Am I Doing Something Nice....

...the right reasons? Do you ever wonder that when you put yourself out of your way for a work colleague? I do...but of course I question and doubt myself at least 85% of the time on any given day so why would this surprise me?

Our new store manager started this week and she seems very nice and a good fit for us. She seems to have a very positive attitude and definitely is used to being at the top of her rankings in any company that she has been with previously. I get the feeling she will expect that from us and the store but doesn't seem like she will kill us to make that happen.

The good thing I offered and am doing...tomorrow begins my vacation but I am going in to do markdowns. It could be a big bunch of markdowns but I am going to be doing them with Gerri and I know we can get them done in a couple of hours. Gerri is like the supreme worker bee on speed. That woman could probably get the whole store marked down and placed by herself in three hours....and we don't have hand scanners...so we are talking a LOT of touching and hauling of clothes.

ANYWAY...the reason that I had said that I would come in and do the markdowns was because there didn't seem to be anyone else because we also are supposed to move the store around tomorrow. Fine and good but did make me feel a little cranky that I of course was feeling responsible and guilty at the same time....blahblahblah.

Gwen (our new SM) called to say she was running late because of a phone call and lost track of time and was on her cellphone, on her way (she is a Chatty Cathy which I can appreciate and relate to but is a trait that will drive a couple of our ladies crazy). In the short conversation we had she bubbled out that she had gotten tickets months ago to the Cincinnati football game, they were expensive, she was going to take her grandson who is 12, and she was late because the phone call entailed trying to find someone to take the tickets because she was going to be working tomorrow. I talked to Karen, we looked at the schedule, and called Gwen back to say "Don't do anything with the tickets". When she got to the store, I told her that I would work until mid afternoon which would give us the same floor coverage if she had been here and that she should take her grandson to the game. She seemed a little surprised at the offer but happy about it.

Phrases that made my mind up..."tickets bought months ago"..."my grandson". When she told me he was 12, all I could think of was Cory's relationship with my Dad at that age and all the stuff my Dad did with him. The fact that she was taking her 12 year old grandson to a football game...and that he was cool with going to a football game with his Grandma and was upset when she had to tell him they couldn't go...well, that cinched it for me. The grandparent/grandchild relationship is really important and I want her to have that before her grandson gets to be 14 and turns into a teenager...God only knows where boys minds go between the ages of 14 and 20...but they don't often think of grandparents.

So I did a good thing by being in the store a couple of more hours tomorrow.

Here is the query/quandary? Did I do a good thing to be nice or was I sucking up...or just worried that it looks like sucking up? I know the answer and it is about appearances...and really how it appears to only one co-worker...and that is because I have seen her applying a whole lot of Chapstick this week.

Meow.