Post by Lantlas on Feb 6, 2007 23:45:57 GMT -5
"How Can I Help You"
Remember the day you turned thirteen-years-old, and you were allowed to go to the mall with your friends for the first time? No parents to interfere, dragging you through the Sears intimates section while all you wanted to do was hit the video game store? What a great day that was, and how majestic the mall seemed at that time. Not realizing that it was really a culmination of living in suburbia where everyone was so incredibly bored that the only thing to do was pace around the marble floors in between the overpriced racks of useless merchandise. Once you hit your eighteenth birthday, you either realized what a waste of time it was, still spent most of your time there, or you hated it with all your heart and soul… because you ended up working there.
…
My phone alarm woke me up on the forty-sixth try. I’ve always been a heavy sleeper, and in order to wake up for these God-awful morning shifts, it took setting my alarm in five-minute increments over the course of three hours to actually break my comatose-like state of passed-outness. It was either a lack of sleep or motivation; I really wasn’t sure which, nor did I have the attention span to read a five-page pamphlet to figure it out.
I pulled up the pair of khakis I’d owned since the ninth grade. I wasn’t sure if they were the color they were when I bought them. Likely not, given that the lack of a washing machine for the past few years, and being too lazy to walk to the Laundromat, resulted in the use of the kitchen sink and Pine Sol as a substitute. The clothes were lemony fresh, even if they did take six hours to dry.
Then, of course, the polo shirt. One of the many versions of the same exact shirt of the same exact color that I’d be wearing to the same exact place for the same exact shift for the same crap from the same people. It wasn’t such a bad gig. Many of the unenlightened people who believed the fake smile I tended to put on a majority of the time believed it was a dream job, and in all reality, I supposed I couldn’t complain. Though I got paid a mere six-fifty an hour, I got to stand around for eight hours and argue about the differences between widescreen and full screen movies with people who still couldn’t understand why VHS were fazed out.
Also, it was quite easy to know what’d be appearing on the store shelves soon, and not just because I had the release day sheet memorized. The trailer disc, oh the joys of the wonderful ten-minute-long repeating trailer disc… Hearing the same annoying commercials interluded by the same annoying trailer tapes for the next teeny bopper flick with the same plot and no talented actors that still somehow managed to gross fifty million in the box office, oh the joys of redundancy! They changed the trailer disc once a month, and since it was September 1st, finally some new material would bless my ears for the first few hours… of course, until three hours later when I would want to throw something at the screen for the next jovial idiot appearing there.
It wasn’t a long drive to our local mall. In comparison, it was more like a tiny strip plaza compared to some of the bigger city malls in Pennsylvania, but of the other local malls, it was the settlement. The other mall, some two miles away, was more for the old people taking their morning walks and the kids who had to sneak out and were afraid of walking the extra two miles to get to the mall to which they really wanted to go. The parking lot was empty, yet I rolled my eyes, knowing I’d have to park in the last row, because God forbid a customer would have to walk an extra five feet to get to the glass doors. Employee value, high as always!
Brian’s car was in the parking lot, and I chuckled a bit at his parkjob. His bright red Monte Carlo was in the spot reserved for expecting mothers. Between the movie store people and the game store people, it really took a combination of quirky qualities and an incredulous amount of patience to survive in the environment. If you don’t believe me, go to your local movie store and tell me those people are normal. Step inside the video game store and spend five seconds delineating if the fellows in there aren’t perhaps the lovable dorks of their particular group of friends.
Brian and I had been best friends since junior high, mainly for our abilities to see the blatantly stupid in everyday life, and remark about it in such a way that no one else would be offended. It’s no wonder we each ended up working in the line of our respective favorite hobbies, and we would always take every opportunity to share our stories that were so beyond the line of stupidity that you knew we couldn’t make them up. If there was a greatest thing about working in the mall, it would be for the pages and archives of stories you would get from observing your superiors, talking to customers, and figuring out how truly mindnumbing the world of retail can be. It’s a life, what can I say?
The game store was three down from the movie store, with the game store being closer to the door. As I rolled in to the mall to open the store, I stopped near the still-closed gate to GameXPress. “Excuse me sir, what time do you open?”
A black head of hair popped over one of the shelves. “When the gates are open, and that bright neon sign right above your head is shining that magic four letter word. Until then, journey on.” His chuckle following his satire provided me with the comfort of knowing that he’d still recognize my attempts to annoy him with repeating some of the overheard clichés of the retail world.
The process of opening the store was always the same… Stocking and straightening the shelves, even though the idiot who closed was supposed to do that… Putting in the registers, preparing the new releases, and of course, turning on the trailer tape. First selection on the new paid advertisement reel… drumroll please… Interview with Lindsay Lohan about her newest intricate, intelligent tribute to the academy of motion picture arts… or something like that.
“Alex, how’s it going buddy?”
My manager, with that ever-so chipper tone to his voice… I secretly hated him for his ability to not only be conscious in the morning, but to have a decaffeinated energy rush as he did. “What’s up, boss?”
“All right, first day of the month, pretty much the same game plan… Push the store loyalty program, and be sure you’re asking every single customer about it. Try to get as many reserves for the big titles upcoming as you can, and try to get some magazines as well.”
