Prologue
11/28: Day 1 - The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday. As I pulled
into the parking lot, which was more full than I'd ever seen, I had no idea what
horrors to expect. The store was
packed. I immediately checked fitting rooms...
But then I realized something: Theoretically, since everyone is buying gifts for
other people, the fitting rooms won't be so bad.
Oh, how wrong I was.
They're playing Christmas music now. Before they had a wide selection of songs,
everything from B-52's to Weezer to Third Eye Blind to a immeasurable library of
songs I hate. Their library of holiday songs, on the other hand, is very measurable.
In fact, when you work a nine hour shift, you can hear every song three times.
And since most songs are just different arrangements of other songs, it was the
same music over and over and over the whole night. By the way, the following topics
are now banned when in conversation with me: snow, love, happiness, togetherness, winter,
the color white, and anything else that reminds me of the vacation I'm not getting.
11/29: Day 2 - Yesterday I was introduced to someone that came over from
Paradise Valley Mall to help out: Kari. Technically, I guess she outranks me, because
she sure likes to tell me what to do. She seems to believe that I,
I, am
a newbie! Has she not heard
the legend? She gave
me the daunting task of
zipping up all the jackets in one area. That seems
like a task more suitable for, oh, I don't know, one of the five cashiers that's acting as a
demi-MCA for the holiday season. Certainly not I.
Speaking of cashiers: One thing I've realized in my four months on the job is that
cashiers know nothing. Today, one of the cashiers helping out the MCA's asked me where a
shirt went. She believed it was Misses, but I told her it was Petites. What did she
do?
Turn to another cashier and ask where it went. I've never been so insulted
in my life. My jaw dropped for the next two minutes. Seriously, I'm not joking.
By the way... earlier this week I complained about women not closing the door to the
fitting rooms. Well, it happened again today. Twice.
12/1: Day 3 - The store was virtually dead today. It was almost like there
was no apocalyptic rush of last-minute shoppers looming on the horizon.
Due to the nature of my job, I frequently have no one to talk to but myself. I get
a lot of thinking done at work, one of the pluses of not being a Harkins cashier.
I complained earlier about the Christmas carols... today I got to thinking about
some of these songs. Some of them are pretty disturbing.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful...
...It doesn't show signs of stopping,
And I've bought some corn for popping
...But as long as you love me so
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
If the snow doesn't look like it will stop soon, maybe popcorn and love shouldn't
be his main concerns. Stocking up on Spam and firewood would probably be better ideas.
I don't care how much corn he brought, it's not going to keep him alive when they
get snowed in with no food or heat. At this rate, eventually they'll have to
fight to the death so that one may survive by eating the other and wearing
their skin as a coat.
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white...
Die.
OH, HO, THE MISTLETOE, HUNG WHERE YOU CAN SEE,
SOMEBODY WAITS FOR YOU, KISS HER ONCE FOR ME!
You too.
They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.
Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say:
"Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"
Then all the reindeer loved him...
Now this is the song that really disturbs me. The other reindeer treat Rudolph
like garbage his whole life. Then, when they need his help, they suddenly love him.
How convenient. Who's to say they won't toss him aside when the night is over?
If I was Rudolph, I'd say "Screw you guys! You should have thought of that when
you wouldn't let me play reindeer Monopoly!"
12/3: Day 4 - Tonight, I have a quiz for you: What kind of person shops
for a suit at 11:00 p.m.? The answer will appear later.
I was schedule for 3:00-9:30 today. When I got there, I went back to see which
losers I would have to put up with tonight. What did I find?
11:30
3:00-9:30
Yes, some yahoo(s) in the back thought it would be funny if we closed at 11:00 tonight.
Ha ha ha.
I swear there were people making out in the mens' fitting rooms tonight. I don't
have a clue what else it could have been.
I've had my name butchered relentlessly my whole life. But today I heard the worst
of all: "Ryan Rork". I guess it could have been "Mort" (which isn't much better), but
it sounded a lot like "Rork" to me. There's not even anything close to a K in my name.
I was taking a shirt over to Juniors tonight, when I heard the cordless MCA phone
ringing. I got there just in time to have some lady ask for the intimate apparel
department. Unfortunately, I was it. After I answered her question:
Caller: "Thank you very much, now I just have one question. How does a
guy end up in women's underwear?"
Me: "Bad luck. Very bad luck"
And finally, the answer to today's quiz. If you answered "A complete sociopath,"
then you're correct! See ya tomorrow!
