Work sucks.
written by Jon originally for
backwords.150m.com - march 2002
I have been frightened of the prospect of working ever
since I was a small child. I had heard tales of my grandfather, who traveled halfway
across the country at the age of fourteen to lay railroad track. This scared the crap out
of me, in part because I dreaded all forms of work, and in part because I was afraid of
everything that happened that long ago. Everything was in black-and-white back then. There
was no sound except for piano music, and everyone had to wear those stupid-looking bowler
hats and weird moustaches. I could just imagine my grandpa laying rail all day in the hot
sun in a tuxedo and bow tie, with nothing to look to but the scratched, grainy horizon. I
don’t know how people did it back then.
By the time I hit sixteen, however, I had a much more optimistic opinion of working.
Railroads were a thing of the past – people instead used skateboards and Razor
scooters to get where they needed to go. Pianos had been replaced with the Rapping-Music,
and the world was, at long last, in color. The future had truly arrived.
But this future was not at all similar to The Jetsons-esque future I had imagined –
instead it was much like the one in Terminator 2, complete with marauding evil robots,
fires that burned in completely random places and various objects that exploded for no
reason at all.
Earth, 1999.
My history of employment is laughably sad, and some equally laughably sad experiences
resulted. Read, and laugh at my pain.
Job #1: Kroger
The local grocery store seemed a fairly safe bet. I had been in there many times, and it
seemed like a decent place to work. I should have seen it for what it really was, though
– KROGER is an anagram for GEKRRO, which of course is German for “demeaning,
inhumane punishment.” At least, that’s what it SHOULD mean, because working at
Kroger is exactly that.
I worked at a training store for a few days. First, they put me in a room for hours on end
so I could work my way through a multimedia presentation. It was the driest, most mundane
video I had ever seen – similar to watching “What’s the Worst that could
Happen?” starring Martin Lawrence, only I couldn’t get up and leave. I checked
boxes and clicked buttons ad nauseum. At first I tried to convince myself that it was a
video game, which was at least plausible considering that it offered at least as much
gameplay as any Final Fantasy game.
The highlight of the presentation was the “Expert Witness” mini-game. It opens
with a sequence of video clips through which I learned that I am not a Kroger trainee at
all, but in fact an “expert witness” who specializes in food sanitation and
culinary ethics. The cast of characters includes an interrogating defense attorney and a
news reporter who offers comments on the performance of the expert witness. The courtroom
drama unfolded something like this:
Defense attorney: The defendant used the mission statement, “To
provide the tastiest food in the industry to our customer.” Is this an acceptable
mission statement?
Me: (clicks "yes")
Courtroom: (moans)
News reporter: The defense attorney seems to be questioning his choice of
an expert witness.
Me: (clicks "retry")
Defense attorney: The defendant used the mission statement, “To
provide the tastiest food in the industry to our customer.” Is this an acceptable
mission statement?
Me: (clicks "no")
News reporter: The defense attorney seems pleased about his choice of an
expert witness.
Defense attorney: The defendant used the mission statement, “To
provide the most wholesome food in the industry to our customer.” Is this an
acceptable mission statement?
Me: How long does this last?
Supervisor: Finish the test.
Me: I will…I was just wondering how long this is going to take.
Supervisor: Click the “Next Question” button to go to the next
question.
Me: Well, at least this will fill some space when I write an article
about this a few years from now.
News reporter: The defense attorney seems to be questioning his choice of
an expert witness.
After two six-hour days of nonstop video clips, I was finally ready to start my first day
of actual work. I was scheduled to work at 4:00 the next day, and was chewed out for
having the audacity to clock in at exactly 4:00. I was called a corner-cutter who wanted
to get by with the bare minimum. It was at that moment precisely that I resigned myself to
going through the motions that summer, without hope for fulfillment or humane treatment.
I am convinced that the Kroger administration can smell fresh meat. I felt like the new
piece of ass in a maximum-security prison – everyone wanted to get some. It was my
first job, and I was afraid to ever object to anything I was ordered to do. On more than
one occasion, a supervisor told me to sweep until a set of shelves, and then proceeded to
spend the next five minutes standing there and watching me sweep. I was barked at whenever
I attempted to converse with another employee or lean against a register.
But I had managed to retain somewhat high morale until being initiated to the
“spot-mop” procedure. Whenever someone spilled something, I was told to get out
the mop bucket and mop it up. No problem. Except that after I had cleaned it up, I was
required to get out the “Wet Floor” sign…and FAN THE FUCKING FLOOR WITH IT.
