I swear, I’ve gotten the shit of so many things. The bicycle with the wheels that got knocked out of alignment by a strong breeze. The boy scout troop full of surly malcontents who hated life and humanity. The hard drive glitch which destroyed the entire computer. Countless relatives who took to my home like a depth charge takes to a submarine.
But none of that, I assure you, was as bad as the TWO DAY job I just completed.
Lessee…
Sept. 1 - I get a call from the main manager of a party supply store I’d submitted an application to over three months ago. She was surprised that someone with my impressive credentials (I have a degree in Accounting) even bothered with such a dinky little position (not by choice, mind you)…but Halloween’s coming up, and she needs hands. I didn’t like the idea of taking a low-paying service job, but I needed work and didn’t really qualify for most accouting jobs, so I said yes, I’d be glad to start. She set an appointment time for noon the next day to work out the details.
Sept. 2 - I arrive there at about 11:55, and by 12:20 she’s still not there. Some of the employees have tried to contact here; none have succeeded.
Sept. 9 - Finally able to reach her. Says that she’s checking out my references, and oh, by the way, were you fired by your previous employer? Asks me to be patient and hangs up. Doesn’t give any explanation for no-showing.
Sept. 13 or 14…whatever - Having second doubts about this position when she calls again and asks if I was fired from my previous job. I explain that I left because my term was temporary and it expired. “So you weren’t fired, right?” “Yeah.” “You’re sure you weren’t fired?” “I’m sure.”
Sept. 16 - Finally, she’s convinced that I wasn’t fired or anything and she’s ready to sign me up. Given that I haven’t worked at all since…well, my last dubious service job, I’m raring to go. She sets the time, 1:30 PM tomorrow. I’m pumped for this like you wouldn’t believe.
Sept. 17 - I arrive right on the dot. And learn that she’s at a funeral, and apparently there’ve been some killer eulogies, since she called to say she’d be late again. After about 40 minutes, however, she does show up, and takes me to the tiny, cramped office (“We’re moving to a bigger place in a couple of months.”) to make it official. I sign a bunch of paperwork and, while she’s putting my records into the computer, am directed to the door-mounted store policies. These consist of the telephone regulations, guidelines on foil balloon weights, a bunch of rah-rah team philosophy, and a few rules regarding lunches and personal bags and whatnot. All the while employees are going in and out, many of them grabbing the helium cannisters used to inflate the balloons. I’m eventually signed on as a “seasonal probationary” worker, apparently so the manager can fire me at any time for any reason without having to go through the mess of “rightful termination”. She directs me to the cash register to log in, and I’m now officially part of the team. (At this point, I know nothing of my duties, or my responsibilities, or what’s in the store, or what to avoid, or the names of more than three people. This will become a big issue shortly.)
Before I know it, I’m on the job. My first day (3-9 PM) goes by briskly. Various senior employees ask me to perform various tasks, which I do cheerfully, and then I’m sent to the floor to watch over customers and straighten shelves (oh, did I mention that I had no experience in retail work, and my manager damn well knew this, which is why she’s paying me a lousy $6.25/hour?). I make some mistakes…nothing unusual for someone sent to the floor with no briefing or orientation or any kind of instruction whatsoever…but my co-workers are friendly and helpful, and they patiently correct what I’m doing wrong. I have a lot of tasks, including climbing a shaky ladder to rearrange balloons and moving a bunch of boxes of merchandise, all of which I attend to posthaste.
I close out a productive day tired but happy. I feel grateful for having such nice people to help me adjust to this seasonal job and am glad that I was able to help them in their work.
Sept. 18 - Another busy day. The manager isn’t there when my shift begins, so I start out helping a harried co-worker with costume displays. Once that’s done, I straighten out a few displays (one of the few specific tasks that was actually given to me yesterday) until the next senior employee calls me over. (Given that no one ever bothered to explain the whole power structure, and this place has plenty of turnover, I only had a vague idea of who was “in charge”, so I helped whenever I was asked.) I have an encounter with an irascible customer, but that’s just part and parcel with customer service, and I shake it off. I learned a ton of stuff yesterday, so today is at least a little smoother. (Another manager took the time to elbaorate on a costume policy that no one explained to any of the new employees yesterday.) At closing, the mood is friendly, and not one co-worker has said an unkind word to me. I leave confident that, as long as I get shoes that don’t crush my fifth toes, I can easily stick it out for the Halloween season.
Sept. 20 - Call the manager to get the week’s schedule. She tells me that it’s not working out, and maybe you should’ve gotten that desk job after all. I ask what the problem is, and she says that some of the co-workers…didn’t name names, of course…said that I “just did my own thing” and “didn’t do what I was told”. Plus, I never told her about that one upset customer. Y’know, because I was just supposed to know that I should’ve told her (No briefing! No orientation! Nothing!) about it, this despite the junior manager strongly hinting that we should just suck it up and not let those customers bother us.
:mad: :mad: :mad: Un-fucking-believable.
Yeah, I supposed she’d be concerned about my having a degree…'cause folks who can actually get a decent job are much less likely to put up with this complete bullshit.
Times like this, I’m amazed there’s an independent business in this state that hasn’t gone belly-up.