I’m tired.
It was a long day at work, but same as any other day. I apply for real jobs during the day and work as a retail whore at night.
IÂ’m not your special high-end whore; I donÂ’t rub sleeves with the likes of Gucci and Prada. My line of work falls on the lower socio-economic scale at the Village of Value. I cater to the unappreciative, filthy, irritable, cheap, and sometimes mentally-off consumers. I could say so much more; in fact, I did spout a slew of obscenities earlier about the stupidity of human beings. Maybe they arenÂ’t stupid, but I canÂ’t seem to think of the correct word.
Do you know of that comedy, Waiting…? I am the beyond-experienced, disgruntled female waitress who has the biggest smile on her face in front of the customers but pretends to blow their heads off with big bazooka guns when they walk away.
I am a nice person.
But if you walk into my store and tear the whole place up, fill your cart up with crap you already know you arenÂ’t going to buy, leave my fitting rooms in such a state that it takes me over an hour to clean it, let your kids run freely through the store and laugh when they leave toys everywhere, rip all of the price tags off so you can attempt to get a cheaper deal on a $.99 item, come up to the register to check out, only to closely inspect every item before setting it on the counter and do this all ten minutes before the store closes, then I am going to pretend the same bomb you just set off in my store, landed on your head and blew it into a million pieces.
I wonÂ’t feel any remorse, maybe even slightly happy, because youÂ’ve finally stopped carelessly apologizing for the migraine you have given me. DonÂ’t apologize incessantly but continue to make my life hell. ThatÂ’s just unattractive. And stupid.
I am a retail whore.
Now show me some respect and maybe I wonÂ’t gag on your inconsiderate filth.
16 Comments
Wholly shit…
That was the PG rated version, and I was made “Employee of the Quarter” ;)
When I was working at a pizza joint growing up, there were two guys, auto mechanics, whose shop closed down about 30 minutes before our place did.About three or four times a week, at least one of them would come in, two or three minutes before we locked the door, and order enough subs to feed himself, his wife, his kids, and then another sub or two that he would put in the fridge and eat for lunch the next day. Since they didn’t come in every day, we never knew if we should break down the grill, wrap the deli meat, turn off the oven, etc. It got to the point where we would call them to find out if they were coming in.
Imagine that: A pizza joint calling you to see if you wanted to place an order.
Just ridiculous.
But if we didn’t, they’d stumble in, half cocked (they owned the shop, so they drank at work), and order a greasy cheese steak that we would have to cook on our already cleaned and scrubbed and now partly-cold grill.
Dealing with the public sucks.
On the other hand, they could be pretty nice guys, so it wasn’t terrible.
Half cocked mildly describes their condition.
The Retail biz ain’t no fun come this time of year.
(Walshy worked with me at the pizza joint, so he knows who I’m talking about)
I did a christmas at Macy’s for some extra cash one year. You have never had do anything so pointless and obscenly frustrating as fixing ties that are laid out on a table in a way that in able for the customer to look at them they are forced to destroy the arrangement of them. Now imagine 10 tables all with 150+ ties. But I was able to give anyone who came in super discounts, using any coupon I could find. I actually think retail is better when it is busy because time goes by faster then when you just sit around talking ot people that chances are you do not like.
I agree with that - that worst part of every retail job I’ve ever had has been the slow hours, when I challenged myself to not look at the clock for as long as possible, only to look up and realize that the last three hours had actually been like thirty-five minutes. Holiday-shopping season was, comparatively, a breeze.
Soooooo………When I was in college I was broke…and as such I was always on the lookout for a job….(this included the worst job in the history of jobs - working at the UNH calling center…it was a survey calling center, so I would have to call random people and try to get them to take a survey….Questions like “Are you opposed to the new law that is being proposed that bans smoking in public restaurants….answer A if you highly agree, B if you mildly agree, c if you agree, d if you mildly disagree and E if you highly disagree…” …..FOR 8 HOUR SHIFTS)
Anway, back to my original story….one semester a girl got me a job at The Gap (see, there is a connection between the post and my comment)….I was working in the stock room…basically lifting boxes all day and stacking them in different spots…thats really the entire job…..flirting with the cute girls who worked on the floor was just a benefit of the job…anyway, I started to get friendly with the manager of the stock room, he was a guy about two years younger than me (and i was a junior in college, mind you)….and another guy who was in his 40’s or so..named Freddy…….Freddy was a rough character but we became friends…turned out he was from lawrence and was a heroin addict….he would open up to me during his cigarette breaks where I would join him (the one benefit of smoking is the constant breaks from work, I felt cheated since I didn’t smoke, and thus joined him)…anyway, after a while, he decided to really open to me one afternoon and told me about his “past”..it turned out he had just got out of prison a year earlier for murder (he had lied on his application)….what happened was…his cousin was mugged one day in lawrence…Freddy found out about it and decided to mug the guy who mugged his cousin (cause he was kind of a troublemaker anyway, Freddy was)….So the next day Freddy found the guy and mugged him, but during the mugging there was a scuffle….and Freddy stabbed the guy with a knife….
