I remember a long time back. I was working at a telecom company specializing in conferencing, be it audio, web or video. I'd been there a long time, but I needed more money. So I went to a Sears. I'm OK mentioning it by name since, well, yeah. Sears bit the big one. Even the flagship Oakbrook Mall location where I worked at (666 ft. above sea level, no shit, I got bored one day and checked it on my GPS) is nothing but dust and the scent of old sweat and tears.
But it was thriving back then. I got the worst fucking job of my life: I started selling shoes at Sears. Just for the holiday. But I worked out so well that they wanted to keep me. I hated the job more than anything I've ever done, but I was good at it. I sold more than anyone else, and I did the best at ordering shoes online, which they really counted because they wanted us to be good at that. Also, I won a ridiculous amount of prizes from that. But it sucked. I felt lower than whale shit, if that's still a phrase.
Here's the thing. When I got hired, I told them I could only work weekends. I had a job that paid a fuck-ton more on weekdays. Everyone agreed with me, and they let me practically work whenever I wanted to. I mean, not really, but close.
Yes, I hear you thinking, "Dude, you were Al Bundy?" Yeah, I've heard that maybe a thousand times.
I fucking hated that job, but it gave me enough money to survive a little while longer than I thought. My favorite part was getting up super early so I could put the correct labels on each shoe display. Why? Well, because during that time we were closed. THERE WERE NO FUCKING CUSTOMERS. When I was done, the doors opened for the customers, and I could just go home and drink myself into oblivion. I also loved checking stock for the same reason. I had no customer contact. If that sounds weird, think of this. The customer always believes they are right. And they are NOT. Unless they are Michael Douglas shooting the ceiling out of a fast food joint. If you ever want to see someone's true face, look at them when they are trying to buy something. If you are the retail worker you suddenly become the focus of their ire. Although I have my problems with the job, at least my immediate boss had my side during these unrelenting situations. Every other job threw me under the bus.
If you have ever worked in retail, you know the golden rule. On Black Friday, it's all hands on deck. But, you know, it was Friday. Not the weekend. Hence, I was at my primary job instead of that fucking hell hole.
So I came in on the following Saturday. My boss approached me as I was putting new boxes on the shelves and making sure that the smaller sizes were on top while the bigger sizes were at rock bottom. He said to me, "So John. I saw that you didn't come in yesterday. You did know that Black Friday requires all workers to come in, right?"
No, I didn't know, and I told him that.
"Yeah, we needed a lot of people yesterday, and you weren't here. You were on the schedule."
I said, "I told management from day one that I could only work weekends. I will never, under any circumstances, work a weekday. Because from Monday to Friday, I'm at my real job. You know, the one that actually pays my bills."
That made him very nervous. But he said that he would let his boss know, and everything would be all right. Sure enough, she accepted my reasoning. And that made me the happiest motherfucker in the world. Because fuck Black Friday.
Here's another thing you might find interesting. You know that conferencing job I mentioned earlier? All of a sudden we were being offered 12-hour weekend shifts. Where we barely had to do anything. We'd just pick up if someone called, and usually it was the wrong number. I had never seen the bridges so fucking clean. One day a friend of mine and I watched I Come in Peace while working. It was fucking great. Well, there was also the pervert who kept calling that one day. If I picked up, he hung up right away. But if my female partner that day answered (and I listened in, ready to step in if need be) he would say all kinds of fucked up sex shit. As I recall, this douche asked my coworker if she wanted to, eh, fuck it. You can guess, and I'd rather not talk about it.
As this company, there were several levels. If you were hired, you were on a temporary Level One. You had to prove yourself to actually get real Level One status. Then there was Level Two, which made more money, but you had to deal with more complex things. Then there was Senior, where you got the toughest calls, like investor relations calls. But then they invented a new level. I was one of a select few who were on the Strike Team. We handled the worst and craziest conferences. Some had star-studded security lists. Others were major wrestling companies run by a dude whose first name rhymes with "prints." And at one point I handled calls for celebrities. One of our customers was a guy who used to be one of the most loveable people in the world and who now is a thoroughly reviled sexual predator.
The point is, I started making a shit ton of money at my real job to the point where I was ready to jettison that awful Sears job. Joy!
I went in on my day off with an envelope containing my letter of resignation. Normally I'd give the customary two weeks, but I needed out of the job immediately. Also, having my first novel, Strip, published helped back me up. I found my immediate boss (his boss was always hard to find), and I handed him the envelope. He was very sad to see me go, since I outsold everyone except for him, but he accepted it. (He was not eligible for the online sales prize because he was management.) I decided to use my employee discount before that was gone, so I bought a bunch of stuff. As I did so, I ran into one of my shoes coworkers. I told her the good news, and her reaction was so ridiculously out of left field.
"You can't quit. They're not allowing anyone to quit."
Briefly I felt like I was in Bentley Little's The Store. I said to her, "Good luck getting me in for tomorrow's shift." Not allowing to quit. Seriously? And yet if I fucked up at the job, I'd be terminated on the spot. So, you know. Fuck Sears and fuck the shoes department. I really liked the people I worked with, even my immediate boss. But I was wasting time at that job. So fuck it. I took as many 12-hour shifts at my real job that I could.
That company no longer exists exactly. It was absorbed by a global corporation named after a character in an Orson Welles book. There was a movie, but as I understand it, it was never released. I found it very weird because the character in question was a horrible fucking person. Why name your company after that dude?
But then this company was absorbed by yet another global corporation, and so it still exists today. You know who doesn't exist anymore? That fucking shoe department. In fact, that entire store. It's gone, baby, gone. So fuck 'em.
I got off into the weeds on this one, but this has been weighing heavily on me, especially given the time of year. Long story short, fuck Black Friday.
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