Back on the Job

(AKA: Screwed by Wal-Mart, Pt. 2)

Yesterday was my first day back at the local hang-out known as Wal-Mart (a fact I believe even more since I saw nearly *everyone* I know in this confounded town). Things were supposed (italics indicate sarcasm) to be simple: since I hadn’t gotten cashier training last summer, I was going to spend my first two days learning the cash register ropes before moving back into homelines. [Yes, Pt. 1 of the “Screwed by Wal-Mart” series worked out. Apparently, two people quit between the time I called and when I showed up a week later.] I guess this is the quick course in cashier training. The first day, the newbie shadows another cashier and watches what that person does, asks questions, etc, but doesn’t actually get to try cashing. The second day, the now-not-so-newbie tries cashiering while the real cashier stands by in case of problems.

So much for that.

The first two hours, I actually shadowed like I was supposed to. I don’t know that I learned much (things don’t stick in my mind unless I do them myself), but at least I was standing there with a purpose. Then, one of the red vests asked me to cover a door greeter’s break “for just a moment.” Silly sheep that I am, I said yes and spent the next six hours (with a lunch break in between) fake smiling and providing carts to the population of Sullivan.

Door greeting isn’t hard. You make certain there’s enough carts for people to grab, put stickers on returns, move the electric carts in and out as needed, and—when the alarm goes off—chase people down to check receipts. But, three cart pushers quit yesterday (leaving poor Joel Gross to move *all* of them out of the parking lot, where I’d move them into the building [yeah, stick arms!]), people are always bringing in stuff that may or may not need a sticker, three people dropped off electric carts at the same time, making it even harder to move them back into the shed, and people never stop for the alarm anymore.

Since none of this requires much thought, your mind wanders all over the place. A sample of my random thoughts:

* If thick plastic had been around during the middle ages, I bet somebody would’ve hung sheets of it and forced people to walk through it as a form of torture.

* Nothing is more frightening than a possessed three-wheeled cart.

* Except perhaps a possessed door.

* Stephen Dazey cracks me up even more than ever after I watched him make everyone he knew talk on the phone to the poor person on the other end. (I recognized the voice, but couldn’t hear the name.)

* Whoever decided Movie Gallery’s spot should be replaced by a myriad of cacophonous video games should have to stand in the middle of it for a few hours. (Yes, this is the free Fye vocab point section.)

* “I Saw Her Standing There” becomes annoying after it stays in your head for over an hour.

* While I wasn’t surprised that David Kromery pretended I didn’t exist as he left the store, Danny Rubenstein’s (I’m pretty sure it was him) double take as he left and I came in from lunch felt particularly satisfying.

* I’m proud of myself for *not* flinching when the odd person I didn’t know told me the story about his cat that loves to chew on ears and grabbed my own ear to demonstrate.