wherein Liz sees a doctor and indulges in TMI of a gynecological nature

I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday morning -- just a general physical checkup thingy, and also brief gynecological exam. Turns out that I don't need Pap tests because hey, I've never had sex!

( TMI? probably TMI )

Anyway, I am basically healthy. Consensus between me and Doctor S is that I need a new and more ergonomic computer chair, which should solve most of my lower back pain issues -- they are entirely posture/tension related, since they're the sort that easily drain away after a few minutes of lying down on a hard, flat surface. I also personally would like to lose ten-ish pounds, which I'd suspected I should work on for a while but I don't tend to weigh myself so whatever. That shouldn't be too hard. I just need to quit my occasional midnight snack habit, drink more water, and probably do some situps and/or take random walks a couple times a week. That usually works, over six to eight months. (Then I gain the weight back over two or three years, because hello, I am lazy. *sigh*)

wherein Liz continues to be stressed about her job

The smoke shop is getting sadly bare of stock -- well, excluding magazines and cigarettes, that is, and a few types of cigarette rolling supplies. This is because Mr. Speakerphone has decided to put a moratorium on new orders until we know exactly what the renovation/remodeling will entail and when the construction work will start. At the moment those details are still up in the air -- all we know is the footprint of the elevator-and-stairwell combo -- so we're just watching our shelves empty out and trying to explain to customers that no, we're sorry, we don't have Product X and we won't for the foreseeable future.

It is also obvious that our lack of stock is driving away business. Closing shifts have always been slower than opening shifts (our business is weighted toward the morning newspaper-and-coffee office worker crowd), but lately I have been breezing through long nonfiction books during my evenings, because I can go ten to fifteen minutes at a stretch between customers and there are no maintenance tasks to keep me otherwise occupied. We finish them all by 3pm at the latest, since we have almost no deliveries to process and fewer customers during the day, too.

We still don't know where (or even if) our new bathroom will be built. We don't know if the back wall of the store will be moved forward to compensate for the lost back office/stockroom space. We don't know what's going to happen to the ATM (especially since it's in the area that will be lost to the stairwell-and-elevator). We don't know what will happen to the built-in giant industrial (and ancient) air conditioner and its ductwork.

We're not even sure our lease will be renewed. I have only rumors to go on -- no solid evidence, since the building owners are doing their level best to NOT communicate with us, and I guess Mr. Speakerphone is trying not to say anything until he knows for sure what's going to happen -- but I have heard that the building owners want to charge Mr. Speakerphone the same rent for a drastically reduced space, to which he is naturally objecting strenuously. The building owners' reported justification for that alleged demand is that we have apparently been paying under market rate. If that is true, I am fairly sure their idea of market rate would drive most prospective tenants out of business within a year.

Sweetheart, Melodrama, Boss Lady and I are collectively so done with this bullshit. I mean, I am still showing up and doing my best to do my job -- by which I mean take care of customers and keep the store clean-ish and functioning -- but it is very hard to care about, say, cleaning the bathroom when it's going to be destroyed within a few weeks to a month. We all feel rather like we're playing music on the Titanic as it sinks. (I am not sure of Serenity's feelings. She only works Fridays and Saturdays, which have lately been my two days off, so I don't talk to her much. And she doesn't have the years of built-up frustration that the rest of us share, in any case.)

I wish to god somebody would give us some clear and definite answers about the smoke shop's fate. At this point I don't even care what the answers are. I just want an end to the uncertainty.