Zel-kun’s Words

Yes, that’s right folks, it’s time for another “Tale of Retail.”

I was working in Electronics at the time, wearing an ugly blue vest they insisted was called a ’smock,’ and had only been there a few months.  If memory serves, this was even before I made friends with Pete.  That seems like a long, long time ago.

I had finished ringing a customer out when the sirens began blaring and the emergency lights started flashing.  It was the fire alarm.  At this time, I instructed the customers in the department to go to nearest exit.  It seems like a simple enough concept, when the alarm goes off, you leave the building.  In school, we had fire drills every now and again, and it was always the same:  Hear the alarm, then leave.

But, as I found out, seems that some people weren’t paying attention in school.

After evacuating the department, I was asked to do a quick walk of the floor to make sure that there were no stragglers.  And sure enough… at least half of the people were just ignoring the alarm.  Most made their way to the front of the store when I asked them, some people outright refused until I assured them it wasn’t a drill.

I have shopped at many stores, and I have spent half a decade working in them, and there has NEVER been a fire drill.  Doesn’t make sense, why would you clear out your store?  The people you drill that day won’t be the same people there should a real fire break out, it’s pointless.

So we treated it as a real fire.  I can’t remember if there was a small fire somewhere or not, but the real point is that there COULD have been.  There was an older woman shopping, could have been about fifty or so, and I asked her to leave.  She agreed, walked four steps, and began looking at the shelves again.  This repeats four times until she finally shouts at me, “I need to buy food for my cat!”

Have we really fallen this far, people?  Do we have no survival instinct left?  People spend time formulating escape and evacuation plans so when a disaster happens, we’re prepared.  And what do we do?  We ignore them.  If someone tells you to evacuate a building, it’s probably not because they want to mess with you.

After telling her that she might be in danger, she finally acquiesced and left the building.  We stood in the parking lot for several minutes until they finally let us back inside.  Not sure what happened, but if I were to guess, I’d say someone pulled the alarm to be funny.  But if it had been a serious fire, many would have died from their own stupidity.

Zel-kun out.

I had completely forgotten about this until last night as I lie awake in bed (as I sometimes do), but there was a time I went to Amish lands.  Not only that, but I went there when I was working for Wal-Mart.

I was working in Electronics one day probably one of my last days there before being transferred to a cashier’s position.  By my calculations, this was September of 2003.  I was driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass, and was about to start my third year of college.  I had loads of debt, and a Compaq computer that broke on a daily basis, and I couldn’t fix.

Life was grand.

The store manager asked if I wanted to volunteer for a store remodel, with a high probability of overtime (That’s $10 an hour, oh rapture!).  As broke as I was, I leapt at the chance, especially since they’d pay mileage to and from the location, and put me up in a hotel.  It was a chance to get out from under my father’s roof for a couple days, some semblance of independence.  So they gave me directions and told me to leave that night.

I gassed up the car, packed some clothes, and set off.  It was near South Bend, a few hours drive, and it stormed most of the way.  When I left the expressway, I descended into total darkness.  Unknown to me, the entire region had suffered a massive blackout.  So, as I drove down what I thought was a country road, I nearly collided with another car.

I was going sixty miles an hour, and I look to my right in just enough time to see another car barreling towards me.  We both slam on our brakes and swerve, spinning around and nearly hitting opposite corners of what I can now see is a large intersection.  When I focus into the headlight beam I can see I’m actually in the downtown area of some nameless town, a line of dead traffic lights suspended above me (its important to note that outside of the headlight beams, nothing is visible, its pitch black out).  The other car drives slowly off, seemingly as shocked as I was.  I finally resume my trip, with a lot more caution.

Finally, at almost 10:00pm exactly, I pull up in front of the foreign Wal-Mart, and meet the rest of the crew standing in front of the building, awaiting instructions.  We are divided into several smaller groups, and given whatever tasks.  I honestly don’t remember most of the work, but it wasn’t particularly bad.  Building some shelves, stacking shelves, hooking wheels onto shelves for transport, lots of shelves, really.