12/4: Day 5 - If there's one word I've overused
in discussion of my job, it's "apocalypse". Well, I'm pulling it out again. Tonight's
question: how many people have to call in sick to cause an apocalypse?
Apparently, it's 11. Yes, 11 people called in today. The kicker is, the District
is coming in tomorrow to take a walk through the store. Barb seemed to be keeping
her sanity, and gave us each assignments. I was told to focus on denim, dress
shirts, socks, and underwear. Denim looked like art when I left at 11:30, but I
just didn't have time for everything else with the disaster that happened in the
fitting rooms. So, perhaps Barb will blow a gasket and tomorrow will be my last
Ryan's Job entry for a while.
Just for the heck of it, I'll define sociopath for those who read last night's
entry and were confused. For this purpose, let me present the following one-act play:
Public Address: Good evening Sears shoppers, the time is now 11:00 and Sears is
closed. Please take your final selections to the nearest customer service counter.
For your shopping convenience our shopping hours tomorrow are 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM.
Thank you for shopping at Sears.
Guy shopping for suits: 
Screw you people! I'm stayin' as
late as I want! I think I'll go try on a few shirts and leave them inside-out
on the floor!
Me: Sir, I'm sorry, but we're closed for the evening.
Guy shopping for suits: 1@$@!%$ you
kid, I ain't goin' no where!
Me: Please
Guy shopping for suits: I'm tired. I don't feel like paying. I'll be back
for this in the morning.
Me: We're not supposed to hold stuff overnight.
Guy shopping for suits: It's 11:00! Just take it! Now
open this door so I can get to my car!
Me: Sir, the gate's already closed. I can't open it.
Guy shopping for suits: #@!%$#^@^@ YOU!!~!~!@
Well, the dialogue didn't go quite like that, but that's pretty much what happened.
After working until 11:30 tonight, I'm pretty beat. It's only December 4th and
I wish I was dead. Tonight one of my corhorts and I were summoned by Barb and I
quipped, "Oh man, we're fired." Then we both realize how awesome that would be.
Well, bittersweet, really, but temprorarily awesome nonetheless.
Before I go to bed, one last complaint about customers: Why the heck would you
get a shopping cart, go through a store filling that cart up with stuff you might
like to take home, and then just abandon it in some random spot on the floor?
Oh, right. To make me hate life.
12/5: Day 6 - The clock tower on my campus plays
a song every time it reaches the hour. This morning at 10:00 it started playing
"Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and I realized I knew all the words.
That certainly would not have been true a week ago.
Today I had a well-earned <5 hour shift, followed by a well-earned hot-tubbing
with my friends. Nothing too eventful happened today... except for when I first
got there, I had to call over to another store to see if they had a certain
type of razor. I got a n00b who put me on hold for six minutes before I gave up
and called again. Then she gave me the wrong number... I got vacuums instead,
and the n00b that answered couldn't help me at all. Eventually, after 10+ minutes
I got the right department. And they didn't even have what I was looking for. You
know what? That's a pretty weak story. But it'll have to do, because nothing else
happened tonight. Knock on wood.
12/6: Day 7 - This morning I was thinking about
last night's entry. I thought, maybe most nights are going to be pretty uneventful.
Maybe I won't have much to write about, and the Chronicles of Torture will be
a bust. I thoroughly convinced myself that the Chronicles needed a prayer to
survive. Let it be known that
my prayer was answered.
...By Satan.
Nine hours. The longest nine hours of my entire life. I wish I had been counting,
because I think I might have been paged 20 times
before I took a break.
I think everything in the store has a tag now, because I'm pretty sure the
customers managed to buy everything that didn't have a tag on it (when something
doesn't have a tag, I have to go find a matching item to be scanned into the
computer). Not only that, but my cordless MCA phone was ringing right out of my
pocket, with people calling in to see if we had what they were looking for
before they came by, usually getting the wrong department.
I had some
de ja vu in hour two, when a massively
stereotypical Indian guy made me waste a half hour helping him find shirts. While I
was busy "trying" to help this guy, I was paged, called by another store, paged,
bothered by other customers, paged, bothered by customers, and paged (roughly in that order). But
what REALLY filled me with murderous rage was the Indian guy put his stuff on hold to come back
and buy them in a couple of hours.
And he didn't come back. So NOT
ONLY did I waste time picking out his shirts, but I had to waste time putting them
back, too.
The call from the other store also defeated my morale. The guy told me to look
for a David Taylor jacket, #41 86300. I found 86084 and 86086, but not 86300.