So the next day Freddy is walking down the street and the cops pull over to him and say “Freddy, where going to have to take you in (they knew Freddy pretty well cause he was always getting in trouble)”….Freddy says “no problem” (he knew why)…and they said “Freddy, do you know why we are taking you in”…Freddy says “yeah, for mugging that guy who mugged my cousin”…The cops said “No Freddy, we are taking you in becasue that guy died from a stab wound last night and you are being accused of murder”…..So Freddy went to jail for X amount of years (I can’t remember how long but it was max security)…..So Freddy is telling me how he lied to get a job as a custodian at a school in New Hampshire and after about six months, word leaked that he was a former murderer and the school went crazy and fired him….so he moved again and lied again and got a job at the Gap in the stock room….and I’ll tell you, he was a cool guy…a great guy even…
One day during cigarette break….he said he wants to tell me something that I’ll never believe…he tells me that I wouldn’t believe who he became friends with in prison…he said when he was in max security his cell was next to an older guy who used to call him “kid” and ask him to get his paper every morning…he said the older guy took care of him, protected him and made sure nobody messed with him….he was saying all of this stuff as if I was going to be really impressed…..anyway, after telling me about all the favors he used to do for the older guy etc,…..he said “and do you know who that older guy was…..”…I said “no”. .He said “……..It was jerry Angulo (sp?)….” “Do you know who that is” he bragged…..
Do I know him, I said….I spent New Years eve at his house in Nahant only five years ago….I took health class with his daughter….I’ve hooked up in one of the bedrooms of his house….DO I KNOW HIM (I was in shock at this point…considering that I didn’t think I knew anyone in prison, I was fairly convinced I was not going to know who he was talking about…)
Anyway….a little while after that insane conversation…..Freddy asked me to help him work the “shipments”…the shipments were when the big trucks would show up in the middle of the night and drop off 50 or 60 or more boxes of clothes…a few guys from the stock room would shop up at the Gap around midnight and unload these boxes till like 2AM…I think it paid pretty well (considierng the hours) but I had no interest….but Freddy was telling me that I should do it…it was fun and easy…etc….so I started helping Freddy and the manager (guy two years younger than me)…..Well, it turns out that Freddy and Manager had started a bit of a crime ring and that for every box they brought into the store, they threw the other into the trunk of their car. (mostly leather coats and really nice stuff)….of course they encouraged me to do the same….I was immediatelly freaked out…I said I wasn’t interested and then Freddy and the manager started treating me weird, telling me not to worry about it and that I should definitely take some stuff and that I’m crazy for not taking something…I think at one point, I relented and took a pair of fleece slipper socks and wind pants……but basically I told them Iwasn’t interested…and from that day on…they treated me like shit (so I went back to flirting to the floor girls, specifically one named Aria, but thats a post for another day)
Anyway, one day Freddy comes into work and tells me that he has an emergency…his car broke down over the weekend and he couldn’t get to the methodone clinic….he seemd pretty ok though, so I asked him what he did (it was obvious he wasn’t jonesing)…he said he did what he had to do which was go onto the street and buy some heroin…I was like “No Way”….and he goes yeah and I need you to keep a look out cause I’m going into the bathroom to shoot up again…and I don’t want anyone else walking in….so I told him I didn’t believe him…he reached into his pocked and pulled out a tiny bag of heroin….to this day, the only time I’ve ever seen it in person….so he went into the bathroom, i was on the lookout and all I remember is that when he came out…his pupils looked like pinpoints…but actually, he acted the same….I’ll never forget the vision of his hand after it came out of his pocket…it had a bag of heroin and two crumpled starburst wrappers…and a nickel…just a weird vision that I’ll never lose. (quick point, this was obviously before the “Stock Night” incident…because we were friendly at this point)
Lastly, a few weeks after I found out about the crime ring….I was working with Freddy and one of the store managers ( a hot thirty something piece of ass) came out and told Freddy to come to her office….that NEVER happened so Freddy and I looked at each other like What the Fuck????….immediately I thought he was being fired and that they had got caught (maybe by videocamers or something)….but then I saw the way he looked at me and I realized that he thought I may have told on him and that he was being fired and that he was then going to kill me (or at least hurt me pretty bad)…so I started freaking out…I absolutely didn’t rat on him but I figured there would be no way he would believe me…i was sweating and shitting my pants….
About fifteen minutes later, Freddy comes out of the office and walks straight over to me…I ask him what happened and he glances to the side, smirks and tells me he just got promoted to Assistant STock Room Manager….Unbelievable….I wasn’t suprised since I’m sure the manager got him the promotion…but I was suprised because I thought their operation was being busted…not the case…
Anyway, I only worked there for that one semester and it remains the only four months of my life that I ever worked retail….can’t say it was a bad experience….but I don’t think its one I’ll ever forget…
As for Adam,I can’t believe I never heard that story.
As for stupid people-it’s funny, I just wrote my blog for next week which is a very similar topic …maybe people are more annoying and stupid around the holidays, prompting our blogs?
As for retail, I worked at Victoria’s Secret for 7 yers, yes I said 7 years…and ended up quitting/getting fired for going postal on my manager…well, not postal like pulled out a gun at shot her, but did go off on her swearing and screaming and flailing my arms around, because her lame ass wouldn’t let me go home and I was puking every five minutes and hallucinating(no, not a bad trip, I had the flu).
Ah yes, I feel much better now that similar experiences have been had, sometimes you feel like the shit happening at your job can’t really be happening. But OH. IT IS.
Wow adam thats fucked.
i’m still seven percent junky after my days with heroin… - god bless…
i quit cold turkey…
well…
cold turkey and crack…
Wow, what a great post…
I know what you mean.
I have to go back and read the comments now- but WOW.
Nice
Adam, that should have been a separate post all together. That story is insane. I bet that kid, Freddy, would have treated you alright if you said, “Now show me some respect and maybe I won’t gag on your inconsiderate filth.”