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30.7.10

Shop at your own risk, or with some xanax.



Losing half of my hours at the office sent me scurrying back into the world of retail so I could pay my rent. After a five year absence I wasn't all that thrilled about returning, but a friend of mine was a manager at a local store and said they were desperate for help. Going into a place where I would immediately have the inside scoop, know a manager, and didn't really have to interview sounded like a good deal to me. The office gave us two weeks notice when our hours were slashed and I'd already secured the retail gig a week before the change took affect.

The store is in the local mall and sells plus sized clothing. This isn't something I'm terribly familiar with. I'm currently not as small as I once was, but I 'm also not as big as I once was and even then, though I probably should have, I never shopped in a plus sized store. But my attitude is that people are people and clothes are clothes so the size of either doesn't actually make a difference. I can't imagine any of the issues I encounter there being different from any other store that only sells clothes for women.

This is because no matter what size they are, women become completely insane while shopping for clothes. I'll admit it, it happens to me too. You find yourself in that cramped fitting room, surrounded by bright lights and mirrors with this stuff you barely remember picking off the racks and your mind turns to mush. How can something that looks so great on the hanger look like such garbage on you? If a hanger can make it look good what's wrong with you?

I consider myself a reasonably bright individual. If it was up to me I would completely avoid the women who just exited the fitting room for the first time. Unfortunately, the stores policy is that I run up to you, try to get a sense of what you'll want to buy from us, and if you haven't killed me yet try to get you to apply for a store credit card. In other words, they expect me to have no soul.

When we're short on management I actually wait until the second time they exit the fitting room, at this point they're either in a good mood because they found something or defeated because they have failed twice. Given the choice I'd rather deal with someone who is defeated vs. someone on the verge of homicidal rage. I can get a much better sense of what might be a good fit for you when you're not shooting daggers at the rack of leggings and swearing under your breath. 

Now, I understand that not everyone is like this, but 90% of my customers have fall into the crazy while shopping category. Of course, we have customers that scamper away from you like they're a deer and you have a shot gun and at the other end of the spectrum the ones who drag you around the store trying to get you to hold their stuff for them while they shop and tell you their life story, but they're not nearly as prevalent.

What about you? Do you completely lose your shit while out shopping? Have you ever lashed out at a poor defenseless retail slave?

29.7.10

Somtimes I can be unresonable, but not today.




Sometimes I work in an office. The company is family owned and run by a group of festive Italians. Papa bear runs the joint while his two bear princesses handle the admin angle and the bear prince handles our sales department. We employ a small staff of service guys who handle our residential and commercial accounts and 2 additional office slaves. That's where I come in.

I was hired as an office assistant, which apparently means that whatever the bear princesses don't want to do falls in my lap. They've got five kids between them ranging from five to sixteen so you can probably imagine the amount of distractions they're surrounded by. My second, and probably most important, purpose is to provide a constant presence in the office so when the phones ring or on the odd chance a random customer walks in someone is there to provide service or take a message.

I used to work there Monday thru Friday nine to five and it was glorious. The economy tanked and our business which mostly deals with the high end of an at home luxury suddenly stopped being so prosperous. Thankfully this is where working for a family comes in handy. Instead of cutting the jobs of myself and the other office slave they offered us a job share. We would split time in the office, her on Monday and Tuesday and me on Thursday and Friday and alternating Wednesdays.

The salary cut wasn't fun (hence my 2nd job: more on that later) but I got to keep my health insurance so I never really complained. The biggest pain about the job share has actually been sharing the job. Office Slave #2 and I didn't actually do the same job before so once the switch happened we had to learn different aspects of each others jobs so certain tasks were not ignore for 2 or 3 days a week. This was kind of hairy in the beginning but for the most part everything seems to be working like clockwork now, except for one thing.

Office Slave #2 is not skilled with a stapler.

Now, if you're like me that statement probably comes as a shock to you. Operating a stapler is probably something that doesn't rank in your mind as something tricky. If I handed you two sheets of notebook paper that I had scrawled on for the sake of a prop, a stapler and asked you to staple them together it would probably look something like this.



I would take the papers and stapler back from you and aside from that fact that I'd just given someone the tools to do a menial task I could have done myself I probably wouldn't remember the whole event an hour later. This would not be the case with Office Slave #2. Ever week when I get back to the desk that we now share I am faced with piles and piles of papers that I can't leisurely leaf through because they look like this.



WHY?
I've yet to find a way to articulate the lack of common sense that this small action screams. Every time I come back to work and have to sift through a stack of "stapled" papers my brain leaks out of my ears a little. I've thought about leaving Office Slave #2 a note but nothing professional comes to mind.

Did this post bring up the trauma of some sever lack of common sense in your life? Tell me about it!

28.7.10

Welcome to The Random Thought Foster Home.



I was always taught that it's polite to introduce yourself when meeting new people. I happen to prefer name tags because they don't require that I actually speak with anyone I do not know.

So you hate strangers? Why start a blog?

I never actually said I hated strangers, it just takes me a little while to warm up to people. Perhaps this is an exercise in reaching out to strangers. Perhaps this is step one in my quest for world domination. Perhaps I'm trying to make the world a better place with my word vomit. Perhaps I should shop using the word perhaps.

Truth be told, I don't know why I'm starting a blog. It's been a very long week and it just seems like something fun to do. Some of my friends have blogs. I like to read blogs. I've got random thoughts that need a home, perhaps [really?] this is where they can live.

I don't promise to be funny. I don't don't promise to be all that interesting. Years of living have shown me that I am not everyone's cup of tea. However, I am always honest, no matter how much trouble it gets me into. I don't know about you, but I'm excited to see how this thing turns out.