It was strange that while I was working, I spot an Amish couple walking by.  They were wearing Amish clothes, the man in his hat and the woman in her bonnet.  It was oddly surreal to see them against the backdrop of bright blue signage proclaiming low prices for electronics.

Lunch is half an hour long, being as there’s no real point for a longer lunch.  There’s nothing around the store that’s open at night, so our lunch is whatever we could pick out at the food section.  My lunch was vanilla pudding and chocolate milk.  In hindsight, it wasn’t the smartest lunch choice I’ve made.  I was queasy the rest of the night.

Finally, at 9:00 in the morning, it is time to go to our hotel.  The large group stands there at the front desk, asking for the rooms Wal-Mart has booked.

Guess what?

Wal-Mart never booked the rooms.

So here we are all standing in the lobby while one of us calls up some representative of Wal-Mart to ask them why the hell we don’t have rooms.  I have been awake since 7:00am yesterday and have worked a total of seventeen hours.  And now there’s the possibility I don’t have a place to sleep.  Nice.  Way to go, Wal-Mart.

So after about forty minutes, things get cleared up and we get rooms, anywhere from two to four people a room.  I was lucky enough to only have to bunk with one other person.  And also lucky that he spent most of his time out drinking.  I passed out on the twin bed and woke up with enough time to get back to work.

While walking to the store, I see a few horse and carriages go by, and see them parked in the parking lots like cars, the horses carelessly crapping away as they stood.  Some carriages were in front of Subway, which seemed very strange to me.  The thought of an Amish man eating a Chicken Bacon Ranch sub makes me laugh.

I took a glimpse inside one of the carriages, and saw a plastic cup-holder with a half-full bottle of Pepsi.  The thought of an Amish man raising a bottle of Pepsi to his lips is even funnier.

Not that I have anything against the Amish, its just a funny thought is all.

The thought that I felt I needed a CYA remark against people who would likely never read a page on the internet makes me laugh.

This continued for a week, and finally it was the weekend, and we were to go home for a couple days.  After getting home, I was exhausted.  I felt like I hadn’t stopped working for a week.  I called the store manager and lied, saying my car was giving me troubles, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking it out for another long drive.  I did not return to Amish Country.

On the plus side, between the travel money and the overtime, I made about a month’s pay in a week, so that’s a good thing.

Zel-kun out.

Unlike my other ‘Tales of Retail’ this one did not happen to me.  Rather, I had the displeasure of witnessing it today while on lunch.  It reminded me of the bad customers I sometimes got, who felt they were perfect and infallable, and that the lowly minimum wage worker was below their concern, and unworthy of any amount of respect.

I’m not sure what causes this behavior, even as a child, I showed fast-food workers respect, I said please and thank you to my servers, and I always said ‘excuse me for a moment’ when I wanted their attention.  It was the way I was brought up… but I guess not everyone feels they should have manners.

On to the story…

I’m sitting there at Subway, eating a sandwich that has bologna on it, even though I could swear the BMT did not come with bologna.  No big deal, its edible.  They have a TV which is showing the most bizarre soap opera I’ve ever seen.  One minute its random soap opera stuff, and the next, a little girl in a dress waves around what looks to be a dead rat and encases two guards in cotton candy.

“…wheat bread.  I SAID WHEAT BREAD!” my train of thought is derailed by a woman practically screaming in my ear.  My seat is right next to the line, where a squat woman in a sheer floral dress and sweatpants is standing, tapping her foot impatiently.

The people behind the counter as of Eastern descent, I would guess Indian, and not the most fluent in English.  They understand well enough, but you need to speak clearly.  I would think this woman, who was hispanic and spoke with an accent, would have a bit more patience with people not understanding.

She continued to berate the poor kid behind the counter, telling him to slice the bread a certain way, to toast the bread for a certain amount of time, and to pick out the most thin slices of tomato and cucumber, all the while shouting if the boy (who was getting visibly shaky) didn’t do exactly as she instructed.

