We're Slow (Normal for us) but Live

We have online connectivity at home again. Whew!  

I've been working at my new (old) job for five days now and I've only made a couple of glaring errors, only one of which could get me written up (or fired, since I'm on probation.)  I'm getting some of my old speed back, though, which is nice.  I'm not the fastest cashier in the world by a long shot, but I think I'm pretty efficient w/o being like a machine focused entirely on scanning stuff in.  In a lot of ways it would be easier to be just a machine, but making eye contact, listening to the customers, and having those fun micro-conversations makes work more pleasant.  Hopefully the customers like it too.  

I balanced to zero today.  For non-cashiers, that means you're neither short nor over on cash, various slips, coupons, and stuff like that.  I like my boss, I like my coworkers--it's good to be working again, especially considering our local unemployment rate.  We dipped below ten percent, finally, but too much of that includes temporary jobs.  Some of those temporary jobs showed up outside our house and then later on the highway at the bottom of the hill as large road crews worked on our roads.  Yay for better roads ... except I don't think they were that bad, at least not compared to the interchange near our usual bridge which is riddled with potholes.

I suspect complex budgeting issues created by our government's system of spending are why we're getting all this attention while other areas fall apart.  It might be that the politicians aren't in touch with what people really need and want, but I think it's actually more likely that the political system itself makes budgeting so hard that even experts end up making weird or even bad choices because the alternatives are worse.

But, that's all depressing stuff.  I'd rather celebrate the job thing for now.  I can grind my teeth later when I have less stuff to catch up on.