R2D2 is that you?

Mondays as a rule are paperwork day. Unsurprisingly I’m late this week delivering the papers to where they need to go and sometimes get into trouble and I get an unhappy face sticker L on my wage slip. But I am working on my punctuality and efficiency as we speak and I do try, but if alot is going on I struggle to concentrate.

Actually I quite like the idea of an Ikea office where I can do it peacefully [paperwork] I do enjoy going to Ikea on a Sunday and eating the Swedish meatballs and I am now sat here wondering if anyone would like to build me an office so I can put photos of my late hamster on the desk and have multiple mugs of coffee left half drank oh and a secret stash of whiskey (this could be a running theme throughout this entire blog) in my lockable filing cabinet that has supposedly “very important documents in” and yes I would like a money tree, a cactus and a fax machine so I can randomly fax people nice messages.

I once decided to fax my headmaster at my school and tell him I wasn’t coming into school that day and that I had a nice weekend but I never got a reply. I like it when you call somebody up and get a beeeeeeeeeeeep down the phone line and your like “…hello….? R2D2 is that you?”. A fax machine would be a handy addition to my proposed office.

The paperwork involved can play havoc with my sanity when things do not balance and I know a lot of people out there can relate. If someone makes a mistake no matter how minor and its on the till and nobody reports it, it can throw the rest of the figures off resulting in giving me a headache. But that is retail and I am not an accountant thank god I have my calculator.

Its funny how we rely on technology and gadgets these days one or two of the volunteers make comments like “oh back in my day you had a block of stone and a chisle we had none of these fancy thingy ma-bobs that work it all out for you” You mean a cash register? Yes the basic technology for recording your sales that although excruciatingly simple can kafuffle the minds of an academic.

But you do have to bear in mind not everybody is as technologically minded as you may presume, working on the shop floor, face to face with customers, handling money, queries and complaints can take a lot out of you and you need a cool collected head at all times to ensure accuracy but more often that not I recognise the piercing sound of the till beeping erratically whilst a volunteer is spitting feathers at the long queue of sympathetic customers.

I find a lot of people when they start working in the shop have an inherent fear of the till, they want to go on and make money but they need a little of coaching and encouragement after all we all have to start somewhere and that’s one of the best things about Autism Plus you are part of the team no matter where you want to start J