battle scars

Work is totally kicking my butt. I spend all day climbing ladders, and not just up down up down up down - I'm always carrying multiple bulky and awkward things with me that then need to be hung in very inconvenient places, in very inconvenient ways. For example, today I was literally crawling on the topmost merchandise shelves while I hung 10 cardboard signs, about 3 feet by 4 feet wide.


I have a major bruise on my arm (which is almost healed, thank goodness), another major bruise on the side of my knee, and too many minor bruises / scrapes / cuts to even count. I'm lucky I don't also have a fat lip and/or black eye because a different sign fell and hit me in the face today. (This one was only about 4x1 feet though.) Jay says people are going to think he beats me. Though honestly all the people at work (ie all my friends in this town) know what kind of crap I have to go through to get my job done, so they won't think that.


My whackadoodle sleeping schedule doesn't help either. I get about 5 hours of sleep at night, then usually about 2 more hours when I come home. My old job wasn't very demanding, so I could do it tired or sick or hungover or any other way that was me less than perfect. But I am frickin exhausted every single day with this one. And since my safety is always at risk (and sometimes others' too, since there are customers and other people in the store when I do some of this) I can't be retarded. Also, my store doesn't have workman's comp insurance (which is RIDICULOUS!) and I don't have my own insurance, so if something more than a bruise or a small conk on the head happens, I'm fucked.


I'm not complaining about my job - I'm glad to have it. I guess I'm just not used to the whole "physically demanding labor" thing. And if you ever want to know exactly what it is that I do, go into any one of a certain bullseye-themed department stores and take a close look at all the signage. It hangs from the ceiling, it's on walls, it's behind product... there really is way more to this than you would initially think.