Holiday Warning: May Contain Coarse Language

A or B, Which Are You?

So November 16th they turned on the Christmas music at work. That was the Friday before thanksgiving. And slowly being driven further into my insanity by that ungodly cheerful music has caused me to realize a few things. First off, the holidays causes you to become one of two things, an asshole or a idiot. Me, I'm an asshole. But we all know that already, don't we. People get incredibly hostile when it gets cold outside. For instance, someone came into work at 8:56 when we close at 9. They wanted some lunch meat sliced, and we begrudgingly sliced it for them. Then they have the nerve to get upset with us because it was taking too long. Asshole. Next we sell complete dinners for you to buy. They're cold, but cooked. It says that 3 times on the order form, "Heat and Serve". And wouldn't you know there were 3 people who were pissed, and I mean pissed, that their dinner was cold. We told you it would be when you ordered it! Idiot. The surprising thing is that there is more assholes than idiots, but that may be because 95% of the assholes are really stupid too. Who would've thunk it?


A list of things you DO NOT DO!!! We're talking smack to the head here folks.

1. Use the phrase "If you don't mind..." We do mind, but we can't say anything so all we hear is "I'm a tool..." or "I know I'm a big bitch, but..." Come on people, think.
   
2. Be on your cell phone and want to get something. Hang up the phone. I don't disrespect you at your job, don't do it to me. And don't get pissed if I'm not that welcoming if you insist on staying on the phone. Tool.
3. Look at my name tag and try to act like we're friends. There are only 2 types of people we remember, the ones we like who are in there all the time, and the people we ABSOLUTELY HATE, and we remember you first. If it takes less than a month for me to know what you want, guess which you are.
   
4. Want to see a manager because you had to wait. It has already been proven the the universe revolves around The Twat and her bakery, not you. Sorry to burst your bubble.
5. Make a list and give it to the clerk, then leave. If you don't have that much time, don't buy so much shit!

This list can go on for a while with more or less slightly varied things that are completely annoying. It pretty much comes down to one thing.

We are not working in a service industry because it is our only option. We sacrifice our holiday with our families so you can have and do whatever you want to with yours. So be a little more considerate next time. We are the salt of the earth bitches. We cook your food, fix your shit, watch you while you sleep... you know the rest.

Is it January yet? Seriously?

Every Cloud Has Its Silver Lining

So, I've noticed that I'm not exactly keeping up with this like I wanted to. So now the abridged chapters, to get back up to speed.

OLD CAST
Barbara sue whatever... quit
Laynce... probably killed by his own squad by now
Mr. Wizard... quit
Crazy McPsychopants... might be back for the holidays (yipee!) but otherwise gone'

NEW CAST
oh hell, there have been 5 other people who have been hired since I started this that have also quit. They're funny but I don't really care enough to tell you about them. (If you don't live on this continent, disregard the last statement.)


Buffalo

• I like Buffalo, which is why I'm calling him buffalo.
• One of about 4 people I actually get along with at work.
• A gamer who likes the same games as I do and is intelligent enough to carry on a conversation.
  
• Being "ruined" by me. Straight from The Twat's mouth

We talk and too frequently for the likes of the power hungry retards who call themselves managers. The funny thing is that when the two of us work together, we get more work done and faster than other times. Imagine that, having a good time at work makes you more productive. Strange.


Pookster

• I like Pookster too, which is again why I'm calling him Pookster.
• Pookster helped me with my tattoo care since he already has a few.
• A gamer who... see above
• Is a really big fan of Robert Jordan, just like me. We talk about his books like girls talk about clothes or flat irons.
• A little older than me, which is refreshing after all the 18 year olds.
• Married, again almost like a mentor for my current adventures.

The tattoo on his forearm is awesome. Even though he is a republican, he thinks "Republicans for Voldemort" is hilarious. So he can't be that bad.


Sugar Baby Honey Doll

This woman has the most annoying country accent, if it could really be called that, but was at first really nice, so I could look past it. Wrong. I've never met a more two faced person who tries to manipulate people, but isn't quick enough to do it right. She will tell someone she told management on someone else, and then expect "But don't tell them I said anything" to really work. To tell you just how bad it is, she is smoke-break buddies with THE TWAT! And then comes back into the department and tells everyone how much she hates her. It is really hard to hate someone when your head is stuck inside their ass, figuratively of course. I tried to tell her she had a little something on her nose, and she told me because that woman is full of it. To dumb to see denial because of the water.

