Saturday, August 16, 2008

I don't like Thursdays

   Bob Geldof didn't like Mondays (and who could blame him), but Thursday is the day I hate. On Thursday nights I have to work at the Kwik-E-Mart until the store closes. And then I have to clean, and "face" my department. And then, I start to despise the entire human race.
   When I say, "face," I mean I have to walk up and down every aisle in my section, making sure each and every product is in its proper home, and they are all pulled right to the front of their shelf, or hook, so that the first customer of the day the next morning will be greeted by a store in which every shelf appears full. As I do this, of course, I come across the detrius of humanity.
   First it's the empty coffee cups. There are usually going on half a dozen of them scattered amongst the shelves of garden hoses and octane enhancers. Listen, I don't mind if you need your "
Tim's" fix. We all do from time to time. But seriously, when I take a cup of coffee into the grocery store with me, I save the empty cup until I have an opportunity to throw it into a proper garbage can. I don't just put it down somewhere between the onions and the garlic. Doing that would make me an inconsiderate slob.
   And as if that isn't bad enough, some people actually come in and eat their lunch while they shop. Dude! I have no desire to fish out the half eaten cheeseburger that you stuffed down between the sunblock and the insect repellent. And the left-over "Nachos Supreme" tucked behind the basketballs? That's just wrong, man.
   The next thing I have to deal with is the out of place product. Some slack-eyed soccer Mom picked up a box of wine glasses all hell and gone over in the Housewares department, and round about the bicycle tires aisle she decided she didn't want them after all. She could have just left them with the cashier when she got there, but no. I have to find them after closing, hidden in behind a mountain of Raleigh boxes, and lug them all the way back over to Housewares myself. That's a good fifteen minute walk.
   Then there's the open boxes. The 12 volt tire inflator box has a glossy, full-colour picture of its contents on the front, but that isn't good enough for people. They have to see what it reallylooks like. But, lacking the basic intelligence and dexterity to figure out how to open a cardboard box, they have to rip the freaking thing to pieces, pull out the entire contents, tear the plastic bag to get the product out and crumple up the instruction sheet. Then, when they decide it meets their approval, and they want to buy one, they leave the open box on the shelf, and take a new, unopened one.
   Open boxes, however, can't get my blood boiling half as badly as the empty boxes. Empty, as in: contents stolen. Come on, the two pack of tail light bulbs was only $2.99. But you only needed one, so you ripped open the package, put one in your pocket, and left the other one on the shelf. If you were gonna steal, why didn't you just put the whole freaking package in your pocket? It's not like you were being considerate. I can't sell the half a pack you left behind. Every Thursday night I have to write off at least a dozen items that I've found empty packaging for. And that's on a slow night.
   And don't think it's only the punk kids who are stealing, either. I looked it up. Those tail lights were for a Lexus. Doctors and Lawyers are just as likely to rip something off as anyone else. By the time I get home on Thursday night, you could just take a picture of me and post it in the Wikipedia entry for, "
Misanthropy."


   Here is the latest edition of the Friday Random Ten list. I've found that I cannot listen to all of the songs on the iPod in one week's worth of driving, so this list will only appear every second to third week from now on.

1) Ain't Nuttin' But Music - D12
2) Strange Thing, Mystifying - Cast, Jesus Christ Superstar
3) Her Majesty - The Beatles
4) Turn Up The Night - Black Sabbath
5) I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) - Genesis
6) Never Let Go - Josh Groban
7) Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! - The Beatles
8) Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love - Van Halen
9) Tina - Flyleaf
10) Concerning Hobbits - Howard Shore/London Philharmonic Orchestra

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having worked retail as a second job ("manager") I feel your pain. Even worse are the folks who steal a product, buy one and then return one for a cash refund. Mother muggers! No good feelthy father feeler-uppers! May they burn in merde!

:)

Have a nice day...

Anonymous said...

Oy...  I went shopping today in the tombs of Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards' in search of a handful of ingredients to construct a beauty dish.  Combined, the various parts came up to less than ten bucks.  But, all the parts were in various freakin' stores, and I had to hit them all.  

But, holy cow, man.  You should see what those places look like on a Saturday afternoon after the weekend-warriors tear their way through in the morning as they stock up for whatever projects they're doing.  I found pieces of four different Shop-Vacs scattered up and down one aisle, broken light bulbs in another, and don't even get me started on the madness that was the aisle containing bungee cords.  And, there were coffee cups.  There was also coffee on the floor.  Along with a half eaten burrito.  

I don't envy you Paul.  I do wish I lived next door to you, though.  You could tell your wife you had to work an extra two hours and just sit at my house and get "faced" while we play video games or watch Teh Pr0n.  

-Dan  

Anonymous said...

It's probably little consolation, but I really enjoyed this post.

Anonymous said...

Having done retail in the past I can agree with you completely...people do things in stores that they would never do in their own homes. We even had people slightly damage things just to get it cheaper, caught them doing it. It takes all kinds...hang in there Paul...be well, Sandi

Anonymous said...

Urg. The joys of retail. One of my own annoyances from my days at the bookstore came from the people that would sneak a copy of an adult magazine, and then so no one would notice them move to a different section to gawk, and then leave it there. I swear, at end of day clean up I must have found a copy of these magazines in just about every section at one time or anther.

Except, that is, for do-it-yourself.

Go figure.

-Alec

Anonymous said...

Gosh that sucks Paul!
do they let you play music?
hey hang in there buddy
natalie