Desert View - Day 6 - Free.....free at last!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission.

(CLICK ON PICTURE TO ENLARGE)

7:20 am - Tuesday - November 14th - Grand Canyon - 38º F, humidity 30% (WOW, that's dry!), wind 3 mph out of the southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 64º F.....another nice day in store.

We arrived at the General Store just before 6 am....normally we don't drive to work, but it was pitch black outside due to the predawn conditions.  We had been told that the outside auditing firm, Regis, would begin their audit at 7 am, but when we arrived the audit was already in progress.  Nonetheless, we felt slightly buoyant as this would, for sure, be the last day of counting.  This time the counting was mostly being done by someone else for a change, but there was still some counting going on as a number of employees were following along and verifying the numbers of the Regis folks.  Altogether I think we have counted everything 4 to 5 times.  

Initially TLE pulled her cash drawer and handled customers, but by 9:40 am I had pulled my drawer, which meant I was pretty much done with counting and was able to spend the bulk of the remainder of my day doing what I was hired to do......cashier.......I thought you might like some pictures of our work area for the next four months......

 Pano of the General Store interior...grocery on the right, retail in the middle, and the 'Fountain' on the left.

 Looking toward the grocery area....the various coolers are along the walls on three sides of the store

 My work area

Looking toward the 'Fountain' area......quite a bit bigger than our 'Fountain at Mammoth Hot Springs

.....while I loved the cozy ambiance of the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store, am also enjoying the spaciousness of our new digs.  You will note in my 'selfie' above that I am not wearing an apron....only the folks in the 'Fountain' wear aprons......I do miss the apron as I had pockets to store all my 'stuff' (pens, markers, box cutters, chapstick, etc.), but I do not miss that strap across the back of my neck all day.

Now, there are two cashier stations in the retail section of the store, and TLE and I are the main cashiers in the retail section.......others have drawers, but they are supervisors and managers and will spend 90% of their time this winter fulfilling those roles.....which is one reason we were able to so easily transfer over from Yellowstone.  TLE and I will be working the  same days, but different shifts......the two shifts are 7:30 am to 12:30 pm (5 hours of work, no lunch) and 12 pm to 5:30 pm (5.5 hours of work, no lunch).  We will alternate back and forth......TLE has the first 7:30 am shift (Tuesday), so I get to sleep in (and yes, I did sleep in).

Around 12:30 pm Monday the Regis folks were done counting, and suddenly things slowed down dramatically.  Our supervisor, Wayne, told TLE she could go home, but that would mean I would be there until 5:30 pm making my work day 11.5 hours.  I suggested that she go home and then come back and relieve me at 3 pm cutting my day down to 9 hours......Wayne immediately agreed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I spent the afternoon cashiering, and when I had time, merchandising.....that is more  down my alley, and I feel much more comfortable in that role.   It was a very pleasant afternoon.  TLE returned just before 3 pm, and by 3 pm I had pulled my drawer to count it down.  

They (Delaware North- Grand Canyon) have a slightly different 'countdown' system here than we had at Yellowstone.  Your countdown sheet has three columns......'Starting Balance' (always $400), but we must break that total down by denomination, then the middle column is where we record the 'Total Balance' of our drawer at the end of our shift (again broken down by denominations) which includes our $400 drawer, plus the total cash sales for the day.....at the bottom we subtract out our $400 drawer with the remainder being the amount we are dropping in the safe, and finally, the right column is where we record the 'End of Shift' breakdown by denomination of our new $400 cash drawer.  Needless to say this new system takes a little more time to process.  At Yellowstone we only counted out $300, but did not record the breakdown of denominations (pennies, nickles, dimes, etc.), and we did not total the cash sales amount we were dropping in the safe.  I don't know why we must be so specific here at the Grand Canyon, because when our deposit bags are picked up they are going to count them again anyway.....seems a little redundant to me, but hey, I'm just a worker bee and I'll do whatever they want.....it's all on their dime, right?  Now, all that being said, I have developed a new system of counting out my drawer which works for me, and maybe takes me 5 minutes longer than it did at Yellowstone, so in the end it's just a new system, and over the course of three days I have become comfortable with it.

I went home and took a much needed nap......man oh man I was tired!  Around 5:10 pm I drove back over to the store to pick up TLE....didn't want her walking home alone in the dark, and neither did she.  We had some of TLE's famous 'Chili' for dinner, and watched a few more episodes of 'Mad Men'.  We were both in bed before 10 pm, with moi looking forward to 'sleeping in'.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission.