Fuck You Blockbuster, you are all pigfuckers

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a pitting on behalf of my sister, who is too passive a person to say anything to her employers.

Fuck you Blockbuster, fuck you up the ass with a giant spiked dildo. Fuck you all in general and specifically the fuckwad shift manager at the Blockbuster where my sister works.

My sister is a kid, she’s only 19 years old, she’s a college student, she needs this fucking job. Since she has started there she has worked her ass off for you. She is always on fucking time, she is pleasant, and since she hasn’t been fired like so many of the others that were there when she started, she must be at the very least semi competent. And you assholes, you heartless little pieces of shit, have scheduled her to work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve AND New Years Fucking Day!! She doesn’t get to spend any of the holidays with her family? None? You mean to tell me she is the only person in the store on those days? Everyone else is doing…WHAT! What could everyone else in the store be doing on EVERY SINGLE FUCKING HOLIDAY that prevents them from working ONE so someone else doesn’t have to work them ALL?? It can’t be a seniority issue, because after the most recent round of firing’s she, at 8 months, is one of the most senior employee’s you have! So what is it you ass fucks?
Well it could be worse, at least she gets holiday pay right? I mean it sucks to work on the holidays and all, but time and a half is sweet. Well not if you are a part time employee in the state of California it isn’t. Nope, no holiday pay for her. Hey, maybe she could work full time, how hard can it be working 40 hours a week while going to school full time? Well gee, maybe if they would let her work full time she could contemplate the option, but Blockbuster doesn’t want to hire full time employee’s right now, they have enough. Never mind that no one in the store is a full time employee. Nope, sorry no positions available. Fuck you you goddamn monolithic exemplar of evil corporate greed. You know what else you don’t get if you aren’t full time? Benefits of any kind. No wonder they aren’t looking for full time employees, they get to work them like slaves for 34 hours a week (the hours my sister was scheduled this week) including holidays, and don’t have to give them jack shit other than the $9 an hour wage.

And here is the rub, you know the only other person who is getting this kind of treatment? The only other person who is scheduled like this, and only has Christmas off because she is leaving town for New York to see her family? Yep also a female. Somehow none of the male employees are working more than one holiday this season. I know, I know am I really saying its sexism? I am a guy myself and I too get tired of hearing people call sexism where it doesn’t exist. And I suppose it’s possible that the shit eating pigfucker that is my sisters shift manager did this by mistake. Who knows, maybe its a coincidence. But what else do you call it when the male employees work no more than one holiday, and both females work massive holiday shifts?

Oh yeah I almost forgot. When she was scheduled to work on Thanksgiving they told her it was her fault because she hadn’t requested the day off, so they assumed she **wanted **to work the holiday. So she requested Christmas and New Years off, all the way back in November. Before Thanksgiving. The day after she found out she had to work the first holiday. A lot of fucking good that did her!

And she is too passive to do anything about it. She will bitch a little to her manager, and maybe threaten to not show up, but when push comes to shove she will be there.

For the holiday season 2005 Blockbuster gave my sister the gift of not having a holiday season. So as my Christmas gift to you Blockbuster (my sisters store in particular, and the whole corporation in general) I hearby bestow upon you the crown for being the Pigfucker Employers Supreme.

Merry Fuckin Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

2

It’s not like she could quit such a high paying and powerful position as counter-jockey at Blockbuster, no-siree. She’d be blacklisted in her town for sure, and never get such a lucrative job again!

3

While I feel for your sister, I have to work Christmas day and New Years. It comes with the turf. In my case it’s the luck of the draw. My job goes 24/7/365. Three 12 hour shifts in three days, three days off.

In your sisters case, she works retail. Her hours are not surpring.

4

Your sister should demand to be moved off at least some of those holidays and threaten to quit if they don’t do it.

Then when they don’t do it, she should quit.

5

What they said. Her life is her own, not Blockbusters.

6

I had to work Thanksgiving (which really sucked), will work Christmas Eve (which somewhat sucks but isn’t too bad) and New Year’s Eve (day shift, thank God, so I can go out that night). And I’m a seasonal part-time retail temp, hoping to be kept on after next month. You’d think I’d be getting the worst of the worst days, but actually I’m not. That being said, I’m sure the only reason I’m not working Christmas is that we aren’t open that day!

I wouldn’t advise her to quit without having another job lined up, as tempting as it is. But I’d be looking for something else if I were her. The problem with that is this is a really hard time of year to find a retail job.

7

To all of you who are about to pile on and say she should quit (and to the few who already have) see the above quote. Her money situation is such that she can’t afford to have no job. She is looking for a new job but isn’t really in the position to quit this one she has until she has a new one, and that won’t happen till after January starts.