When I told him this, he told me to hold on. Oh, I held on, all right. I held,
and held, and held. During this time, the phone next to the phone I was one started
ringing. Upon answering it, I got a dialtone. That's when I realized the cordless
phone base was ringing, and that I had lost my phone somewhere in the store.
After waiting 5 minutes for this jerk at the other mall, he just said "Thanks"
and hung up. #!$!@%!@#%!!
I came to a valuable realization tonight: The ultimate checkmate when trying to
placate a customer is "I'll go check in the back". I would guess at most 1 out of every 10 times I
find what I said I was going to look for. But at least 7 out of 10 times, I
know very well when I go back there that I'm not going to find jack squat.
Usually I just go back there and dink around, stretch out my arms, dig through
boxes, have a seat and rest for a bit, etc. But
what are they going to say? That I wasn't trying to help them? Good luck defending
that.
12/8: Day 8 -As soon as I got off the escalator,
I saw some girl wearing a shirt that said, "People Suck." Naturally, I thought
that would be an excellent intro for this entry if I had an ungodly night. So, of
course, I didn't. But I guess I shouldn't complain.
The Offical Worst Christmas Song Ever.
Tonight, as if a blessing sent from the heavens, something happened to the music.
For three unbelievable minutes, the store was nearly silent. No songs reminding
me how lonely I am, or that I'm working 30+ hours a week through the rest of the
month, or how I'm stuck in this hole for Christmas instead of taking my vacation.
It was so wonderful, I would have to make up a word to even begin to describe it.
Which I going to do right now: Scrumptulescent.*
Over the past few weeks, I've noticed that Ruby usually won't assign me to stock
stuff, or other projects like that. She just tells me to do fitting rooms...
as if I am a lowly grunt. Being the obsessive-compulsive that I am, I thought
about it until I came to a solution. I know the store better than anyone, and
assigning me to the fitting rooms is the best way to get them done as fast as
possible. That, or that's just something I tell myself to make my
inflated ego (if you haven't read what I affectionately refer to as
The Legend, then check it out to see what I mean)
stay afloat. Either way I'll take it.
Tonight some guy had me call a manager. He didn't seem too happy, so, scrounging
for fodder for this page as I do, I stuck around. And he just wanted the ink tag
taken off the pants he bought. Weak.
So, yeah, it was a well-deserved easy night.
*First one to tell me where I stole this from gets a cookie.
12/10: Day 9 - What's worse than a seven hour
shift with lots of horrible stuff happening? A seven hour shift with lots of
horrible stuff happening where none of it is funny. So I have very little to
say. The only thing worth noting is I think there's a secret entrance to the
Junior fitting rooms, because I would clean them out and see no one go in,
then they'd be suddenly trashed again. It's magic. But not Harry Potter magic...
Lord of the Rings magic. Evil magic.
Luckily, I just finished a project I've been working on for a while now.
Slide on over
here to check it out.
12/11: Day 10 - Tonight was the sweetest shift
ever: 2:15 to 7:15. Not only was it only five hours, but I didn't have to close.
I found a shirt that had a word spelled out in rhinestones, and at first I swear
it looked like "Hitler," which got more than a chuckle out of me. It turned out
to be "Kitten", but it was funny nonetheless.
We were so bored this afternoon we started making price tags and fastening them
to ourselves. Mary made one that said "Clearance $2000, reg. $1,000,000".
That seemed pretty boring to me, so I took it a step up and wrote "Clearance $First-born
Son, reg. Your Soul" on mine. Then I made one for Chanel that said "GIVE ME ATTENTION,"
that I think appropriately describes our relationship.
Nothing else to speak of, except next weeks schedule:
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| 4-11 | | 3:45-11 | 4:30-11 | 2:30-11 | 2:30-11 |
Yes, there is a Satan. And he hates me.
12/12: Day 11 - There's something strangely
disturbing about watching a Sears commercial on a TV in the break room at Sears.
Two days in a row now, I've been paged to the opposite corner of the store from
where I was, only to be told "Oh, sorry, I should have cancelled." I. Hate. Cashiers.
Speaking of: When I got in today, I went to the cashwrap where the cashier, who's been there
~1 month, and whom I talked to for a while yesterday, said "Hey, guy, wear your nametag."
Ouch. Thanks, Mindy, I took the time to learn your name, the least you could do
is pretend to know mine. Then two seconds later, she picks up the phone and says
"MCA to mens." My jaw dropped, and before I even considered being tactful I said
"I'M RIGHT HERE!" Before today I've had speculation that I may be invisible, but
now it I have confirmed it. Thank you, Mindy.
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