June 2011
I had just graduated from high school the 4th of June and was given the “Go to school or get a job” speech from my mom. Most kids my age, 18, had already had a job in the past, many of whom had summer jobs starting at 16 or were working their senior year. I, on the other hand, was incredibly shy, and even more terrified at the thought of even having to go in for an interview.
Now, I would have loved to start off going to college, heck I would have graduated much earlier, but there was a problem. In order to get to college, I would need transportation as both of my parents worked, incredibly early in the morning at the time. We were not that well off that my parents could just buy me a car. So in order for me to get a car, I needed to work to save up for one. So that is where I began my journey of job hunting.
Job hunting actually was very easy. The first place I applied to was Dollar General, as it was very close to our house. My mom took me in to get an application and right away they had me take their qualification test, in which I had passed. I later (by later I mean a few days) I called to talk to the store manager about my application. We’ll refer to this manager as, R.
Getting into contact with R was much more difficult than I had expected as there was a lot of changes going on with the store and company. Long story short, I never got an interview, but was instead just hired right away. I went in to fill out the paper work and get myself into their system.
An issue arose as a few days had gone by and I didn’t hear anything back from R about when I would be starting. I kept calling to get into contact with him, but he was never there when I called. (Follow along as this way the first sign that maybe I shouldn’t work here.) Anyways. After some time of me calling I finally find out that R was then transferred to another store and the new store manager knew nothing about me being hired, though I had already done the paperwork and was now in their system as being an employee.
I got into contact with the new store manager, this one we’ll call B. I finally get set up to start my first official day of work as a Dollar General employee.
July 11, 2011
My first official day of work was on July 11, 2011. I always found this day being easy to remember because it was 7-11. (If you don’t think this convenient store is amazing, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Half kidding.) I go in that night to be trained by someone I actually went to high school with, though we didn’t really know each other, only recognition. (Let’s just say I was not cool enough in high school for many people to know me.)
I started off learning the register and learning what is to be expected of closing duties. I remember going home that night being SO excited about working the cash register. My exact words being, “It was so fun! I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of working a cash register!” Ha….haha…Yeah I got tired of it VERY fast.
Now, we’ll fast forward about a month. Because it took me about that long to put in my 2 week notice for the first time. I absolutely hated working there. I got very little hours for it to not be worth it in my eyes. However, the problem I quickly learned was that it looks very bad to other companies to quit a job, a first job at that, after only working a month and nobody wanted to hire me. At this time I wanted something more fast paced. Dollar General was slow and I felt like I was doing nothing when it came to benefiting a company.
Luckily for me, the store manager, as well as all the other key holders talked me out of quitting. Apparently I was a good employee and was promised I would get more hours, especially once the holidays came around. This was actually all very true. I started getting more hours, which allowed me to do more work around the store. Time went faster at work, I was learning more, and doing more. I felt like I was contributing to the company and I was happier working here. Then my store manager got a new job and we would soon be introduced to our second store manager.
Mel's Life 
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