Mostly I am pissed because I don’t get to see my sister a lot anymore between my work and her work and school. Now I won’t get to see her on the holidays either.

I could start a whole new pit thread on how she needs to grow a backbone but I will instead let her quietly quit and move on to another job in the new year without giving anyone at Blockbuster a piece of her mind.

8

About a year and a half ago, my GF worked at Blockbuster. They got a new store manager, so she scheduled her to do inventory, ON A FUCKING SCHOOL NIGHT. She doesn’t have her own car, so her parents would have had to pick her up at 3 in the morning. They had work the next day. When she told her boss, her boss told her to walk home. My GF was 17 at the time.
THE FUCKING BOSS TOLD HER TO WALK A MILE BACK HOME AT 3 IN THE MORNING, A 17 YEAR OLD GIRLS. YOU SHOULDN’T TELL A 35 YEAR OLD WOMEN TO WALK HOME THAT LATE AT NIGHT. Blockbuster just seems to have a bunch of assholes.

Sorry for the hijack, but it is another blockbuster anecdote.

9

恐龍被認為在哪一個時期最早出現﹖

Sorry, but that is some google ad!

10

No no, anyone else who wants to express their loathing of Blockbuster, please feel free.

11

I don’t like how when you walk in the door you’re dumped right into the Z section. I mean, that’s throwing alphabetation right in our faces! I’ll tell you what it is…it’s reverse alphabetation and this agression will not stand!

12

Maybe she said she wanted to work those days. Hell, I would work all of them and I don’t get paid holiday pay. It is so, later when they are devising the roster, I get more hours because I have shown willingness to work*. YMMV.
*And I really don’t want to spend all that much time with my family anyway.

13

I worked at a gas station several years ago. My boss scheduled me to work all the major holidays. When I approached him all “Hey, wtf boss?” he told me it’s because I was the only one who didn’t have a family. Apparently holidays are only important if you have kids. Nevermind that at the time, I was a kid. With, get this… a family.

Asshole.

14

The last time I was in a Blockbuster store, I observed a manager reaming out a young (maybe 17-18 male) because of a customer complaint. Why was the customer upset? Because he had called on his cellphone and demanded that someone come outside to pick up the tapes/DVDs he was returning. When the clerk told the customer that is was not store policy to do that but there was a drive-up drop box just around the corner, the customer came in and demanded the manager. The customer got free rentals. The clerk, who was only doing what he had been told to do, got a reaming in front of a store full of people. I walked to the desk, tore up my card and left.

I found out later if the clerk had done what the customer wanted and gone outside to pick up the returns, it is very likely he would have been accused of theft - it had happened before in that store.

I just don’t do business with them.

15

I spent my dues at a Blockbuster. Worked there two years, got a management position, full time, benefits, everything. The pay sucked, but it was in a convenient location and I let myself get comfortable. Couldn’t leave it for a part-time job, at any rate.

Then, my wife got a full-time job, and suddenly I could go down to part-time and spend more time at school and home. So, I put in a request to leave my FT position and asked for part time work there. Was told, “hey, no problem, put in a note to that effect two weeks before you need to cut hours.” Sure, fine, no problem, they said.

Well, the day that I’m scheduled to go down to part-time, I get called in for a meeting. Seems there was a customer complaint from 4 months previous, and oh, so sorry, they’re going to have to let me go over this. Yeah. Seems like someone thought the paperwork for firing would be easier than the paperwork for a position change.

I know exactly the kind of situation she’s in. But do impress upon her that loyalty is not rewarded at the Big Blue. Make sure she understands that they will never view her employment there as anything more than temporary. And most of all, make sure she’s always working on getting a backup job. There’s always a better place to work than BBV. I was fortunate because I’d already been everything but hired at another local place.

16

I worked at Blockbuster for about a month in the early 1990s. Miserable company to work for. Retail is miserable in and of itself. What makes Blockbuster so much more miserable was that it was open every damn day of the year.

None of the Blockbuster employees was full time. They had two long term employees that had 39.5 hours per week, (another place I worked, Books a Million had the same policy). Having to provide your own uniform was a bummer too. I remember during my one month career at blockbuster that i was sent to another store to work, becuase they had a lot of inventory to put away before closing time. The other people were allowed to go home because they were under 18. I said screw that and walked out after half an evening. I also remember the boss being a shit when I asked him where the toilet was. So, I had no loyalty.

A word of caution, do not smoke in the Blockbuster bathroom! I did, and when i was done, the whole shop smelled of smoke and one of the managers more or less caught me.

I just graduated college and I was working there. Let’s say that it is a part of my life I wish to bury and forget.

17

I haven’t worked at Blockbuster, but I worked for a boss who paid me $300 a week and never paid on time and always wanted things done yesterday. When I finally realized that I was wasting my time, I made a play from a position of power: “I will go away and make sure I have a teaching job by next fall if this doesn’t improve”. He folded.