Powdered Sugar Granny

• Just like my mom without the embarrassment and shame when you tell a dirty joke
• Probably the only other person in the department, other than me, too qualified to work there.
• One of about 3, including me, who actually gives a shit what and how they do things.
• Dances (read: shakes her booty) while singing those brainworm jingles from the commercials. "There's no more fleas on me," and "Viva Viagara!"
• The coolest, non related, older person I've ever met.

You just gotta love someone who could be your mom, and yet still has a mouth dirty enough to make a 24 year old, with no shame, blush.


And now it's time to talk about me!

I got my first performance evaluation about a month ago. I've worked for almost 3 1/2 years now. Here is what my General Manager had to say.

• "I need to concentrate more on sales rather than talking to every deli employee." Our sales are up $1,000 per week since I started there a little over a year ago. And I need to pay attention.
• "Chris needs to focus on giving more of his knowledge towards the department." First, what? Second, but I can't talk to anyone. Third, what?
• "Calls in more than is required." I've called in about 4 or 5, maybe even 6 times in the year since Quickdraw started working. And what in the hell does "required" have anything to do with this?

• MY PERSONAL FAVORITE!! "Chris is good at his job, but not as good as he thinks." Hahahahahahahaha hahahahaha! My response to that comment was "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions." If they think that I am actually working, they're even more oblivious than I thought. This has been the running joke among the few people I talk to since about 30 seconds after I got back into the department.
  

update: While setting up the display case one morning before a commercial shoot, I asked the GM what she thought of the case. She said that it looked great, and I replied, "But not as much as i think, right?" I know, I know that it was just asking to get in trouble, but hey. Wouldn't you want to do it to your boss? Sometimes they just got to be put in their place, right?

It's tough being Picaso

Today I told the general manager that she needs to start erecting a statue in my honor. Seriously. I have a new individual to introduce to you, I give you

Quickdraw

Quickdraw is the lead chef at our store, and is probably the most incompetent person I've ever met. It allows me to sleep incredibly well knowing that it will take him at least 10 years of hard work for him to be half as good as me. A coworker compared working with him to working with a monkey, without the poop.

It doesn't matter whether it's an opening shift, a closing shift, or the rare mid shift, Quickdraw gets exactly 2 things made a day. He can take 4 hours to do something I can do in 15 minutes and look like he's working his ass off the entire time.

A 9 month pregnant woman could literally walk circles around him. LITERALLY!

I have found that the most difficult part of my job is to now make a person with the intelligence of a ivy league brick feel like he's got good ideas. I never thought that fake sincerity could actually be physically painful, but it is. I'm pretty sure the pain is my soul being torn into pieces.


I want my statue to be about a foot taller than me, and possibly slightly menacing.

So lately I've been looking for a new job, the custodial arts might have more culinary background than my current job soon. And with openly telling everyone there that "I will be leaving, it's just a matter of when not if." I have found that I am like a great artist or author, only appreciated after I'm gone. The head of the meat department caught me on a bad day and i told him I was about to tell everyone all about themselves, and it's been such a struggle not to. I've started doing the "Burn Every Bridge" dance when I'm really irritated, and also have become quite the instigator in the department. "Bend to my will minions, I mean coworkers!"

The Twat

Sadly, the Twat has already reproduced. One of her brood happened to briefly be engaged to one of the part timers in our department. (nothing like being an in-law to be to get some great job bonuses.) Well, it didn't work out, and then she quit.
In a conversation with probably out best part-timer (she's great) The Twat was asked about ex-fiancee. Her response was not surprising at all
"I don't care what she's doing! And if my son wants to keep up with the likes of her he might as well just move out because I'm not having it!"

What is she doing that's so bad you might ask? Simple, dating a black guy.

What the Twat didn't know was that the part-timer she unloaded this tidal wave of unnecessary racism onto was not only dating a black man herself, but he was also the loving father of her son. To tell the Twat she was caught, this part-timer brought a picture her next shift that just happened to have both her son and his father in it. And the priceless reaction to that picture when the Twat put two and two together I unfortunately missed but it went a little like,
"OH! But I didn't... I mean... That was just her... I didn't mean... narm, narm, narm, etc."
I wish i could've been there to laugh at her.