I ended up leaving before she finished ordering her sandwich, which says something because she walked in about ten minutes before I finished eating.  As I was filling my drink for the final time, she started shouting about mayonaisse.  She said mayo, and apparently he reached for something that wasn’t mayo, maybe the ranch (looks similar) or the oil (sounds similar), and she had a field day with him.  I don’t blame him, the more frazzled you get by people screaming at you, the more likely you are to slip up.

“No, mayo!  I said mayo!  Does that look like mayo to you?!”  She demanded.

I didn’t hear his full response, “I’m sorry, I thought you said….”

“No I did NOT!  Thank you very much!  You reach for the mayo and get me my mayo!  God, what is wrong with you?!”

Keep in mind that the whole place is pretty small, and there were only a nine people or so including myself there, she was making quite a scene for the whole shop.

So, I say this as a message to everyone out there:

Calm the hell down.

Just because they wear paper hats and make minimum wage, does not give you some sort of divine right to treat them like dirt.

Zel-kun out.

I woke up today, and for some unknown reason, I felt like wearing khakis.  I used to wear khakis every single day of my existence.  When I worked at Wal-Mart, it was either khakis or dress slacks.  This was, of course, so when you had to get on your hands and knees stocking or cleaning, you at least had on some good pants.

I never understood Wal-Mart’s hatred of jeans.  Like it was the most disrespectful thing to wear them.  I can imagine all the customers ridiculing me for wearing jeans:

“Oh my god!?  Are… are those JEANS?!  What are you thinking?  I have my children here, what will they think?!  You strutting around in your denim like some crack dealer!  You should be ashamed!”

Or maybe they thought that customers wouldn’t recognize us, like it was part of the uniform:

“Excuse me, do you… oh sorry.  I saw the bright blue vest with Wal-Mart written on it in blindingly white letters and thought you worked here, but then I saw your jeans.  Let me go find someone that works here.”

And they were mean about it.  A year goes by, and I wear khakis each and every day, and one day, I find my only clean pair had a nice big rip down the seam.  So I could either go to work in dirty pants, or I could wear my jeans.  I get stopped on MY WAY IN by a manager:

“Tell me why I shouldn’t send you home right now.”

“My khakis were ripped and dirty, and I’m the only one in Electronics tonight?”

“All right, but you’re getting a coaching later.”

I’m pretty sure the owner of Wal-Mart has a denim phobia.

Anyway…

I felt like wearing khakis.  I think because they ARE comfortable and I’m working in an office environment, maybe I switch it up from my jeans every now and again.  I realize that this is the first time this year I’ve worn them, because I discover a fundamental flaw in khaki pants.

There’s no watch pocket.

You see, jeans and dress slacks have a special place in the front pocket for a pocket watch.  That little mini pocket inside the pocket?  Yeah, that’s made for pocket watches.  Khakis feel they’re too good to have this, so I have nowhere for my watch.

This works out well enough, I figure I’d give my pocket watch the day off and put on my wristwatch, which I USED to wear constantly.  And it has been bugging me all day.  The extra weight on my wrist, the sound it makes as it touches the desk as I type, its annoying.  Well, guess I’ll get used to it, or I’ll just burn the damn khakis.

The year was 2004.

The town was Merrillville.

Or Hobart, depending on who you ask.

The place was Wal-Mart.

I used to work in electronics, it was what I knew, and I liked to think I was good at it.  Unfortunately, the sea of backstabbing had finally taken its toll on me, and with a swift strike of the knife, I found myself removed from electronics.  Away from video game systems I have personally dismantled and reassembled to clean and repair, away from computers that I could actually use without a manual, taken away was the last hope customers had of getting any useful information out of that department.  They were left with a manager who has, on more than one occasion, put gamecube games in the playstation case because, “It doesn’t make a difference.”

I was then given the most mind-numbing job I’ve ever had the displeasure of accepting a dollar for.  I was made a cashier.  For eight hours a day, I swiped various products across a scanner.  I called for price checks, and I stood in one place, the constant *beep beep beep* echoing in my ears, each time announcing the death of another one of my brain cells.

