Ryan's Job

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12/13: Day 12 - The store was busy tonight. I could waste my time and your time by trying to describe it to you with my usual overkill of hyperbole, but instead I'll just submit to the old cliché "A picture is worth a thousand words":



12/15: Day 13- I'm not sure what's more retarded. When cashiers tell me how to do my job, or when they ask me how to do their job. I mean, some n00b telling me I'm folding wrong is infuriating, but asking me how to do a return is just plain laughable. Everyday I hate cashiers more and more... I looked at their schedule today, and most of them work < 20 hours a week, while I'm busting my tail until 11:30 every night.

Tomorrow from 1:00 to 4:00 there is a holiday party down at work. I was considering going, but after tonight, I'm going to be as far as possible from there. I want to stay away from that place and those people as much as possible.

Ten more days until Christmas. I don't think I've ever looked forward to it more in my life.


12/17: Day 14 - Nothing happened tonight... it was nice and dead. But somehow we still managed to be there until 11:45. I'm definately going to have well over 40 hours this week.

A leftover story from the weekend: I had about an hour left before I left, and Mary asked me to help her stock jeans. So I grabbed a couple boxes and empty them, and about five minutes before I was off, I was digging through a box of jeans and happened across a white thong. I was a lot more careful than I was last time... but I could tell it didn't have a price tag. I can only imagine the foul past that thing had before it ended up in my box. I don't remember what I did with it... but I think I saw it again the next day.

I'm beginning to doubt the wisdom of having 15 fitting rooms for one gender and two for the other (not that women don't need it). But I can't worry about stuff like that... the hours are starting to catch up to me. I can feel my immune system telling me "Screw you!" It looks like Kelly is feeling the same thing. One more week...


12/18: Day 15 - Get comfortable, this is going to be a long one.

I am a very tired person right now. So tired, that my mental thesaurus is giving me a Null Pointer Exception. (That's a Java joke. Go on, laugh.) So, I'm just going to not bother using synonyms and use the word "heinous" whenever necessary. To make it fun, I'll count them so we can measure the level of heinosity. Heck, I might even use it as a verb or preposition if I get lazy. Here we go!

To keep track of what goes on during each shift, I take notes on my cell phone. On a good night, I take two or three notes. On a bad night (it should be noted that a bad night for me is a good night for my readers), I take four or five notes.

Tonight I had six notes in the first 45 minutes. By the end I had 11. I hope that gives you an idea of how heinous(1) my night was. Let me try to walk you through it chronologically, as the heinosity(2) seems to grow exponentially as the night goes on.

When I arrived at 4:30, Ruby was coming down the escalator. She told me I was going to "throw a fit" when I saw how heinous(3) the men's cash wrap was. Then she said that it was just me and her tonight. And since Ruby has leader-ly stuff to do... it was actually just me. Heinous(4).

I make it up the escalator and I see Chanel folding shirts. She tells me that Barb is on a rampage. Apparently the store was a mess when we left last night. Underwear and suits were heinous(5) when she came in, but that was hardly my fault. There were two people over there and I wasn't either of them.

I obviously had a lot of work to do. But someone was bent on not letting me do it. It seemed for the first couple of hours, everyone wanted a heinous(6) piece of Ryan. Page, call, page, page, call, etc.

I had three angry customers in that first hour. The first one pulled me aside just to tell me that our advertisements lie. He saw a commercial on TV that said "50% off everything in the store." But the pair of pants he wanted was full price. I thought that was pretty heinous(7)... well, long story short, I called the manager and he said it's actually "50% off selected items." This customer was not happy.

After he left, I was paged over to Juniors where some guy was heinousing(8) about womens sizes. Something about 1X and 2X meaning different things on different heinosities(9). I never quite figured out what he was complaining about, but it seemed to me that as he was explaining his argument to me he realized how heniously(10) retarded he looked. I think he left happy, though, which is a testament to how heinously(11) I rock.