Crazypants McPostal

Crazypants is also a new addition to the gang. She is a history major who under no circumstance will ever be a teacher (found that out by mistakenly asking her about it, touchy subject for some weird reason. I just don't know). She also has this real creepy habit of staring of into space and slowly getting this really big pointless smile on her face almost like out of a horror movie. She will walk over to my case on the far end of the department and look in it 3 or 4 times an hour. Not for anything in particular, but i imagine to see if the foods dancing or turned into squirrels or something, and then laugh, then walk back to her area. I'm not as afraid of her shanking me at the dish sink as I was with the last person I worked with like her, but if she ever stops smiling, I'm running, and I don't run.

Mr. Wizard

Mr. Wizard, the third new type of crazy I have to cope with, is from another store. He worked at a starbucks for about a year and a half, never really stepping foot into the actually deli, yet believes he is the authority on operating procedures for the entire department. He educated me as to why burnt things smell, and my personal favorite, why lights burn out in the kitchen.
Is there a drug that leaves red bag under your eyes? He looks like on of those dogs with the really droopy eyelids.


Maybe these will happen a little more frequently, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Revelations

Cat Lady

Ever wonder just where in life a person steers towards the whole crazy cat lady thing? I don't because i see that transition about 4 days a week. Cat Lady is just like the one on The Simpsons, just younger and able to speak a little clearer. If she could bring cats to work, she'd probably throw them.

"19 years I've worked in this place and they owe me so many breaks, that I've missed, I could retire on them."

Things wrong with this statement:

1. 19 years! In a grocery store! AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN AN ASST. DEPARTMENT HEAD!
2. Like they could get away with not paying you what you earned. I'm sure a multi-million dollar company is gonna risk Wal-Mart-esque scandals just to save a few hundred bucks from your check.
3. 15 minute breaks are on the clock already. And you usually take at least 25 minutes anyway.
4. If you think you're going to make it to retirement before you go insane my guess of a year maybe two might be giving you a lot of credit.

The Twat

Twat came into work today at 11:30 after a long night at "The Boat" across the river. After she told us of her amazing comeback from down $400 to up $100, she informed us of her "rug burn" on her elbow that she obtained from a long night of gambling at the roulette table. A co-worker said it best. "Been there, done that."

Barbara-Sue-Joann-Mary-Beth-Shaqueesha

Sitting in the break room a few seats over I see mom with her hair practically wrapped around her neck. Unable to help myself I move her hair over expecting to see another dirt devil bite but... no? "I told him he couldn't do it anymore. Well, not on my neck." Another person in the break room then informed me that they just moved. Slut McGee then practically flopped a tit on the table to prove his statement. After her break was over and she finally left I told everyone she was "trifling" and was met only with agreement. I swear that she gets dumber every time I see her. And that is Mr. Sincerity speaking. Honestly, there is a part of me that wants to destroy her soul for pure pleasure. Make her cry and possibly quit right there. But for some reason I can't.
Maybe I'm going soft.

A Reason to Post More Than Once in... Two Years Now

This is something i just thought of tonight and i had to do it. A few disclaimers before i begin. First off these people are real, like i can make this stuff up, but i have changed names. Second, the majority of these events are also real. OK... maybe slightly altered here and there but they all happened. And thirdly the reason I'm doing this is more or less therapeutic so when things written get a little "over the top" it is strictly blowing off steam.

I dedicate this to Stacey. Without her I would have strangled myself with my apron strings in the walk-in by now.




MY EXILE

I like to think of myself as a chef although I'm starting to think I might be mistaken. I spend my days, and far to many of them, at a deli. Yeah, I make food, and I wear the fancy uniform but hell, people do that on TV all the time and that doesn't mean shit. I begin this almost 3 years into the story. There have been many characters along the way, but this current cast deserves a little more attention. Within the walls that slowly dull my education can be found the most fucked up group of people I've ever met. I hate what these people are doing to me because i love my job. Great hours, breaks during a shift, vacation, in after 7, out before 9, holidays!, the pay, what isn't to love? You can't find a cooking job like that anywhere. Read Bourdain's books, talk to anyone. So this is how I cope.