I had no real break from it.  Every minute of my day was catalogued by ‘Customer Service Managers’, and if I was even one mnute late from my fifteen minute break (the time of which was written in stone), I would hear about it.  Paul (a friend of mine I met at Wal-Mart, and who remains one of my best friends to this day) had quit, and Pete had moved to Ohio, so I didn’t have any friends left there.

My one solace?  Reading.

I had finished reading ‘Song of Susannah’ by Stephen King, which was the second to last book in the ‘Dark Tower’ series.  I had been reading the ‘Dark Tower’ since I was a sophomore in high school, and to this day, remains one of the best series of books I’ve ever read.

The thing about ‘Dark Tower’ is that characters and events from Stephen King’s other books would be mentioned, and being the bookworm I am, I made it a point to pick up those other books.  Eventually I picked up ‘Salem’s Lot’, which sat next to nearly every other King book on my father’s bookshelf.  It was a well-worn hardcover, printed sometime in the eighties, with a young King on the back of the sleeve.  Along with the leather portfolio I carried everywhere, I carried this book to work, to read during my breaks.

After a day or so of this, the manager pulls me aside to talk to me, and asks what I keep stashing behind my register every time I come back from break.

“Oh, just this book I’ve been reading,” I hold it up.

“Yeah, you should leave that at home.”  He said.

I tried to jump back, but it was too late, I didn’t see the giant wave of stupidity coming towards me, and now I was soaked in it.  “Why?  Its just a book I read on my breaks.  That’s not against the rules.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be having it by the register.”

“Well… you only give women lockers for their possessions, so I really don’t have a choice.”

“You could keep it in your car,” he says.

“You make us park in the back of the lot, a round trip takes ten minutes.  My break would be over before it began.  Why can’t I just keep it here?”

“How can we be sure you didn’t steal it?”

I am stunned, I have no response for that that wouldn’t get me fired.  Because it is completely within the realm of possibliilty that I stole a hardcover book printed in the eighties from Wal-Mart, even though the expansive book section of one half aisle doesn’t carry ANY hardcovers, or any paperback copies of Salem’s Lot.

“Because I didn’t.  I just want to read a book I brought from home on my breaks.”

“Leave it the car, make sure it doesn’t happen again,” and with that he walked away.

Despite the dire warnings, I did not heed.  I continued to bring the book to work.  I must have been pretty pompous, I must have thought I was an adult or something.

Oddly enough, I never heard anything else on the matter again.  I’d like to think the other managers just laughed at my manager when he told them of how I might have stolen a book printed decades ago.

I’d like to hope that maybe… just maybe, there was still, tucked away deep inside, there was some intelligent life in that place.

Zel-kun out.

Working in electronics.  I did it once, and I’ll never do it again.  Strange thing is, I LIKED selling electronics.  I liked offering sound advice on computers, sound systems, video games, and televisions.  There’s nothing quite like seeing someone come in, intimidated by technology they’re unfamiliar with, and leaving with just a bit of understanding.

Its a good job that deserves to be done well, and if deserving of respect.  It truly is a sad thing that the lowly salesman does not get this respect.

The idiot customers that came in from time to time I can deal with.  Some of the more angry ones are actually pretty entertaining.  Its when the idiocy strikes you from your managerial staff, the people who are supposed to be in charge, picked because they supposedly have more knowledge, more skill, more charisma, that things can get pretty frustrating.

When the department manager of electronics doesn’t understand what a video game console is, and doesn’t understand why a Playstation game isn’t the same as a GameCube game, there’s a problem.

When the department manager doesn’t realize that the DVD release of Spiderman on a Friday wouldn’t generate a higher volume of customers, there’s a problem.

The management seemed to walk around with ther heads up their ass all the time.  They really seemed to have no idea what was going on.  And they covered for this lack of knowledge by abusing and undermining their staff as much as possible.

Example:

It was a late night, about a quarter after 1:00am.  I was scheduled until 11:00, but stayed to clean up the electronics department, by myself.  I lurched towards the front doors, which were locked, and I motion over the nearby manager.