Seconds later, I was paged to Mens. Some lady was buying a purse that was ringing up at $30, but she claimed it was $19. I went to check it out, and I saw $21 on the sign. As I explained it to her, I could feel several pairs of eyes heinousing(12) through me, as everyone in the heinously(13) long line was getting frustrated. One guy decided it was just too heinous(14) and walked away with a big sigh.

I do a lot of cashier bashing here, but they are helpful sometimes. Tonight I positively fell in love with Gerry, a middle-aged woman who's been there a while. The cash-wrap was just as heinous(15) as Ruby promised, and when Gerry saw it she commented on how heinously(16) untrained the new cashiers are. I smiled and said, "They really are!" I walked away to put a stack of shirts away, and when I came back, almost everything there was folded. She was heinously(17) awesome. I guess cashiers aren't all bad.

One lady came to me asking for Levi's 569 jeans that aren't straight. This was quite a heinous(18) request, seeing as 569's are, by definition, Loose Straight jeans. I tried to explain this to her, and that 550's had tapered legs like she wanted, but she insisted that her heinous(19) grandson had been wearing tapered 569's for years. Everything before 7:00 is kind of a blur (due to heinous(20) shock... we'll get to that in a second), so I don't remember what happened, but I'm positive she didn't find any tapered 569's.

And this was all before 7:00. Like I said, EVERYONE wanted a piece of Ryan. I basically got little to no work done in the first couple hours of my shift because I was too busy helping everyone. One lady did brighten my night a little: I saw her come out of the fitting rooms with everything she took in. I smiled, as seeing her buying everything she took in meant I wouldn't have to put anything heinous(21) away. But she didn't go to the cashwrap... no, she went over to a rack and started putting her own clothes away. Talk about a woman after my heart. I would have done anything for her after seeing that.

Then things got bad. About 8:00 I took a Z-rack around too Misses and put everything in the fitting rooms on the rack. On my way over to juniors, Ruby stopped me. She said that all five heinous(22) Junior fitting rooms were stacked three feet high with clothes. When I got over there, Chanel led me in there telling me I was going to cry. Frankly, I was a tad disappointed... Ruby was exaggerating. But they were still more heinous(23) than I had ever seen. I'm talking heinous(24). "Heinous"(25) was redefined by this heinosity(26).

Let me try to put it in perspective. A Z-rack is basically a bar with wheels that is about six feet long, usually used for stocking. We pull them out for fitting rooms when heinosity(27) demands it. One night, I closed by myself and filled up a whole Z-rack with stuff I pulled out of the fitting rooms, and I was pretty heinoused(28). Tonight, Chanel and I worked for two heinous(29) hours to get everything out of Juniors, and filled three heinous(30) Z-racks.

Bill is a real girl about the heinous(31) rooms. He tells me "Man, the fitting rooms are trashed," then I go in to find maybe eight pairs of pants. I say, "Bill, this is not trashed. I will tell you when they are trashed." I wish he had been there tonight, because he will never believe how heinous(32) it really was.

Finally, at closing time, I emerged from Juniors, and started to make my way around to Misses. Eventually I emptied all the fitting rooms, but the cashwraps were still heinous(33). Ben came around and asked how it was. I stopped just short of saying "henious"(34). I told him I had three Z-racks to empty, and he didn't know what a Z-rack was. Upon seeing how heinous(35) one Z-rack was, and realizing I had three of them he could only say "Holy schnikies..."

Then I realized that Gerry had made a mad dash for the escalator and had left us all stranded. She left at 11:15 when the store was still heinous(36). I felt heinously(37) betrayed... I think this hurt Ryan-cashier relations more than the heinous(38) Mindy incident did. Ben said she always says how neat she leaves the cashwraps, but... well, this was anything but neat. He and Ruby seemed pretty ticked at her, and rightly so.

