Never before shared, vintage: Short end of the sucky stick

I wrote this one December 11,2011 while still at the former big box. I never hit post so 2 yrs later here it is:

So I meant to blog about last weekend sooner, however the evils of my retail disaster scared me so much I had almost lost my sarcastic edge. 

Anyway, the holiday season in retail is horrific. Anyone who has worked retail knows how shoppers change, and managers change for that matter too. Call it the stress of the situation but people who are usually tolerable become unbearable. While I was going about my typical duties I encountered some of our management staff who took it upon themselves to make me feel like less of a person. I do my job, and I do it well. I even help other people get their jobs done, but when a GM gets upset with you and exclaims your uselessness while you are in the midst of assisting customers, that kind of crosses the line.

Last Saturday I had the honor of helping customers select their Christmas trees. At my past stores this was a fun job. Kids get excited, adults are nice, but at this store the ghetto people are not so kind. They want the cheapest tree to look like a million bucks. Sorry people but no amount of trimming is going to turn that shrub into a masterpiece. The more you cut the less tree there is, and as much as they try cut branches do not fit back in the tree. Picture Charlie browns tree with mismatched branches shoved in the gaps...

Black Friday, Maniacal Laugh

So here I am still shlepping screws after all these years. Today was my 9th Black Friday at the monstrous mecca, this year I again had the honor of opening the store for the droves of angry shoppers.

Why are our shoppers so angry? My theory is that we open at 6am, other stores open at 10pm or 12 on Thanksgiving night. The die hard nutters are out and hit our store after they go everywhere else. So after over stuffing of turkey and fighting for Tickle Me Elmo at Wally World they mosey down the block to buy tools for dad.

For those of you who don't partake in the hoopla that is door buster sales, be glad. It is really as bad as they show it on TV. People lining up outside the doors, crazy plotting with maps of the store what to get first. But what you don't see is whats happening before the doors open. Just so you know, its even worse on the inside. Managers are overly picky about having the store look perfect (just so it gets trashed in 20 min), last minute moving of hundreds of hot wheels cars. Fluffing of snuggie knock offs, arranging colorful signs and inflating balloons. Our store uses balloons to mark where the sale items are located throughout the store. Colorful happy balloons would be nice if they were actually filled with helium, but in showing just how stupid my company is we blow up balloons with air and tie them to a plastic stick. Imagine the look on a child's face getting a balloon clumsily tied to a stick kindof flopping to one side. It just screams disappointment, which is exactly what sums up the big box shopping experience.

After the initial rush of customers grabbing up the "while supplies last" items, then the semi pro shoppers show up. They are usually dumbfounded with the prospect of items being sold out after the store has only been open for two hours.  It was in this round two of guests that I received my first winner of the day. This colorfully dressed woman approached me and asked for the super sale barbies. I brought her to the black 55 gallon garbage can full of assorted dolls, she glanced at them and looked at me. Looked back at the dolls and then, she got all ghetto on my ass. "You F##king Ignant White B##ch! Why you gotta bring me over to all these white barbie dolls, you think I want that crap"! Ah yes, the fact that the diverse barbies happened to be deeper in the can didn't matter, I am ignant. So I proceeded to move them around and hand her an Asian, Black, and Hispanic barbie, then I walked away. I don't get how people can be so ignorant to not even know that the word is not ignant.

So later as the crowd thinned and grew, and thinned and grew. I had my share of non English speakers asking for items that were not anything in any language. I had an Eastern European man ask for the bucket with the straw. I had no idea what he was looking for so I got a bit of help for a polish team member who totally clarified for me that he wanted the bucket with the lid with the straw. Really, we don't sell over sized Mc Donalds cups for what ever strange uses you might think up. But then when he mentioned roaches, I figured out that he needed a pump sprayer  to mix pesticides.

Customers around the holidays get exceedingly rude. Screams from aisles away, "Hey lady, I need dat thing she got in her cart over dare."  When you let them know where it is, and we happen to be out or its on the other side of the store, many times people tend to just lift it out of other peoples carts. Technically its not stealing because its not purchased yet, but its just evil. Black Friday is the official start of the holiday shopping season. It leads the way for dismal dark December...

Crikey

So after many, many, many, many, years the end of my retail career is in sight. I have already relinquished my title as the chief flower fluffer, and time is ticking down on the super screw sales. So this weekend I realized just how gross people are in the hood. Having worked in retail for eight years I have seen my share of gross, but the frequency of nasty is much higher at this store.

For starters people have this tendency to preform bodily functions at inopportune times and places. Three times this weekend I walked past people in the socket aisle and they totally farted. Not like a small release, but like an audible head turning rumble. I wonder if they were giving out free bean burritos in the parking lot?

I also noticed that people have a problem holding their food in their bodies. Its understandable when a small child pukes, but adults throwing up in aisles due to drug use and or intoxication is a bit much. Twice in the recent past I have turned a corner to encounter projectiles.

Then there is the poop. Last summer someone pooped in the specialty screw aisle. Really, who drops their pants and drops a #2 in a hardware store. And lately their has been a trend of parents leaving dirty diapers in the children's play area. There are garbage cans and bathrooms, yet people still choose to leave these stink bombs in carts, on chairs and on the floor.

In general, besides the bodily semi solids, people are slobs on the west side. On the nights that I have the privilege of sweeping up the store I get to clean an assortment of food items. You get your standard gum wrappers and candy, but often times there are chips, peanut shells and sunflower seed shells. This is not Texas roadhouse, its a home improvement store! How do you think that it is remotely OK to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor? Shelled peanuts are an awkward snack to choose while you peruse drill bits? Wait i forgot, we sell them in 5lb bags its a super convient snack when you decide to steal them from the shelf, no evidence...