I hated trying to get people to subscribe to those magazines. No one was comfortable with giving away their credit card information to a movie store, and I wasn’t comfortable asking. I knew my status in management was jeopardized by my ridiculously low total of magazine sales, and I could only keep resubscribing myself so many times. Somehow, it made me wonder why people still came back to these stores. I hated badgering people, especially since they wanted us to follow along with a script, cause you know… Nothing says “personal customer service” like repeating the same five lines of constipated dialogue to every customer. However, it was part of doing my job, so naturally I’d only do it when someone important was watching.
I glanced at the clock… 10:15… Only another hour until my fifteen-minute break, in which Brian and I would usually meander to the Orange Julius stand and remark about the aura of the JCPenny’s girls. The untouchable, pristine beauties with the golden glow, never failed to turn a head or spark meaningless conversation with the poor guy who seemed to work that stand every single day.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I quickly scanned the store for the manager. I flipped up the lid, and put my ear to the receiver…
“When does the new Pixar movie come out?” Brian, up to his mid-morning shenanigans of course.
“Hey, your X-Box 360’s not worki…”
“We know,” he muttered.
“What’s up, bro?”
“First official retarded phone call of the day already!”
“Already? Wow, it’s early for that!”
“Yep. ‘Thank you for calling GameXPress, where you can buy and sell new and used games…’ ‘Do you guys take back used games?’”
“My head hurts,” I joked.
“Why do they bother making us say that?”
“To make us feel even dumber when they ask what we just told them,” I replied.
I saw the employees-only door opening, and I flipped off my phone just in time. “Alex?”
“Yes, Boss?”
“You weren’t on your cell phone, were you?”
“No, of course not.”
He disappeared back in the office. I felt my pocket vibrating again, but I had to ignore it as a man was standing outside, pondering entering the store. I saw the shadow cross the line, and knew it was time for the “friendly acknowledgement.”
“Hello sir, how are you doing today?”
“Yeah, do you guys sell movies?”
I stopped, and looked down at the ground. Finally, I looked back at him and pointed to the big five-foot neon yellow sign hanging from the ceiling reading ‘MOVIES ON SALE’. Embarrassed, he started to walk away and began scanning the shelves. As if trying to be subtle, he eventually made his way back to the animated porn section. My pocket vibrated one more time, but stopped after two. Text message.
“Lady wants a whole new Xbox 360 system because her display plate was broken. This is gonna be a fun day.”
“Amen, brother,” I laughed out loud. Everyday was fun in retail!
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Remember the day you turned thirteen-years-old, and you were allowed to go to the mall with your friends for the first time? No parents to interfere, dragging you through the Sears intimates section while all you wanted to do was hit the video game store? What a great day that was, and how majestic the mall seemed at that time. Not realizing that it was really a culmination of living in suburbia where everyone was so incredibly bored that the only thing to do was pace around the marble floors in between the overpriced racks of useless merchandise. Once you hit your eighteenth birthday, you either realized what a waste of time it was, still spent most of your time there, or you hated it with all your heart and soul… because you ended up working there.
…
My phone alarm woke me up on the forty-sixth try. I’ve always been a heavy sleeper, and in order to wake up for these God-awful morning shifts, it took setting my alarm in five-minute increments over the course of three hours to actually break my comatose-like state of passed-outness. It was either a lack of sleep or motivation; I really wasn’t sure which, nor did I have the attention span to read a five-page pamphlet to figure it out.
I pulled up the pair of khakis I’d owned since the ninth grade. I wasn’t sure if they were the color they were when I bought them. Likely not, given that the lack of a washing machine for the past few years, and being too lazy to walk to the Laundromat, resulted in the use of the kitchen sink and Pine Sol as a substitute. The clothes were lemony fresh, even if they did take six hours to dry.
Then, of course, the polo shirt. One of the many versions of the same exact shirt of the same exact color that I’d be wearing to the same exact place for the same exact shift for the same crap from the same people. It wasn’t such a bad gig. Many of the unenlightened people who believed the fake smile I tended to put on a majority of the time believed it was a dream job, and in all reality, I supposed I couldn’t complain. Though I got paid a mere six-fifty an hour, I got to stand around for eight hours and argue about the differences between widescreen and full screen movies with people who still couldn’t understand why VHS were fazed out.
Also, it was quite easy to know what’d be appearing on the store shelves soon, and not just because I had the release day sheet memorized. The trailer disc, oh the joys of the wonderful ten-minute-long repeating trailer disc… Hearing the same annoying commercials interluded by the same annoying trailer tapes for the next teeny bopper flick with the same plot and no talented actors that still somehow managed to gross fifty million in the box office, oh the joys of redundancy! They changed the trailer disc once a month, and since it was September 1st, finally some new material would bless my ears for the first few hours… of course, until three hours later when I would want to throw something at the screen for the next jovial idiot appearing there.
