I've gotta laugh or I will cry about the corporate workplace...retail especially at this time of year.
Seriously, funny things are happening all of the time.
There are times when the load is overwhelming as pallets and piles of crap keep coming off of the truck. Pallets tipped over with broken bottles of maple syrup drenched cases.
Frozen aerosol paint cans exploding, spraying every which way. Televisions stacked atop crushed cases of goods. Smelling to high heaven,broken cases of pickles or vinegar all over the unsorted goods.
It is awesome!
Shorthanded,skeleton, backroom crews haul multitudes of stuff into each department of the store. This can only take place after throwing them onto conveyors then sorting and palletizing. Tedious, thankless but for the paycheck the work earns each choice individual.
Mostly decent, hardworking guys!
Ten...fifteen pallets stacked seven feet high brought to the departments which have the most brisk activity. Particularly housewares and electronics these days.
Corporate headquarters has sanctioned a new program.
Let go of uneccesary associates and eliminating excess payroll.
Overtime is prohibited.
Sanctioning includes setting so many cases per hour for each exhausted, remaining robotic associate. Nothing new...just fewer and fewer people to do it all.
This is happening every-over in current crisis economy.
Something called "Micro-Management!"
It is not funny or maybe it is...I am trying to see the humor in the lack of common sense with the status quo. The Bean Counters whom work in cubicle think tanks which never service the floor or customer. Having not a clue or working knowledge of the reality. Keeping eye on the bottom line. Greed.
So many more times than I can count, my load does not come out of the backroom until four hours after my shift begins. Then again, nearly half of the stuff is left buried in the backroom as the clock ticks away and backroom crews leave for the night...frustrated and disgusted for reasons of their own.
I go fetch my stuff, dig it out by moving various pallets in the way.
I pull what is recognizable out onto the floor and work on accounting for each piece of precious freight. The alchemy of turning discouragement and frustration into laughter and lighthearted joy seems impossible.
However, I am determined to see the humor in this.
Just as I have in past triumphs over much more discouraging things in my life.
There is more to life than this and I know it.
A reality show would be interesting here!
Each shift that I work, I go to my happy place...in my mind...my children and grandchildren, their antics and great love keep me in balance and moving forward.
Perspective, the way I see humor in these things is what is going to get me through.
Sometimes the laughter or smiles come hard.
Is my sense of humor becoming more twisted...perhaps.
It is my responsibility to keep watch over the electronics department.
Technology is an intriguing thing for me.
The rest is just fluff and filler.
Checking in the freight as it comes to the floor then wrapping anti-theft devices on pricey items. I begin "throwing" it on perspective shelves which are limited to a select few items.
Complicated multitasking with just one person to run the whole department.
Certainly, as busy as things get with frequent, insomniac customers shuffling through as I offer service with a smile from the salesfloor to the register.
Shoplifters, thieves and fraudulent check writers frequently try their dirty work.
The same dumb gang each week attempting to purchase thousands of dollars of merchandise with someone elses probably stolen ID. Perps telling me the person in the photo is their own only with huge weight loss, facelift, contacts, hairstyle, train wreck...you name it.
Some have even been so bold as to grab high dollar merchandise and dash out the front doors.
Crazy!
Another aspect of my job is answering various and sometimes annoying phone calls all night long. Often callers inquiring about anchovy flavored condoms, vaginal creams and adult diaper dillemas. The other night a guy called and said he was having sex with his girlfriend. I think he had to be really bored.
Another associate took the call and forwarded it to management. We laughed.
Multi-tasking includes paging management to pick up calls or go hither or thither.
Then again, there is the overwhelming frieght situation. I wonder why the powers that be ordered three times what was needed for the holiday rush?
So much of the merchandise is in lock up...in several rooms which cannot be accessed without a special "key" from management. Management is yet another tale as they rotate like a spinning top...often veering way off course.
I have decided that the only way to survive the holidays at work is to laugh at how ridiculous the whole idiotic business is with this type of business.
Too many managers in a frantic state of non-communication with one another...each interpreting what the store manager has written in his notes.
One of such dictating and accounting, clipboard and pen in hand while gritting her teeth.
Hopefully this person will learn better people skills along the way.
Poor thing would be better suited at a prison institution counting heads. Having run off more of our associates in a short amount of time than any other previous. Since her experience was derived from college and not from elbow grease. The hierarchy has recently put this person to work stocking shelves like the rest. Although, she more often than not stands around and watches. Or better yet, squalks on her walkie like a shreaking shrew. Claiming her mental condition limits certain abilities. Duh? Annoying and irritating.
Respect is earned by integrity and treating people right.
Since I care, perhaps what may seem as too much sometimes...sensitive people do.
I will keep on looking for the humor in this line of work or move on.
A sixty-something gentleman scoots a shopping cart about the aisles of the department.
First he asks for cheap earphones. I go and get him one set...he wants more than one...so I show him where they are. He politely asks about DVD/VCR combo...cheapest ones. I show him the least expensive and tell him about the options with such a device. He then goes on to tell me of his insomniac condition that has affected him since childhood. His face is rather smooth and gentle looking with slits of eyes that are barely visible due to flaps of eyelids that are just that, drooping, thin flaps of skin.
The man wants to talk. Although I am terribly busy with the time clock ticking and mountains of cases to sort and throw. I listen. He tells me that his insomnia has offered him what he considers notches on his life post. Apparently, while fighting in the jungles in some far away land in some awful war, he was responsible for offing more of the enemy at nightime during his watches than any other soldier. I think to myself about my own personal values and am thankful for the Catholic guilty concience somehow.
Since then, he says he still cannot sleep and I think I know why.
Then he tells me that he has worn out countless VCR machines and that is why he buys the cheapies. He watches movies and shows while everyone is asleep...keeps him out of trouble.
Then there are the homeless individuals whom when the weather dips below freezing come in from the cold and ride the shopping scooters all night long. Some fall asleep on the benches and we have to wake them up to get them on their way. So they wander around the store again...seeming to disapear, then venture to the rest room and fall asleep on a toilet seat.
Funny, well kindof!
