superhero job finished

Yea. It's over. My old manager says "you're mine now". Other departments (2 to be exact) have offered for me to come work with them. The man whose idea it was to do the superhero thing, well, I don't think he's too enthused about what we did. But superhero 2 and I are going to have a talk with him about it. For one thing, we do not know what he thinks, in spite of the fact that he's pretty much ignoring us and gave us a funny look when we showed up in our costumes on the last day. (He wanted us to be in costume every day from day 1). I know that we did not do all that he expected, and I can only guess that he is dissappointed that we were not successful in generating a high energy level at the store, but we did what we could. We got a lot out of it. I would do it again for that reason... I learned TONS: like how to order something for the store, how to look up products, how to put up displays, how to make a video, where to get tools, how to order things, how to get reimbursed for store purchases, how to climb up the escape ladder to the roof (oops, don't tell) how to make signs in the graphics department, which was my favorite part.

Our first job in graphics was "weeding". That involved removing the surroundings from white sticker letters so that they could be applied to a blue board. Tedious, mindless, but relaxing, after you've been running around for several days. Takes a lot of time. The store is going bililngual and there are many, many signs to change.

Good things happened for me personally, though that was not the purpose of being a superhero. I tried. Perhaps it would have gone better to have a superhero with a strong ability to focus.

The last day we ended up in graphics and I was pleased to be able to do what they asked: applied a giant sticker on a giant board without making bubbles in the vinyl. My teacher was good and had no problem with saying 'now you try it'. There was NO sense of "Oh be careful, if you mess up that will cost us x amount of money..." Then she bragged on me to the director. I see it more clearly every day. I guess I am better than average working with my hands.

The many other jobs, from making newsletters, to designing T shirts (a dual effort) and building furniture and removing heavy things from high displays, finding people to finish assembling the rest of the new displays and someone to put new pieces back up again, borrowing the right tools from the people who do this every day, making transfers from one department to another and getting the right signature, calling other stores, marking down what customers looked at, recording wait times in different departments, listening to frustrated co-workers and trying to encourage them to keep making their concerns known to their managers and the managers above those managers.....on and on.

My favorite part at first was surveying the co-workers, getting their feedback.

The other thing I appreciated, not one of my jobs, but a by-product of the assignment, was watching the big cheeses at work, scurrying around, calling each other, listening to their conversations, following them on a walk through the store and hearing how they presented things to the co-workers. I will never look at my job the same way again. I realize how much better I can be at my job now that I understand how much EVERYONE has on his/her own plate. I knew that, but now I know many of the specific tasks they are working on each day. I also have a bigger picture of how the entire store and its system works and how my little part fits into it. No more tunnel vision.

My partner and I think that our job as superheroes is really just beginning. I doubt we pass the review this year, but I could see us making huge strides by next year if we carry on with a sort of permanent superhero attitude all year long. I wish I could work full time and also have time for my at home job. But I will figure out a way to keep my old job at least for now and add in one day in graphics, and/or general purpose superhero stuff (which kind of amounted to super-gopher by the end of the 2 months).

People in my department kept telling me they missed me and when was I coming back. That was nice. Someone is sales asked me if I was coming to their department? I said I had thought about it and 'maybe' and he said Yes!!!

My partner told the biggest cheese that we could do a show and display my artwork in the restaurant. Yikes. I was scared. No, let me hide out on the web, not put my things in front of real people, and much less people I actually know. Fear, get lost. If she agrees, I will do it.

Well, more details may come out later. In 2 weeks when the review is over, maybe an update on whether we passed. Maybe an update on how our talk with our superhero boss goes.