It wasn’t a long drive to our local mall. In comparison, it was more like a tiny strip plaza compared to some of the bigger city malls in Pennsylvania, but of the other local malls, it was the settlement. The other mall, some two miles away, was more for the old people taking their morning walks and the kids who had to sneak out and were afraid of walking the extra two miles to get to the mall to which they really wanted to go. The parking lot was empty, yet I rolled my eyes, knowing I’d have to park in the last row, because God forbid a customer would have to walk an extra five feet to get to the glass doors. Employee value, high as always!
Brian’s car was in the parking lot, and I chuckled a bit at his parkjob. His bright red Monte Carlo was in the spot reserved for expecting mothers. Between the movie store people and the game store people, it really took a combination of quirky qualities and an incredulous amount of patience to survive in the environment. If you don’t believe me, go to your local movie store and tell me those people are normal. Step inside the video game store and spend five seconds delineating if the fellows in there aren’t perhaps the lovable dorks of their particular group of friends.
Brian and I had been best friends since junior high, mainly for our abilities to see the blatantly stupid in everyday life, and remark about it in such a way that no one else would be offended. It’s no wonder we each ended up working in the line of our respective favorite hobbies, and we would always take every opportunity to share our stories that were so beyond the line of stupidity that you knew we couldn’t make them up. If there was a greatest thing about working in the mall, it would be for the pages and archives of stories you would get from observing your superiors, talking to customers, and figuring out how truly mindnumbing the world of retail can be. It’s a life, what can I say?
The game store was three down from the movie store, with the game store being closer to the door. As I rolled in to the mall to open the store, I stopped near the still-closed gate to GameXPress. “Excuse me sir, what time do you open?”
A black head of hair popped over one of the shelves. “When the gates are open, and that bright neon sign right above your head is shining that magic four letter word. Until then, journey on.” His chuckle following his satire provided me with the comfort of knowing that he’d still recognize my attempts to annoy him with repeating some of the overheard clichés of the retail world.
The process of opening the store was always the same… Stocking and straightening the shelves, even though the idiot who closed was supposed to do that… Putting in the registers, preparing the new releases, and of course, turning on the trailer tape. First selection on the new paid advertisement reel… drumroll please… Interview with Lindsay Lohan about her newest intricate, intelligent tribute to the academy of motion picture arts… or something like that.
“Alex, how’s it going buddy?”
My manager, with that ever-so chipper tone to his voice… I secretly hated him for his ability to not only be conscious in the morning, but to have a decaffeinated energy rush as he did. “What’s up, boss?”
“All right, first day of the month, pretty much the same game plan… Push the store loyalty program, and be sure you’re asking every single customer about it. Try to get as many reserves for the big titles upcoming as you can, and try to get some magazines as well.”
I hated trying to get people to subscribe to those magazines. No one was comfortable with giving away their credit card information to a movie store, and I wasn’t comfortable asking. I knew my status in management was jeopardized by my ridiculously low total of magazine sales, and I could only keep resubscribing myself so many times. Somehow, it made me wonder why people still came back to these stores. I hated badgering people, especially since they wanted us to follow along with a script, cause you know… Nothing says “personal customer service” like repeating the same five lines of constipated dialogue to every customer. However, it was part of doing my job, so naturally I’d only do it when someone important was watching.
I glanced at the clock… 10:15… Only another hour until my fifteen-minute break, in which Brian and I would usually meander to the Orange Julius stand and remark about the aura of the JCPenny’s girls. The untouchable, pristine beauties with the golden glow, never failed to turn a head or spark meaningless conversation with the poor guy who seemed to work that stand every single day.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I quickly scanned the store for the manager. I flipped up the lid, and put my ear to the receiver…
“When does the new Pixar movie come out?” Brian, up to his mid-morning shenanigans of course.
“Hey, your X-Box 360’s not worki…”
“We know,” he muttered.
“What’s up, bro?”
“First official retarded phone call of the day already!”
“Already? Wow, it’s early for that!”
“Yep. ‘Thank you for calling GameXPress, where you can buy and sell new and used games…’ ‘Do you guys take back used games?’”
“My head hurts,” I joked.
“Why do they bother making us say that?”
“To make us feel even dumber when they ask what we just told them,” I replied.
I saw the employees-only door opening, and I flipped off my phone just in time. “Alex?”
“Yes, Boss?”
“You weren’t on your cell phone, were you?”
“No, of course not.”
He disappeared back in the office. I felt my pocket vibrating again, but I had to ignore it as a man was standing outside, pondering entering the store. I saw the shadow cross the line, and knew it was time for the “friendly acknowledgement.”
“Hello sir, how are you doing today?”
“Yeah, do you guys sell movies?”
I stopped, and looked down at the ground. Finally, I looked back at him and pointed to the big five-foot neon yellow sign hanging from the ceiling reading ‘MOVIES ON SALE’. Embarrassed, he started to walk away and began scanning the shelves. As if trying to be subtle, he eventually made his way back to the animated porn section. My pocket vibrated one more time, but stopped after two. Text message.
“Lady wants a whole new Xbox 360 system because her display plate was broken. This is gonna be a fun day.”
“Amen, brother,” I laughed out loud. Everyday was fun in retail!
Help me get this read on the web... www.fictionpress.com/s/2231693/1/ scroll to the bottom of the page, at the bottom left, click the submit review button.