“Could you let me out?”  I ask.

“Why?”  He replies, as if its an abnormal thing for employees to leave after their shift is over.

“Because its time to go.”

“The store isn’t clean yet,” says the manager who had, until a moment ago, been doing absolutely nothing, just sitting by the front door.

“My department is clean.”

“But there are other departments you could clean, like toys.”

“What happened to the three people who were working toys?”

“They were here until close, so they left.”  He said.

I had finally had it by this time, “So the people responsible for the department left when they were supposed to, and I, although I have already stayed over two hours past my shift to clean my department, am expected to pick up after them?”

He was silent, he knew I called his bluff, and knew he had nothing else to say about it, “I’ll let you go, but don’t let it happen again.”

“Uh… okay.”  And I left.

They pulled stuff of the like all the time.  And people were expected to roll over and take it.

And I wondered why the managers didn’t seem to like me too much.

Zel-kun out.

Before I had the misfortune of working for Wal-Mart, I managed to land a job as an engraver for Things Remembered, back when I was still in high school.  This job had me working in a technical capacity and did not truly expose me to the idiocy of the general public.  It also helped that most of the patrons were of upper-middle class or higher: managers, executive, doctors, lawyers.  This meant that while I usually didn’t need to worry about slipping and falling into a sticky vat of stupid, I still had to walk on eggs around these people, lest some arrogance get splashed on me.

Unlike stupid, which sticks to you and even after freeing yourself, you can still feel the sticky residue for the rest of the day (like maple syrup, really), arrogance is caustic.  Arrogance is like a small jar of acid each of these people carry around with them, and if you’re unfortunate enough, they’ll take the lid off and throw it in your face.  And while it sears your flesh, marring your once good looks as each individual skin cell writhes in agony, you must look at your attacker and smile.

To give a basic example, let’s say that there is a Zippo lighter being engraved.  Your typical, brushed-finish stainless steel lighter.  To engrave something, you take a diamond-tipped stylus and program the engraving into the computer.  You then execute the program and the machine goes to work.  Now, there’s many variables to consider: force, type of tip, passes, and material to be engraved.  Each of these walks the fine line between the customer leaving happy, or you going home looking like Two-face.

The engraving can be too bold, not bold enough, too deep, not deep enough (yes, there’s a difference between boldness and depth), too big, or too small.  The problem being is that all those factors are relative.  So even with what is, by the book, a perfect engraving, you still take the chance of having a very angry doctor scowling at you because he feels his pen’s engraving is a quarter of a millimeter too large.

Now, I tell you that story to tell you this story.  Whenever we engraved a lighter, it was common courtesy to fill it.  So I take the top of the lighter off, and squirt some of the fluid inside.  I reassemble the lighter and notice I got a little bit on my hand.  So I take a paper towel and dry it off.

Now… I have posted stupid stories here before.  But this is the first time I did the dumb deed myself.

You see, apparently wiping lighter fluid off one’s hand still leaves a residue.  This was information I did not know at the time.  This would very likely have been useful information to know.  I spin the wheel of the lighter, which grinds against the flint, sending sparks to the fluid-soaked wick.  The wick lights up as it should, and so does my hand.  My hand is now on fire.  In slow motion, I look at my hand encased in flame, glance at the customer who’s now looking at me in wide-eyed disbelief, close the lighter, and proceed to whip my hand about, hoping the wind would put the flame out.  To my luck (and likely the fact that there was only a residue of fluid which likely wouldn’t have burned for more than a couple seconds anyhow), the flame goes out.  The truly odd thing is the seemingly calm air I had about me at the time, like setting my hand on fire was an everyday occurance.

“Burn your hand often?” the customer asked once the flame was out.

“Only when I feel the need to make my day more exciting.” I respond.

Apparently, as I’ve learned since then, it is somewhat common practice for pyromaniacs and teenagers stoned out of their damn minds to douse their hands in lighter fluid and set it aflame, because the fluid will burn and not your hand.  And I thought I was dumb for setting my hand on fire.