I do feel sorry for your sister. She needs to find a way to leave the situation. If you’re not someone’s priest or pastor or AA sponsor, you have almost no chance of changing them, and it’s dicey even then. If she can’t leave, then the only advice I have is to not let the rage eat you/her up. The people you hate don’t care if you hate them, so you’re not punishing them.

18

I wonder what the corporate headquarters would’ve said to a call from the local government office. The manager must’ve been completely clueless to schedule a minor for that particular shift, especially during the school year?

19

Oh the memories of working at Blockbuster.

I’ve worked at a lot of places. I’ve never worked any place that treats their employees as bad as BBV.

My store’s story was that it was staffed by the biggest bunch of college graduate hard-luck stories you’ve ever seen. There was the girl who defaulted on her student loans. There was the kid who lived in a trailer in his parent’s backyard and kept having seizures because he couldn’t afford his epilepsy medication. There was the girl who was kicked out of her house for being a lesbian, trying desperatly to make enough money so she could rent a room big enough for her girlsfriend (who was also getting kicked out) could live there. Everyone was smart, hardworking, and in desperate need of money.

So what did they do? They hired about five college students working for beer money. This bumped everyone’s hours down to around twenty a week. Just enough to make it tough to get a second job. But not quite enough to actually pay rent. To make it worse, you never knew if you were going to get eight hours in a week or forty. Every week they promised “We’ll get you more hours next week…it’ll be okay.”

People were begging to work holidays. Doing anything, really, to get enough hours. The staff was coming to work hungry. They’d buy the two for two dollar candy specials as a meal because with their employee discounts it was the best calorie-per-cent meal they could get. We all rejoiced when popcorn went on sale because it meant dinner for twenty-five cents. I was working three jobs and walking around that place like a zombie. The store manager (who is under as much pressure from impossible demands, job insecurity and low pay as the workers) was slowly going crazy. We had a theft problem, and it was getting to him. He bought baseball bats and tasers and started mumbling a lot. It was a store-wide meltdown.

BBV will tease you. They will overhire so you can’t make it. They will underhire so you are working double shifts. They will give hours vindictively. They will schedule you for the hours you asked off and those hours only. They will keep you hungry and desperate. They will make you work as a manager, and lose the paperwork for your lousy one dollar an hour raise for a year straight. They will refuse to pay the medical bills from a car crash you got in while you were doing work tasks on work hours. When you finally break, they won’t even have the dignity to fire you. They will keep you on the schedule and schedule you for six hours a week at odd hours until you are broke and starving and get the hint. This is their business plan. They have a disposable workforce. They want nothing more than a year of your life while you are in your prime. They’ll suck anything out of you that they can, abuse you as much as you’ll take, and then hire another one when you quit in disgust. There is no rebellion. No union. No demands for rights. No asking for a better piece of the pie. There is just daily quitting. That is how they survive. Churn.

Why does anyone stay? The work is easy but not boring. The customers (and their insanity) are a hoot. The free movie perk is great. The managers always promise that things are getting better. That soon you’ll be working forty hours a week and making it. They have a little fund they buy pizza out of a couple times a month. It says right in the manager’s manual that spending a few bucks on crap like pizza or treating everyone to a soda from the cooler now and then is a better plan (and, according to the manual is scientifically proven to make employees happier…“they don’t want higher wages”, it says “They want a fun workplace!”) than actually paying them.

Send her this link. It won’t help. It’ll only re-enforce the wierd underdog loyalty that BBV employees have. But it’s good reading.

Also, tell her to do what I did. Quit for the holidays. You miss out on your “christmas bonus” (once they gave everybody blockbuster windbreakers, and you get a 25% employee discount for a few days) but they will always hire you back as soon as the holidays are over. Meanwhile, look for another job. Motel desk clerk is a great student job- low pay, but flexible and you can spend the entire shift studying.

20

Not about BlockBuster, but about the 34 hour=part-time thing. My wife is currently working part-time for a major toy store (think Benefit’s ‘r[en’t]’ Us.) This week, she’s scheduled for 50 hours. She’s on closing shift, which means she’ll work another 1 to 3 hours (per night) after the store closes, putting away re-shop and tallying the registers. Right before Thanksgiving, she was asked to sign a paper saying that she knew that even if she was scheduled for more then 34 hours, she was still considered part-time and was not going to be given benefits. At least they have to give her time and a half for the 10 hours over 40 (minimum) she’ll be working. They also had the nerve to call and ask her is she could please come in on her ONE day off this week because they were short handed :eek: :mad:

Damn Giraffe fuckers (Geoffrey, not our beloved jack-booted mod;) )

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