Barbara-Sue-JoAnn-Mary-Beth-Shaqueesha
Still in high school and this piece of work still has time to work 2 part time jobs. A counter clerk, and a mom. While whoever looks after her kid, who is almost 1, she has time to hang out with her friends from school. A bunch of American youths who would best be described as "Skreet". While not with her friends, or working, she spends time with her very lower-middle class, rural Kentucky, white christian family. Only a few weeks ago the dept. was joyously informed of her engagement to a minor (not the dad) from said rural town, thereby making her related to almost all of the towns couple hundred some odd inhabitants. Her now fiancee finds the act of marking quite enjoyable as she arrives with fresh hickeys about every 5-7 days.
While attempting to covertly insult this contributor to our gene pool, I mentioned how she should really look into getting onto MTV's Under Aged and Engaged she replies, "I know! I really want to, can't you imagine it?" Yes, yes I can. And I already feel the stupidity setting in. I then notice the new purple, walnut sized sucker punch on her throat and ask "again?" He did it while she was asleep. Riiiight. She couldn't have slept through to that color with the aid of horse tranquilizers. Go rent Idiocracy and you might just cry a little like I did.

Laynce
Soon to be Air Force recruit. Bleached blond hair. Thinks he's the shit. Is really, really wrong. He'll only be here another 30 days, but this one will have a big section all to himself I can tell. Especially since he doesn't get along with trailer park barbie.
I'm thinking book deal.

The TWAT
The worst thing about my job is that the only requirement for advancement is have you worked here long enough. No one looks at whether or not they can actually do the job, just when were they hired. That allows me to introduce my Department Head, The TWAT. Twat loves her Louisville Cardinals and will regularly, to the point store management notices, schedule herself off for home games, and off early enough to get home in time to watch the ones on TV. The depth of this fanatical behavior doesn't stop there either. I was informed that she TiVo's the home games, the ones that she attends with her season tickets (football and basketball), to watch them again at home. The past college bowl game season had Louisville in a rather large one. Twat went to Florida for the game, TiVoed the thing, then taped it, and then bought the $21.99 DVD that was being sold of the same game at local retailers. I love football, that is ridiculous.
Twat likes her bad 80s style bitch-flip bangs and has not altered her haircut once in over a year I'm told. She loves her Eclipse, a purple convertible. And has NO CLUE that everyone in the department hates her. The coworker who was to be married to her son. Yep, boss is your to be mother in law, but we'll get back to Jewel-yah Stylz later, couldn't stand her and quit because of her. As did 9 other people since I started working there less than a year ago. An astonishing 22 people have quit our one department since the Grand Opening of the store in Feb. of 2006! Never have I seen such blind ignorance to a problem before in my life. It's as if everyone in the company feels that the way to do a job is not by actually working but to act like it and see how long you can go doing nothing and getting away with it.
The Twat had the nerve to suggest that one of the younger employees I actually get along with doesn't work and just stands around talking. To further understand why this is not only insane but also bullshit you have to know that she schedules 3-5 people to work in the bakery a day, which is where she spends 95% of her day as well, while still getting nothing done. Then has him close down the bakery on a night she scheduled herself to do it. I guess it doesn't matter what the schedule says as long as it gets done right, TWAT? On another occasion she schedules herself a night when she knows weeks ahead of time that the "Big Wigs" (aka Company) will be coming that day. She arrives 6 hours before her shift is to start to get things done. It doesn't matter if you actually work a closing shift (1 is required of all employees weekly, no exceptions) as long as it's on the schedule.
Starting to see where Twat came from?
I've had several offers from close friends outside work willing to tell her all about herself via phone, and only recently has the idea really sounded appealing.
"Hi is the twat there? You know the Department Head. Yes I'd like to leave a message, She's a dirty whore who should choke on a dick and get ran through with a tire iron. Everyone hates her and she should quit her job from shame. And can i get 2 pounds of chicken salad tomorrow? Thanks."
I'd love to hear it if she answered. I noticed the other day that when she talks all I hear are sounds like Charlie Browns teacher/parents. And I wasn't even trying to ignore her, it just kinda happened like a reflex.
Yeah BIG book deal, ha ha.