Zel-kun out.

When you work at a Wal-Mart, especially a Wal-Mart in such a… unique location as Merrillville (or Hobart, depending on who you talk to), the customers are a very special sort.  You can view them much as a nature show host might view a pack of hominid apes from behind the bushes.  They are indeed strikingly human, but share a completely different set of rules than us humans.  What follows are some of my observations of these strange creatures, and the strange way their tribal codes and laws work.

Observation One:

I stood by the video game case, as I had a tendency to do, telling the customers about the various games.  I usually speak to the parents, as the younger children want nothing to do with the strange blue-vested man towering over them.  The most common question I get is, “What kind of game would be good for my son/daughter?”

This question is fair enough, I can respect this question.  Honestly, that’s more concern about their children’s hobbies than my parents have shown.  So I answer this question the way I often did, by recommending RPG’s.  Why do I recommend such games, you ask?  One reason, obviously, is that I myself enjoy them.  The other, I tell to the customer.

 ”This game here (likely something like Legend of Legaia or Tales of Destiny, some of the more wholesome games with an E rating) is nice because it focuses on plot and character development, rather than mindless killing.  The violence level is very low, and most of the themes are pretty wholesome.  Also, one nice thing is there’s lots of dialogue that your son will read throughout the game, developing his vocabulary and reading skills.  (which isn’t a lie, I would say I have RPG’s to thank for getting me into literature)”

“So, what’s this game about?” The customer asks, tilting her head in an intrigued manner, not entirely unlike my dog watching the radio.

“Well, you’re a young boy from this village who goes out on a journey, meeting new friends along the way.  You develop your skills and cast magic and gain new powers, its a lot of fun.”

“Magic… naw, my son ain’t havin’ nothin’ like that.  He been talkin’ about that Grand Thef (no T, its too much effort to pronounce the T on the end) Auto, go ahead and gimme that.”

Yep, magic is evil.  Killing cops, banging prostitutes, and running drugs is perfectly fine for children.

Observation Two:

In human society, it is considered polite to clean up after yourself or inform someone of a mess you have made.  Customers, on the other hand, have a different approach.  I spot a woman leading her daughter along, the daughter almost screaming, “I don’t feel good, I feel sick!  I want to go home!”  The mother obviously doesn’t care, as shopping is more important.

The two turn the corner and leave my sight, and I go about my business trying to explain to a customer that I don’t have software for a computer as old as his.  (he had Windows ‘95)  Which of course, makes him start yelling, the foul stench of old onions wafting over me, “I dun’ know where you wuz raised, but you dun’ tell a customer they have a computer tha’s too old!”

He threatened to go to my manager, which honestly didn’t scare me.  But I patronized him all the same, it was my job, after all.  After several minutes, I sent him on his way with a copy of some game, which I assured him won’t work, but he bought anyway.  I was sure I’d see him at the returns desk soon.

I go to the back aisle of the department, making my patrol of the department, and nearly slip and fall on the largest puddle of vomit I’ve seen in awhile, with a few cart tracks running through it.  Obviously if you see vomit you should walk right through it.

So I call maintenence and wait.  I am then told by management that there is no maintenence crew and I need to clean up the vomit myself.  I shake my head and decline their offer.

“But there’s no maintenence tonight,” the manager reaffrims.

“Well, I won’t clean up vomit.  You pay maintenence more than you pay me because they do things like that.”  I replied, and of course, I was right.  There’s a reason managers there didn’t like me, I always refused to be stepped on.  It was only a matter of minutes before the manager suckered some cashier to cleaning it up.  I always wondered what would happen if everyone refused, that maybe, just MAYBE, I’d see a manager on his hands and knees wiping up vomit.