Anyway, at midnight Curt said it was time to go, and the store was more heinous(39) than I could possibly imagine. Barb is heinously(40) going to heinous(41) a heinous(42) heinous(43) tomorrow when she comes in. I'd hate to be me tomorrow, because as the only closer, I will probably get a lot of the blame. Ruby too. I shudder to imagine what it would look like if Chanel wasn't such a sweetheart and did a lot of work for me.

To summarize: tonight was so heinous(44) that it apparently had a heinosity(45) level of 45. Which means to relate just how bad it was, I will once again have to make up a word to even begin to describe it: "Dropelgactic."

I wish I was dead. And, tomorrow evening, I may very well be.


12/19: Day 16 - I didn't know what to expect when I went in today. But I did know that Barb was going to tear me a new one. When I got in, I went to the back to see who was closing, and I saw her door open. So I used the stealth that I have perfected when cleaning women's fitting rooms to sneak up and see if she was in there. I saw her sitting at her desk, so I ended up backing quietly out of the room. No way was I going to tempt fate. My job as an MCA is to keep the sales floor clean, and I did not even come close to that last night, so I had no doubt she was hunting for me.

I walked out to take a look at the carnage that awaited me. But what I found was a bona fide miracle. All my Z-racks were gone. The cashwraps were clean. Denim was folded. It was as if last night was a nightmare that didn't actually happen.

I spent the next 90 minutes keeping a lookout around the whole store to make sure I was never anywhere near her. But at about 4:00 I was putting some pants away and I absentmindedly ran into her. Not literally, genius. I froze in my tracks, and took a second to determine that running like a little girl would probably look pretty bad. I braced myself for her verbal lashing...

"Hey Ryan, how are you?"

It had to be a trick... I told her I was good, then after hesitating I told her I was exhausted after last night. Turns out she was very understanding about the whole thing. Man, I don't care what anyone says, Barb rocks. I've heard countless heinous frightening tales about her, but only once have I actually experienced her wrath, and all she said was "Do not leave this area until it looks perfect."

Later, Ruby told me that she really got it from Barb when she came in, so maybe Barb had already vented when I got to her. Or maybe she wasn't mad at me because Curt turned off the lights and made me leave. Or maybe Bill wasn't kidding when he told me Barb thinks I'm cute (which, while only slightly less disturbing than my Jr. English teacher saying I have nice legs, is good because I need all the help I can get when it comes to her). Or maybe I just pwn (read: own; meaning "to rock" or "to hold stewardship over") so much that Barb knows I did what I could and it would be a lot worse without me. Whatever the case, I think the only reason I am still alive right now is because The Legend is indeed true.

Still, I was exhausted today. Usually my legs start to hurt around 9:00 or 10:00. Today they hurt at 3:30. Last night also affected my perception of my fellow MCA's, because none of them have experienced what I have. As we left tonight, they were talking about how bad they've seen it, and Ruby and I just kept telling them "You have no idea what you're talking about."

Tomorrow is the last Saturday before Christmas. Which means it will be a long, long evening for Ryan.


12/20: Day 17 - Today I could tell it would be a long night when I was still several hundred yards away from the store, as the off-ramp was backed up further than I've ever seen.

While it was busy, it was otherwise uneventful. I did run into Riky and Tres, a couple guys I went to high school with. And Mary jokingly asked me to buy her a sweater, and I caught her off guard by actually doing it. But now she owes me three or four lunches :-).

But to tell you the truth, I have nothing to make you laugh tonight. So please entertain yourself with some classic Onion. That should satisfy you until Monday.


12/22: Day 18 - For some retarded reason I thought the worst was over after Saturday. I mean, Everyone's working on Monday, right? No, of course not. The light on the off-ramp changed three times before I finally got off. It's a good thing I left 5 minutes earlier than usual, because I would have been late otherwise.

