Worry instead of sleep

Oh God. It's 2 am. I can't sleep. I think I fell asleep around 10pm, watching the Olympics.

I have been stressed out for 5 days now. Worrying about this damn job. Why do things like this always happen to me? And more importantly, why am I so damn stupid? What was I thinking? That I was taking some stupid online quiz?

In case I am reading this when I'm 90, I better fill in some blanks. I work in Loss Prevention at a major department store. I am currently employed by the department store, but the security operations are being taken over by a Security Company. My options are to continue to work for the store in a sales position, or apply to work for the security company. I loathe sales and anything to do with it (so why do I have a real estate license? that's a story for another time) and I LOVE my job, so Thursday I went to the security company and filled out an application. Part of the application was the Stanton Survey. An "integrity test". Most of the questions were obvious "Do you take inexpensive things from your job?" "If a cashier gives you too much change, do you give it back?" "Have you ever purchased stolen merchandise?" Others were not so obvious - "What percentage of the population do you feel is dishonest? 25%, 50% or 75%" How the hell do I know?

I have never taken a test like this before (that I can remember) and some of the questions seemed a bit odd. But I answered them honestly. Well apparently, "Honestly" is not the best policy. The HR person at the Security Company told me I did not score well enough on the test to be employed by them. But, he said "It's not over, we can get a waiver from the Department Store." He then continued the interview in the normal fashion, asking about scheduling needs and previous jobs.

I am just so worried about this. Normally I would not care. It is not necessary for me to work. My husband has a good job and we live well. I mainly work for money for clothes and trips. So yeah....fun money is important. But more important is the fact that I LOVE MY JOB. And I seem to have a knack for it.

I have only been doing this since September. But in that short time, I have turned that store around, theft-wise. We have a totally new crew in there and we kick ass. ("new crew" meaning I have been there since September and I have been there the longest) We have gotten compliments from store management, employees and the local police department. We have had more arrests and recovered merchandise in the past 3 months than the "old crew" had all year.

I am good at my job! I am an asset to the company. I deserve to stay! But now some arbitrary test is going to take this away from me? (this is all neurotic assumption on my part, I have not heard anything official from anybody) The test is ridiculous. People just put down what the company wants to hear. How is that a measure of a person's integrity? Yeah I screwed up. But I am not a bad person or a bad employee. I do not have attendance problems or disciplinary problems. It's just ridiculous.

And just when I thought of a good idea for a blog. Writing stories about the funny things that happen to a Loss Prevention officer in a suburban department store. Some of it is funny, some is just sad. I may write a few entries about recent events and hopefully write more in the future. I really want to keep my job. The universe can't keep shitting on me.

I am off the next 3 days. Hopefully I will know something about the job this week. Our schedule runs out on Saturday and the boss did not make a new one because she thought the "take over" was going to happen next week. But when I talked to the security company last week, he told me he still had not received official word from Department Store corporate office. So who knows. They have been threatening this takeover for months and it has not happened. It may still not happen. And that would be great! :)