Observation Three:

In human society, it is considered taboo to evacuate one’s bladder or bowels in public.  We have gone so far as to build special rooms in every single building where such an act can be done privately.  I notice that such is not the case among the wild customers.  Unfortunately, (or rather, very fortunately) I was not there to witness this particular curiosity.  But a co-worker of mine at the time gives this account (which I am re-creating from memory):

“I was standing there in the pet aisle, talking to an older woman, perhaps around forty.  I was showing her various filters and such that could be used to extend the life of her fish.  While we are talking, I make the mistake of turning my back to her.  A few moments later, I turn back and see her squatting over a fishbowl taken off the shelf, her dress hiked up, urinating into the bowl.  She then takes the filled bowl and dumps it into the nearby sink we use to fill the aquariums, rinses it out, and places it on the shelf, then continues to talk to me like nothing out of the ordinary happened.”

Yes… strange creatures indeed.  I am glad to hang up my binoculars and pith helmet and cease my studies of them.

Zel-kun out.

When I was working in retail, I owned a PDA. More specifically, I owned an HP iPAQ. For those who don’t know, the Pocket PC is one of the most versatile and easy to use devices I’ve ever owned. It runs on a pocket Windows OS, and has pocket versions of Word, Excel, and Outlook. The files could, of course, be transferred from PDA to PC very easily. And with a console emulator, Nevo, and iSilo, it has proven very entertaining.

Now, what does this have to do with retail?

When I worked at Wal-Mart, I was surrounded by stupid people, and invariably, stupid methods of doing things. Specifically, I always had to deal with two problems. Two problems which I could solve with my little PDA.

1. Every single time a customer wanted a large device (computer, television, etc), an associate would have to go in the back, look around, and see if it was in stock. This took about 5-10 minutes on average, because the stockroom was arranged by retards. *ahem* Sorry, managers. Same difference. This also held true if the customer wanted to know the dimesnsions of a television or the specs of a computer. I would guess at least a couple hours a day were wasted on such stupidity.

The solution: Use Excel to create a spreadsheet of prices, dimensions, specs, and stock, and spend 10 min at the beginning of each day updating it.

2. There are some thirty televisions in the department as displays. Only two channels come in, a music preview channel and a movie preview channel. The problem being that every dipstick that passes the display hits the channel button. In a couple hours, half the televisions have no picture, and the wonderful sound of snow fills the department.

The solution: Use my PDA’s Nevo program, a program to send encoded infrared signals (basically, a uiniversal remote program). Because the remotes for the televisions vanish after the first day, I acessed the menu and locked out every channel but the two that came in.

There you have it. Simple, no? I used my ingenuity to solve to prevelant problems in the department. Obviously, one’s individual effort is merited, right? If you believe this, you fail to grasp one very important fact: At Wal-Mart, I was adrift in a sea of idiocy. I was holding a small electronic device, so obviously, it was a gameboy, and my co-workers complained. I was called into the manager’s office and spoken to. I, of course, showed him the spreadsheets I created and explained my actions. I was dismissed without a thank you or even an apology. One would think it was over then… but no. Stupidity is persistant. As I’ve said before, its thick and viscous, and nearly impossible to get off once you find yourself immersed in it.

A week later, the tubes on one of the televisions blows out. The picutre is black, the television is broken. A logical man would look at the television and say, “Well, looks like the stress of being constantly on for a year blew the tube out.” Sadly, logic is a rare luxury at Wal-Mart.

The department retard… manager sorry. Came up to me and said one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. “We’re going to replace the television, don’t PDA the televisions, we don’t want them breaking.”

What? I’m sorry, even in my memory, I still doubt that I heard that. Such lunacy can’t actually exist, can it? We didn’t give a driver’s license and control of an electronics department to this woman, did we? I’ll even forget that she used ‘PDA’ as a verb. But somehow, I used my little magic device to blow up a television.

Now, you’d think it ended there, wouldn’t you? Oh no. I am then called into the manager’s office, and sat down. “So why did you break the television?” I should really have seen that coming, but I didn’t. My mind reeled, trying to grasp something, anything, sane in that statement. Of course, there was no sanity in the room, I was looked at with all the fairness given to defendents in the Salem and McCarthy trials. I could only explain what I had done, and it fell on deaf ears.