Early on, I was talking to Bill and Keri (the girl that came over from another mall that I have a completely irrational contempt for). Keri had the nerve, nay, the GALL to say that I have no sense of humor. That I have no sense of humor! I was absolutely appalled. Speechless, if you will. There is no comeback for that when your legendary sense of humor is all you have going for you.

My hate for cashiers grows with every shift now. As I ate my lunch tonight, one cashier, who has a reputation for spending most of her time chatting in the back with one of the managers, accused me of never working . I could tell she was joking, but I was way too tired and sick to tolerate it. I told her I really should stop working so she could see how bad the store would get, but that would just mean more work for me later. But I think I made my point.

Later one cashier (one of the very few I like) brought a shopping cart full of sweaters to the cashwrap to fold. That same cashier that I had owned earlier decided to be a little girl and say "Jamie's Law is 'I don't do anything I don't feel like doing.'" Again, a joke, but she took it way too far. Later she folded six pairs of pajamas and acted like she was this big hero who had just battled Satan himself on the seventh circle of Hell. "I'm going to come here tomorrow and if anyone comes near these pajamas I'm going to beat them with a stick." I told her "Welcome to my job. Except it's not one table, it's the WHOLE STORE." She tried to defend herself, but I could tell she knew she was appropriately pwned.

I think the poor people are getting desperate for Christmas presents, because we had more theft tonight than the past four months put together. Empty watch holders (cheap watches), empty cologone boxes, tags ripped off clothes, ink tags ripped off, people stopping their conversations when employees walk by, or just walking away quickly... nothing in the store is safe.


12/23: Day 19 - The traffic is getting scary. Saturday, the off-ramp was backed up a 3/10 of a mile. Monday, 2/5. And today, a full half mile. And that was just me, who knows how far it went back behind me.

Tonight was bad. Nothing out of the ordinary, just people being retarded and an insane amount of people shopping. What really made things bad was I missed the beginning of Family Guy. Which starts at 12:30. That's how late we went.

I hate people who dont realize how much I rock at my job. One lady picked up a pair of pants, and upon trying to pay for it realized it didn't have a tag. I was summoned and sent to get another pair, as routine demands. I was back in about five seconds because I knew exactly where she got those pants. But when they rang up at $45.00, she told me they were not the same pants, that the ones she got were on sale. I showed her the labels on the inside of both pairs, and proved they were exactly the same. See, no matter how anyone tries, they can't prove I am not totally hardcore. I somehow resisted the urge to get in her face and yell "OWNED OWNED OWNED OWNED OWNED OWNED!!!", but, man, that would have felt good.


12/24: Day 20 - I've decided that I hate Bill. Nothing against him personally, really, just that HE GOT A @#$r@ VACATION! I specifically remember Kelly telling me in October that there was no prayer of me getting a vacation for Christmas. So either A) Bill is expendable and I am not, or B) Kelly hates me. Either way, I am pretty steamed. Ruby seemed to feel the same way.

To tell you the truth, it doesn't feel like Christmas at all to me. Not a bit. The way I see it, Sears screwed me out of a Christmas season, and if the number in my bank account isn't undeniably huge on Friday, I might have to go over there and bust some heads. Tomorrow isn't Christmas, it's just my day off this week.

Apparently, we completely owned every other store in the district by making $219,000 dollars today, a statistic I find little comfort in seeing as I made less than $50.

Denim was scary tonight. I think it was even comparable to the Junior fitting rooms on Thursday. I started cleaning at 5:00, and when they sent us home at 7:00 it was still a disaster. MERRY CHRISTMAS, BARB!


12/26: Day 21 - It was nice to have our music back to normal today. But then I remembered that I hate our music. Besides, it was unable to purge the throng of Christmas songs still stuck in my head.

Tonight as I listened to six elderly Mexicans try to figure out how to tell me what they were looking for, I realized that the more I think about it, the more I want to call Kelly out about letting Bill take a vacation but not me. Whatever happened to seniority? Whatever happened to first come, first serve? Am I that important that she has to lie to me to keep me in town?

