Mopeing or mopping

, With the unrelenting snow here in the Midwest we have all experienced the dirty floor dilemma. Walk in from the snow with wet shoes and make the floor dirty, wash floor, repeat, fact of life. 

 Fitting my retail hours in with my other jobbie job I tend to work at night and I end up mopping the floor at work. It is by no means my passion to create clean floors, just part of the job. I have observed there are 3 kinds of walkers on wet floors. 

1. The over cautious I'm so sorry I'm walking on your clean floor. 

2. The why are you in my way I'm walking here. 

3. And the no attention whatsoever slip and fall on there butt on the wet floor.  

Alas as long as no one falls and I have to mop up blood I don't care. A few days ago I learned the strangest thing; apparently, I have been incorrectly mopping for quite some time. I was under the impression that clean water and soap were the key to cleaning floors. I am not supposed to use any soap in the water, because all soap type products ruin the wax on the tile. 

 For some reason smearing dirt in circles with dirty water seems counterintuitive. And using floor cleaning products made for waxed tile would make sense. But what do I know, I am just a plebe. 

It all should be called crazy glue

Customers are bonkers no matter what store you work at. Recently I had a winner. A customer was looking for some glue they had purchased last year. It was a specific glue that was super strong and came in a 4 pack and was a dollar. 

People often share the joys of their purchase and the great ways a product has made their life easier. Many are off the wall, but the extraordinary powers of this glue are astonishing. Not only is there great value, but it is resilient and water resistant. 

What is the great claim for this glue? Well he used it to glue his tooth back in. 

Back, back in the retail mood

So... I'm still doing the teaching thing. Phenomenal job, best in the world!! 

I have picked up my name tag again and gone back to the world of hardware. I don't work as much as I did at the big box, so my sanity has yet to leave me. I'm doing some flower sales and since it's winter here I'm doing the snow removal and Xmas stuffs. Working locally has huge benefit and I don't feel as though I sell my soul with each screw. 

I haven't even had a single customer take a crap in the aisle or show me their weapon. Maybe after the first of the year with the conceal and carry law I'll get more of that 😉 

So watch out internets, I'm back at the blogging. 

And Merry Grinchmas to you too Mr!

With the holiday season in full swing everyone in retail is at their wits end just waiting for the calm of January. My loverly yob has decided for the past few months to not hire people to replace people who have quit or have been fired. Lucky for those left we get to work twice as hard. Part of this extra duty involves cashiering and leaving your department for other people to try and take care of.

If there is one thing I can't stand is being a cashier. Its not the job itself, its how the customers, and management treat cashiers. Half the time they don't pay any attention to you, which isn't too bad. The rest of the time in the hood, people treat you like complete crap. Its the best feeling to get sworn at or money thrown at you.

My store has probably the worst design of registers. While cashiering your back is to the aisle where the cart goes through, so if your not careful your butt gets hit by carts of drywall. There is a strange little bump out of about a foot to keep carts from hitting you, but if they are hit with enough gusto the little bump out breaks off hits you just before the cart of crap. With your back to the customers its not the easiest to put the money in the drawer. There is nothing between the cash drawer and the customers, and people like to stand close. Its scary in the hood, mainly because I know that more than a few customers are packing heat. Ooo Ooo, and my favorite, these strange little swinging wall things that fold out to close the lane. In theory they work well, but when you are near the door, they have a tendency to get caught by the wind and again whack you in the backside.

People treat you like you are retarded. Honestly, even the dimmest cashiers have more intelligence than a lot of customers, they can figure out the right change.When you count the wad of crumpled singles they hand you and its not enough money that's when it gets interesting. Today I had a gentleman who was short a dollar for a bunch of candy, and he asked me for the money. When I told him that I would not give him money he got mad and grabbed his money from my hands and walked out. I also had this extra special person try to purchase a wrench without a tag. The problem was that this wrench was from a set and not sold individually. He got mad and went back to the department to get the right one, but when he returned he decided to cut in front of everyone in line. That unleashed a shit storm of trouble. These 3 black dudes got all sorts of pissed off at this little Mexican guy, and he fired right back at them. It was kindof comical to hear screaming in ghetto speak being answered with Spanish.The best line was "Get yo taco bell ass to the back of the line".

People also think you control the pricing. Like as if by magic I decide to tell the bar code that your purple gift bow should be 3 cents more than the red bow your sister bought. I am not the Grinch that charges more based on the items color, I'm just the bitter cashier than doesn't care.

So next time your at a check out, be nice to the poor cashier.

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...