“You’re not working out in electronics, we’re going to put you in as a cashier.” Now, I’d like everyone to think on this statement a moment. Let it drill into your heads, let it echo in your consiousness. To further compound this, I’d like to give you the electronics roster as of that moment.

Mike - A complete dimwit. This isn’t uncommon except for he thinks he knows everything. I had to stop him from piggy-backing surge protectors on a number of occasions. For those who don’t know, this would have cause shorts and fires.

John - A wheelchair-bound… person. I have nothing against handicapped people, nothing. But he can’t reach many shelves or the register, he can’t lift anything, and he doesn’t know anything about electronics. So, basically, he fails at every aspect of the job.

April - Meh. Your average Wal-Mart drone. Been there for years, has a laugh that makes your stomach curdle. Refuses to lift anything at all, and knows nothing about electronics.

The Big H - I have no complaints about this guy, he belonged in the department as much as I did. Doesn’t know a whole lot about electronics, but is a freaking library of music. Which has proven very useful on a number of occasions. Also, he’s willing to lift and help with anything.

Nate - Knows next to nothing, and refuses to lift anything. Thinks there’s no difference between mono and hi-fi VCR’s.

Lucy the Manager - Doesn’t even know the difference between gaming consoles. Can’t grasp that PS2 games don’t work on the X-box, and has astounded me with stupid things she has said.

There you have it. Obviously, if only one person knows the specifics of the merchandise, he is the one that’s wrong. I still remember the look on Pete’s face when I told him. It was a look of astoundment, as he had just heard the dumbest thing ever. And working at Wal-Mart, that says a lot.

More tales to come, be assured.

Zel-kun out.

I am suddenly reminded of a very special moment when I worked at Wal-Mart, the place I commonly refer to as ‘The Cursed Land of Blue Vests.” And I say this with more heartfelt meaning than I say a lot of things. Wal-Mart is a cursed place, where damned souls wander aimlessly. I have talked with many of the ‘associates’ there (that’s what they’re called, associates), and fully half of them have a tale of woe that leaves them devastated and wearing the blue vest of shame. People that owned their own businesses, laid off mill workers (it may not seem glamorous, but mill workers make some nice dough), and still others that found themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit and lost everything.

Ironically enough, I’ve met some of my best friends while working there. Comraderie through shared misery, I suppose. It was also easy to make friends, because the people I wanted to associate with stuck out like sore thumbs. Wal-Mart is a bastion of ignorance, an intelligent person is extremely obvious.

This story is about a particular conversation with the Big H.

Bit of background on the Big H:

The Big H’s real name is John. But that’s my name, with an H added. So I started calling him the Big H, or H for short. H loves music, all music. He is an encyclopedia of music. If you name a song, he’ll tell you the band, the year it was made, and the album it premiered on. He’s also a very strange sort with an even stranger sense of humor. Naturally, we got along just fine.

I was connecting a television in electronics (which is where I worked), which meant I had my arm wedged behind an immovable plastic barrier, feeling around for the coaxial cable, power cable, and outlet. I was about ten feet in the air on a ladder, with my head behind the television. Usually, when I’m in the air, I have another associate on the ground, not really to hold the ladder, but to field questions. It doesn’t matter how high you are, or how occupied you may be, a customer will call out to you or tap you on the shoulder. Today, I had H at the bottom of the ladder.

I was fumbling around with the power cable, feeling around for the outlet that I knew was there. My arm twisted the wrong way and I dropped the cable. “Ah,” I said in irritation.

“You okay up there, didn’t get electrocuted, did you?” H asks.

“No, no. You’d know when I’m electrocuted. I’d probably say the same thing, but it’d be slightly more panicked and definitely louder.” It was at this moment that I found the power cable again, and unfortunately for me, one of the contacts found the outlet. Obviously, it was the contact my finger touched, sending a brief jolt of electricity through me in the instant is took me to remove my finger, “Ah!” I exclaimed.

“You mean like that?” He asks, feigning curiosity.

“Yes… like that,” I muttered.

It took at least ten minutes to get H to stop laughing.

Fun times.

Zel-kun out.