The answer is, yes, I am that important that she has to lie to me to keep me in town. I feel it was proved tonight that I am not just some expendable grunt. Today being the day after Christmas, we got rocked. Hard. At about 7:30 we had about 12 cashiers with basically nothing to do. So Jasel (who is in charge of cashiers) told them all to start folding helping out Mary and I. Ninety minutes later Jasel is busting heads because it took an hour and a half for 12 people do to the whole floor. Actually, that's being generous. The tables didn't look that bad when they started. And they didn't do the whole floor, just most of it. I used to think that cashiers were just as good at folding as I was, but apparently I was wrong. I asked a few to do the fitting rooms for me, but... well, that didn't go well at all.

Seriously, cashiers are pure scum. Sometimes they'll do something I like, but in the end, they are all cashiers. They come later than me and leave earlier. Tonight Jasel said, "Are any of you willing to stay until 10:00?" ....... Silence. Yeah, I stay until ten every night. Heck I was there until 12:30 on Tuesday. So now it turns out the cashiers that stayed until 10:00 get a party or something, I don't know, I was too enraged to listen. They didn't even stay until 10:00. Jasel said we could leave as soon as the cashwrap was clean, which as at 9:45. But I think when she said that she didn't know that her loser cashiers decided not to clean the Men's fitting rooms and they looked like trash. So everybody started leaving (even Mary) and I ended up cleaning it up until the lights start going out. Apparently I'm the only one with any work ethic at all. I'd better not get the blame for this because I'm the only one that shouldn't get it. I'm a little curious as to how much they make, but I'm afraid I'll do if I find out they make more than I do.


12/27: Day 22 - 1:25 P.M.: Very little traffic on the off-ramp. So far, so good.

Today was very tame, compared to what we've had lately. Things got pretty scary, but it was surprisingly calm for the Saturday after Christmas. And to make things even more awesome, holiday cashier layoffs were today! I really wish I'd had a say in who was canned, but I guess I'll have to take some comfort in knowing that many of the newbie cashiers are out of my life forever.

Not much to say tonight. Except
BAM!

and
BAM!


...And that doesn't even count this past week. Anyway, with only 31 hours this week (yes, I know it says 26.5, but it lies), this may be the last Chronicle. Check back later, though, because we have sales all the way through next Saturday.

But in case this is the last one, I'd better wrap things up. The past month has rekindled my hate of mankind. I tried to find reasons to hate people when I first started, but I decided I would probably do a lot of the things they did. But this month reminded me that people in general are just scum, regardless of whether or not I am included in that group. Also, I'll work at Harkins again before I work another Christmas in retail. I mean, you hear stories, you see pictures, you read websites that totally rock your world, but in the end, the only way to truly understand the nightmare is to live it. Even some of my coworkers don't understand the nightmare. I was the only MCA there on the 18th, so the others haven't had the true experience. Tonight Mary said, "Don't hit me, but go look at Petites." What I saw wouldn't even fill one Z-rack. "You gotta be kidding, Mary. That's weak. That's nothing." Finally, I am fully assured that I am King of MCA's. Mary even said that I'm better than her. One cashier tonight threatened me a little, as he got a few tables and jeans looking divine. But since he only did half of denim, I get the feeling that it took him several hours to do. What people don't understand is that aesthetics is only half the battle; the other half is speed. I mean, I'm so fast sometimes I amaze even myself. Tonight I estimated I could clean up Men's in 45 minutes, and ended up taking less than 30. Let's see a cashier do that. While I'm going off on hideous tangents, we had a death threat tonight. Chanel wouldn't let a guy use a stolen credit card or something, I don't know, I was eating a sandwich... anyway, it ended with "I'LL KILL YOU!!" and a whole lotta paperwork. I guess I'm just kind of rambling now, because this paragraph is getting huge. Anyway, in conclusion: The Legend is true.

Epilogue