I would stand over the spill and wave the sign back and forth over the spill until it
dried. Usually it took three agonizing minutes to dry, during which I would endure
countless strange looks and poorly repressed smirks.
After about six weeks of this, I decided I had been through enough. For some reason, I
found it in my heart to give them the appreciated two-week notice before resigning, and
they acknowledged my thoughtfulness by terminating me a week early without reason or
notification. It’s almost as if they WANTED me to chuck a homemade bomb through their
window.
Job #2: Valvoline Instant Oil Change
My three-week stint at Valvoline Instant Oil Change was a short and strange one.
Ironically enough, it was probably the most important job I ever had. It was then that I
decided that missing college was not an option, for four reasons: John, Bob, Jeremy and
Joe.
John, the 54-year-old manager, was the most prolific ignoramus I have ever had the
pleasure of meeting. When I was hired, he looked at the application form I had filled out
and proceeded to make unabashed fun of the fact that I did not know my own street address.
Only problem was, I had properly filled out my address, but he was looking instead at the
section that said, “MANAGER USE ONLY.” I spent a couple of minutes slowly trying
to explain this to him, and he finally answered with a, “Well, I hope you can change
oil better than you can write your own damn address, boy.” John was that kind of guy,
and Valvoline was that kind of place.
Bob, 42, was the slightly less ignorant assistant manager. I was very impressionable at
the young age of seventeen, and much like Socrates taught Plato, Bob taught me. He
explained to me his revelations that since men have two testicles, and women have two
breasts, women’s breasts should be called “breasticles.” He also employed
the question-and-answer method:
Me: Does anybody know who won the game last night?
Bob: Does anybody give a flying fuck?
Me: Hmm…no…I-I guess not.
Bob: Damn fuckin’ straight.
Jeremy posed a striking resemblance to Kid Rock, both in appearance and overall demeanor.
He scared me more than anyone else, probably because he was only three years older than I
was and already had a wife and daughter. His favorite topic of conversation was the
marijuana plant that grew in a pot right outside the store’s garage door. When he got
tired of talking about that, he went into careful detail with me over the virtues of
running away from home and starting a family as quickly as possible.
And then there was Joe. Joe didn’t like to talk much. He was a 27-year-old guy, but
looked more like a 17-year old woman. It was sad, really…he was a large man, and big
tits came with the territory (he was called “ma’am” by more than one
customer). He got rides from his mother, and never had a problem working for ten hours a
day, seven days a week, for months on end. I couldn’t bear to spend too much time
around him, much in the same way I can’t bear to watch “Feed the Children”
commercials. Too damn depressing.
A few things about my experience at Valvoline stand out in my memory. A middle school bus
made a stop outside our store every school day, and I would sit with John and Bob as they
watched in amusement. Some days, they would lament that there was “not a looker among
‘em,” while sometimes their eyes would feast upon a particular middle schooler.
“She seems about your age, Jon,” they would say to me. Horrified, I threw every
bit of logic and morality I could at them, though I knew it was no use. When I pointed out
that she was a full five years younger than me and not fully matured, they replied,
“Aw, I bet you could mature her up real good and fast.” They then laughed
perversely as I tried to think about something else.
One of my all-time favorite stories is set in that store. One afternoon, my friend and I
were in one of the bays below a car. We had spent five minutes trying to loosen an oil
filter, but couldn’t reach it well enough. Finally, John decided to help us out by
popping the hood and reaching down with his metal band wrench. We watched from below as he
thrust his hand down towards the filter. Problem was, he managed to scrape the wrench
against the starter, sending sparks. He quickly jerked back, then proceeded to thrust the
wrench in the exact same place. This time, more sparks flew, and a flame erupted in the
engine. The two of us watched in horror as a standing fire raged on the surface of the oil
tank about two feet above our heads. Quickly, John whipped it out with a towel, and as a
result, I am alive today. I don’t like the idea that a man of John’s qualities
is responsible for saving my life, but it helps somewhat that he was the one who put it in
jeopardy in the first place.
Since I left Valvoline, I have made it a point not to return there to have my oil changed,
and you should probably do the same. If the above hasn’t convinced you, know this:
While the fire was raging in the engine, the owner of the car was sitting inside it,
completely oblivious. He was never told.
Job #3: Target
Working at Target was a lot like receiving first-degree burns, then jumping in a swimming
pool full of salt water – you like it at the time, but in retrospect you realize just
how terrible an experience it was.
