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Sometimes, Life Is a Festering Pit
Sep. 2nd, 2008 01:00 amAll rl stuff, guys.
I was watching Bill Burr tonight and he said something about how if you're single too long the voice in your head switches from don't say *that* to eh, fuckin' say it, see what happens.
I am pretty much riding that line in all my interactions lately. Because, okay, something awesome happened, the assistant manager I liked came back and the one I got the weird vibe off left. And literally her first day back, she came up and asked how I'd been doing and when I didn't sound particularly enthusiastic, said, and I quote, "You'll be doing better now. I've got your back." She is seriously my favorite and I will put myself out for that woman.
Which is why I spent my Friday assembling grills and hoping they weren't going to eventually explode and kill someone. I am not handy. But she thinks I am, because give me some chairs or wiggle stakes and I will amuse myself for hours. Assembling shit means I get to sit down. But, grills. Propane grills. These are things that are perhaps meant to be done by, oh, the guys in assembly. Especially since those guys said the directions were shitty. Justin (head of Tools, helps with assembly/load-outs) saw me working and just laughed.
But I've kind of fallen into this thing at work where I'm perpetually a little irritated and hiding it because I was hired as a cashier. And I'm the main Tools cashier, which means I have to answer a lot more customer assistance questions than most other cashiers, so I've had to try to learn about tools and hardware and where they're hiding the sledgehammers and axes this week (swear to god, once I found them stuck between two racks of metal bars, piled on the floor). And I do filing because I like it and nobody else will do it and I do assembly and I do merchandising and I stock and I face and I clean and oh yeah, I also work the service desk, so there's a lot of customer assistance shit. I do a lot, because it makes the day go faster and I may not love my job but fuck if I'm going to get fired for half-assing it. And apparently some of the other cashiers, who were hired after me, are less flexible with scheduling, and who don't do this much, are making more than me. Started out making more than what I make after a raise. So I'm a little pissed.
And let's talk about customer service shit for a second. We're like a more "country" Walmart. Our inventory makes no damn sense and we get a lot of dirt-poor farmers, that kind of thing. We're one of the stores that keep farm tax records. For those of you going WTF, products used in the production of agriculture are sales tax exempt. We record people's exemption IDs and the computer exempts everything that qualifies.
People like to argue with the computer's decisions. "But those are work jeans!" "I use my dog on the farm! Give me that small dog Science Diet tax free." Bullshit. But some things probably should be exempt that aren't. Used to be, we could go in and change it. Then Atwoods Texas got fined $180,000 by the IRS and wow, did they close that loophole quick. So people get in your face a lot about how they're going to shop at Tractpr Supply or The Country Store (yes, that's the actual name) from now on and you've got to just smile and nod. Because our company is all about customer service. Which, great, but when an asshole's swearing at me because he thinks he should be able to ignore the clearly posted return policy, I'd like to be able to ask him to leave, not get reprimanded for not accomodating his asshole needs more quickly. And yes, that is an actual example.
And you know what? We had four cashiers this morning. There is no fucking way I should have been waiting on one customer, three more in my line,and yet I'm the one answering five fucking phone calls in seven minutes. That was me answering one call, while another rings, and then having to also answer that when I was through. If I'm going to be doing that shit 35 and 38 hours a week again, I'd at least like to be paid as much as the fucking high school girls working 16 and 20 hours.
I was watching Bill Burr tonight and he said something about how if you're single too long the voice in your head switches from don't say *that* to eh, fuckin' say it, see what happens.
I am pretty much riding that line in all my interactions lately. Because, okay, something awesome happened, the assistant manager I liked came back and the one I got the weird vibe off left. And literally her first day back, she came up and asked how I'd been doing and when I didn't sound particularly enthusiastic, said, and I quote, "You'll be doing better now. I've got your back." She is seriously my favorite and I will put myself out for that woman.
Which is why I spent my Friday assembling grills and hoping they weren't going to eventually explode and kill someone. I am not handy. But she thinks I am, because give me some chairs or wiggle stakes and I will amuse myself for hours. Assembling shit means I get to sit down. But, grills. Propane grills. These are things that are perhaps meant to be done by, oh, the guys in assembly. Especially since those guys said the directions were shitty. Justin (head of Tools, helps with assembly/load-outs) saw me working and just laughed.
But I've kind of fallen into this thing at work where I'm perpetually a little irritated and hiding it because I was hired as a cashier. And I'm the main Tools cashier, which means I have to answer a lot more customer assistance questions than most other cashiers, so I've had to try to learn about tools and hardware and where they're hiding the sledgehammers and axes this week (swear to god, once I found them stuck between two racks of metal bars, piled on the floor). And I do filing because I like it and nobody else will do it and I do assembly and I do merchandising and I stock and I face and I clean and oh yeah, I also work the service desk, so there's a lot of customer assistance shit. I do a lot, because it makes the day go faster and I may not love my job but fuck if I'm going to get fired for half-assing it. And apparently some of the other cashiers, who were hired after me, are less flexible with scheduling, and who don't do this much, are making more than me. Started out making more than what I make after a raise. So I'm a little pissed.
And let's talk about customer service shit for a second. We're like a more "country" Walmart. Our inventory makes no damn sense and we get a lot of dirt-poor farmers, that kind of thing. We're one of the stores that keep farm tax records. For those of you going WTF, products used in the production of agriculture are sales tax exempt. We record people's exemption IDs and the computer exempts everything that qualifies.
People like to argue with the computer's decisions. "But those are work jeans!" "I use my dog on the farm! Give me that small dog Science Diet tax free." Bullshit. But some things probably should be exempt that aren't. Used to be, we could go in and change it. Then Atwoods Texas got fined $180,000 by the IRS and wow, did they close that loophole quick. So people get in your face a lot about how they're going to shop at Tractpr Supply or The Country Store (yes, that's the actual name) from now on and you've got to just smile and nod. Because our company is all about customer service. Which, great, but when an asshole's swearing at me because he thinks he should be able to ignore the clearly posted return policy, I'd like to be able to ask him to leave, not get reprimanded for not accomodating his asshole needs more quickly. And yes, that is an actual example.
And you know what? We had four cashiers this morning. There is no fucking way I should have been waiting on one customer, three more in my line,and yet I'm the one answering five fucking phone calls in seven minutes. That was me answering one call, while another rings, and then having to also answer that when I was through. If I'm going to be doing that shit 35 and 38 hours a week again, I'd at least like to be paid as much as the fucking high school girls working 16 and 20 hours.
