the back who has been a good friend to you so far in the back!" that won out.

Then later, Carmax found out she'd made the mistake and felt horrible, and I said, "Well, I didn't tell her it was you, she might think it was me," and she was sooo grateful, and I felt doubly horrible for being so close to selling her out.

In other news: I DO love working there, and I DO love most of my coworkers and at least like the ones I don't love. And I AM employee of the month. So... these are all very good things.