My official job title was “sales associate,” meaning I was to help people who
needed help and take care of my assigned section of the store. But nobody really told me
this; I just sort of figured it our on my own. On my first day, I spent several minutes
walking around the store in search of a manager on duty. I finally found one, and he told
me to look for Mike.
So I looked around for a few more minutes, but no Mike was to be found. Not knowing what
else to do, I spent about an hour loitering, until Mike finally showed up.
He stretched out his hand. “Hey,” he said with an outstretched hand.
“I’m Mike Hunt.”
I almost threw away my career at Target then and there, as I struggled to keep from
bursting out in laughter. I felt bad for the guy; he must have been asked many times
throughout his life if a man can truly be his own cunt. But I managed to pull myself
together, only to hear him say, “Listen, I’m clocking out now. You’re going
to have to ask Patti what to do.”
Let me explain something about Patti. She was crazy, and I don’t mean that in the
“she’s just a free spirit” kind of crazy. She was BATSHIT INSANE. When she
first met me, she asked why I never straightened the shelves in Housewares last night like
I promised. Though I already had the impression that it would do no good, I explained to
her that it was my first day and that I had never met her before. She grew furious at
these allegations, and banished me to the Health & Beauty section of the store, with
three words of instructions: “Straighten it up.”
Now let me explain something about the Health & Beauty section. It’s the second
most dreaded section of the store. It’s quite difficult for a man to retain any
vestige of heterosexuality while painstakingly organizing makeup supplies, which was
probably the reason it was often left in a state of disarray. I was halfway tempted to
skip this aisle, but decided against it because I wanted to make a good impression. It
took me about half an hour to straighten it up completely. Upon completion, Patti bitched
me out again, because as everyone knows, I was supposed to straighten the diapers first,
which were ten aisles down.
I imagined that at some point in my career I would face an underhanded conspiracy bent
upon my destruction, but I figured that wouldn’t happen until I became dictator of a
rogue nation. And I imagined the conspirators to be affluent, sinister men in expensive
suits. Indeed, fiction is stranger than the truth, as they say.
Patti, as it turned out, was only second in the Hierarchy of Psychotic Bitches. The throne
belonged to another Patti, who we differentiated from the former Patti by referring to the
latter as “It’s Pat.” It was quite fitting to her appearance, actually. I
often heard them talking in hushed tones in the back room, but they must have known I
heard them, because they always managed to hide their voodoo dolls and witch’s brooms
before I could catch them.
One fateful day, I was assigned to work under It’s Pat for an eight-hour shift. She
was as cold as the concrete sewers from which she likely spawned, as I found out in a
hurry. Immediately she barked out her orders, and checked on me every five minutes to tell
me how and why I was screwing up.
Hours passed, and I had to use the restroom. I called It’s Pat on the walkie-talkies
we all carried, but heard no response. After multiple attempts, I relegated emergency
decisions to my bladder, which ordered me to make a beeline for the toilet. I walked
through the main aisle, and just as I neared the restroom door, I heard a crackling over
the walkie-talkie:
“Jon, where do you think you’re going?”
I cringed. There were about thirty employees in the store at the time, and every one of
them carried a walkie-talkie. I was immediately labeled a no-good loafer by every
supervisor. Turns out It’s Pat was watching me the whole time from the other end of
the aisle, waiting for the moment I neared the restroom to say anything. It’s Pat
walked up to me and took the liberty of explaining to me that I was not to ever visit the
restroom without her knowledge. I couldn’t help but recall the scene in The Shawshank
Redemption in which Red gets scoffed at after asking to use the restroom.
“You’re not in prison anymore,” says his manager. “You don’t have
to ask. You’re a grown man.”
Restroom break, boss?
Target was the only job that I’ve ever walked out on without giving proper notice. I
did so with hatred in my heart, and to this day my only regret is that I can’t put my
employment there on my resume. There are many other contributing factors that are too
boring and time-consuming to get into, so I’ll just rip off a classic movie for the
second time and let it tell the story.
In August 2001, I escaped from Target. All they found of me was a muddy set of uniform
clothes, and an old rock-hammer damn near worn down to the nub.
I guess it came down to a simple choice, really:
Get busy living…
…or get busy dying.
In black: Target supervisors. Not pictured: a shred of
dignity.
- Jon
Jon@progressiveboink.com
AIM: Boiskov