This week has been serious “mess with my head” kind of week.

I started my new job at my new store on Monday morning. For those of you not in the know, I’ve transferred to the Edwardsville store to be the department manager of the appliance and kitchen departments. For me, it was a move that made total sense. It cut my commute in half, got me a nice raise, got me out of Installed Sales, and more importantly, now allows me to collect those sick spiffs for selling appliances.

So I started off on Monday morning working an 8am-5pm shift. The shift was not a big deal since I was used to a similar shift back in Installed Sales. What really freaked me out was being back on the sales floor. It’s been over 3 years since I have worked on the sales floor. In my mind, I got used to the confines of my office. Add to that anxiety, the fact that I walked into this know little to nothing about the appliances we sell. The last time I sold appliances was when I used to help out the appliance department at Sears back in the late 1990s. Thankfully, I had some backup with me all day to field the customer’s questions. The funny thing was that all the while I was nervous and stressing about what I should be doing, all I could think about was how I would know exactly what to do if I was back in my office at my old store. In the back of my mind I started wondering if I had made a big mistake.

Tuesday would prove to be a whole different ball game. I was working my first 2pm-11pm shift in over 3 years. To top that all off, I was closing by myself. Now I was working a shift where I had no product knowledge backup, and I was worried how I would last until 11pm since I am usually in bed by 10:30pm. Surprisingly, I made it through relatively unscathed.

Wednesday found me with a 10am-7pm shift. I spent a few hours that day working on my testing I needed to qualify myself to earn those wonderful spiffs. It was while taking some tests on sales techniques and credit procedures that I had a very vivid flashback. I all reminded me of when I first started at Sears back in the spring of 1997. During my 3 weeks of training, a full week of that was back in a little office, watching training videos on an old Phillips CD-i. It was a week straight of watching sales techniques, credit procedures, and product knowledge. Being in a store where I know maybe 1% of the staff, not knowing where anything is at, and focusing on making that sale, made me feel like that young 19 year old again.

We now come to tonight, Thursday night. I closed once again, working the 2pm-11pm shift. It was today that I finally started to feel comfortable in my own skin again. It was when I finally go to take a lunch at 8pm that things really came back into focus for me. Jess had called me about 15 minutes before lunch telling me she had gotten a pizza from a local pizza place we both like for dinner. Feeling jealous, she then stated the obvious – why don’t I go home for lunch? This made total sense since one of the reasons I wanted the transfer to begin with was to be closer to home. A short 10-minute ride and I found myself in my living room, watching ‘Good Eats’ and eating pizza with my wife. I stayed for about 40 minutes, and then had to head back. Even after spending 40 minutes with my wife, I still back it back 2 minutes early. It was then, that I felt really good about making the move. This really was the right decision for me.