Stinky

So why do people not bathe or wash their clothes?I don't understand it, it's 2011 and there is this new fangled thing called plumbing. It brings running water to you when ever you like. No walking to the river with a bucket, just turn on the faucet and tada!

People really smell that come into my store. It has to be bad when I smell them seeing as my nose is always stuffy. If I can smell you, you have a problem. I would like to hand out soap at the entrance to the store, but then would they use it? I may have to go back to spraying febreeze after stinkers walk away.

So today I had a gentleman who was rather ethnic get mad at me and start yelling. I calming told him off without raising my voice letting him know I don't deserve to be yelled at. It didn't help the situation, he got madder. The guy smelled horrible, and was yelling at me! I was relieved when I walked away and didn't have to hear or smell him. Maybe he was really mad because he could smell himself.

This just in.... Mobile reports

Greetings from the dungeon of despair. I downloaded the mobile app today, so I can report from in the field of failure. Today has been typical, only one extreme assaholic. Even when your nice to some people they are just crappy. Although this guy who was up there in the meanness category actually admitted he was wrong and apologized! I guess he may be making steps to becoming a better person, the first step is supposed to be admitting your an ass.

Sharing Is Not Caring

My days at my big box bonanza have to be numbered! Things are just getting more bizarre and more retarded. Yesterday the closing manager who is a nice person, but lacks in motivation to do anything work related decided she was sick. So she left work early. Then another of my coworkers called in. This had the potential to be a horrifying evening, leaving one me to cover about half of the store.  The poor guy who tried to call in was actually sick, but they made him come in because the other manager had left. He needed a box of Kleenex to make it through his shift and they wouldn't even let him go early. Talk about mean Corporate America, they would rather have you in misery on the clock spreading germs, than let you stay home so that you can return and be more productive.

Friday night I had to work at night again, my least favorite shift. And before I took a snickers break I decided to wash my hands. As I approached the restroom there was some strange yelling and a waft of unpleasant odor. Yes, it is a toilet and people do poop there. But this was a mix of flame broiled with Lysol and nasty. As, I turned the corner into the sink area I notice there was a rather drug influenced gentleman in the ladies room. He was on his cell phone and yelling at someone. His phone was plugged into the wall underneath the soap dispenser, which was dripping on the cord because in his adamant gestures he kept pulling the cord against the flipper that releases the soap. As he was talking he is flopping his Whopper around releasing bits of lettuce and chewing on a Twizzler in which its Twizzler friends were scattered on the floor and in the sinks. This guy was highly under the influence of a controlled substance, my guess crack. So I did a 180 and walked back out to find a co worker to help me confront his guy. One thing I am certain of is to not confront crack heads in confined quarters without the buddy system. When I found a friend to give me a hand he was like, "That's a guy in the ladies room! Sir you can't be in the ladies room". It took a minute for the guy to gather up his whopper and errant Twizzlers, and while he did he just set his phone in the soap pile. He picked it up and put the soapy thing in his pocket with the Twizzlers, and took off.

One more brief candy related story. Again during a snickers break (they happen daily), I had an encounter with a less than savory individual. As I walked outside the store to more car and I was snacking he asked me for a bite of my candy bar. This wasn't a little kid, or a homeless person. It was a certifiable pervert. Maybe my lesson should be to not have a snickers break. Maybe the big on chocolate not on fat three musketeers would be a better option.

Wacky Weekend

So usually I don't write about all the details of working, just the off the wall parts. So i thought I would just give you a slice of a typical day. Today was a very average day of ups and downs in the world of retail. I started a nice quiet Sunday morning picking up pots that were a strewn about the garden center, very typical. Then I was asked to mover some bird baths. This in itself is not terrible, the problem developed when I went to pick one up. Yep they were concrete with a total weight as assembled of 180 lbs. Naturally being a smart cookie I took them apart and created a 40lb piece and an 140 lb piece. Right off the bat I dropped one of the 40lb pieces, and in the juggling and rolling and tipping of the heavier part I managed to break two bases in half. They were so much easier to pick up and put in the garbage that way!

I spent most of the rest of the day assembling generators. Pretty fun stuff actually. Except when both of the other team members on the clock go on lunch at the same time, which happens to be at 12:30 when we are getting a rush. It makes me so happy to rush around the store like a crazy person trying to answer the phone, help people in person and make sure the front end gets the right numbers to check out people.

During the craziness, there was a really nice customer. She drove to our store from another store that was about a half hour away looking for a product that the other store told her we had. We didn't have it, and I looked everywhere, which I really rarely do for someone. She was so nice and polite and such a change from our stores typical clientle.

Sadly, immediately after I had a lady ask for help with mouse traps that are on rebate. She was the opposite of the nice lady. She grabbed this weeks ad from my hands, folded it to what she wanted and then threw it on the desk in front of me. At that point I was ready to make a break for the door, but I took her to the product, reassuring her that I was going to help her get the mouse traps. I took her right to the item, and put it in her cart, and she continued to be evil. As she complained about my coworkers intelligence I was expecting her head to begin spinning and pea soup to come out. As I left her I told her that I hope the full case of mouse traps that she was purchasing would be enough to handle her infestation, and that if needed we have rat traps.

The rest of my day was full of unremarkable people who were looking for bedbug spray, flag holders, car jacks and weed whackers. Yesterday I did have a woman call from a suburban store looking for a weed whacker that we have and another store was lacking. As I gave her directions to the hood, she asked if it was a safe neighborhood. After talking to this lady for way too longer with all her annoying questions, I didn't sugar coat it. I told her that someone was killed behind the store earlier this summer, but that was OK because he was shot by the police. I could just hear her face drop over the phone. Then she asked me " Why do you work there"? I answered that I need a job and that the checks don't bounce, but it made me think. Really why do I work there?