I was looking around on the web and found a post from an old blog of mine…I’m able to laugh now but I was enraged when I wrote it. This is a couple of years old but I’m sure anybody who has ever had to deal with job bullshit, especially insane job bullshit that made you wanna scream, can relate to this. For your enjoyment…yes, this is a true story:
Last Sunday night, we were doing a Gap at one the malls here. Gap is usually a royal pain in the ass because the people that are employed there, particularly at this store are jerks. They think of themselves as elite, especially the ones who are higher up on the food chain. I’m not sure if it’s company policy or what but these people go into an absolute frenzy over the status of the clothes…most especially the folded stuff. You know, all those tables with 5,000 folded shirts that would only fit Barbie or Paris Hilton if she didn’t eat for a year (but then she probably never eats anyway…) and matching shorts/pants/etc. They get this way about the jeans as well, so much to the point where if you have to count the jeans, they give you an annoying 18 year old babysitter who blows bubblegum while talking and says things like, ” ‘k!”, “…like, is this going to take forEVER?” “Do you guys, like, do this for a living?” (No dipshit, this is a hobby. We like staying out LATE and putting up with morons like you, counting shitty clothing for free!). The babysitter is absolutely useless when you have to get a SKU check on whatever you’re counting as well. Every time I’ve ever had a babysitter and I have a problem, the following exchange always occurs:
(Me, back sore, feet aching, scanning tags…all of a sudden, the machine either does not scan the tag or it makes a rude noise…)
Me: It’s not taking the SKU.
Babysitter: *pops a bubble with his/her gum* Huh?
Me: It did not take the SKU.
Babysitter: The what?
Me: The SKU…you know, the barcode on the tag.
Babysitter: Oh, that thing! Why not?
Me: *trying to keep from rolling my eyes* I don’t know why…perhaps it’s invalid?
Babysitter: Inwhat??
Me: *trying to decide whether to hit my head or the babysitter’s against the wall* Invalid…i-n-v-a-l-i-d…means it’s wrong.
Babysitter: Why would it be wrong?
Me: *trying to decide whether it would be worth it to whap the babysitter upside the head with my machine* I don’t know why…perhaps you should go look it up.
Babysitter: Oh…okay…um…*babysitter proceeds to wander off with a hazy, lost look on his/her face*
Me: *standing by the wall of jeans, staring at the ceiling, asking myself is it really worth all this*
(Generally around the time, I’m usually spotted by a crew manager and asked why am I not doing anything, to which I reply I’m waiting on a SKU check…the manager then wanders off with a similar look the babysitter had)
Babysitter: *returns eventually, usually after 10-15 minutes after the whole SKU invalid debacle* Okay…um… Okay…they said to read the UPC code and size code off to you and if that doesn’t work…they’ll look it up. *smiles*
Me: *attempting to be civil* Fine…read it off to me.
Babysitter: *reads numbers off at lightening speed, impossible to decipher what was said*
Me: …could you repeat that a little slower, please?
Babysitter: *reads it off again, same speed as previously*
Me: *royally pissed at this point* Give me the tag…*trying not to go into a killing frenzy but finding it difficult at best*
Babysitter: *sees look on my face, hands me the tag*
Me: *types code in, hands tag back to babysitter, scanning resumes once more…*
Luckily, the last two Gaps I’ve done, I haven’t had to do the jean wall. Since the last time I did, I learned how to find the UPC and size codes for myself so I no longer have to ask for a SKU check.
However…the tables with the ungodly amount of folded t-shirts…I’m cursed with. As I said, they get rather pissy about these too, because they expect you to follow a procedure. This procedure involved taking a stack of folded shirts, turning the stack upside down, gently and carefully taking one shirt off the stack, flipping it over, putting back on the table (or shelf, or folding table if they’re feeling generous and allowing you to use one), scanning it, then repeating all the steps til you’re down with the stack. And there could be as little as 4 stacks of folded clothes in your section to as many 50 or more and you’re expected to do this with every single one.
They also tell you that all the tags are pulled out so you won’t have to go digging for it, thus ruining the ever so perfect fold that they put so much time and effort in. If this was true, it would a huge time saver for us, but alas, they lie. Every single time we go there, they tells us this and it’s never true. Even when we are absolutely careful and put things back as meticulously as we found them…they go back, and re-fold and re-stack everything we do! So why get all bent out of shape about how we do things because they’re just going to go back and fix it anyway, regardless of whether we were neat or not? Last I knew, they were getting paid to fold clothes.
However…during this particular inventory…I witnessed something brand-new.
To explain, there is a woman that works with us, has been with us for over a year now and her name is Melody. Melody is…shall I say “special”? By her own admission, she is bi-polar (don’t have a problem with people who are bi-polar, one of my best friends in high school was diagnosed as such…couldn’t care less) and is on medication for it. Regardless, I firmly believe that having that disorder is not the only thing wrong with her. She talks incessantly, to everyone…sometimes no one at all. Every time we go on a van trip, she either sings along with the radio or along to whatever she’s listening to on her walkman. This wouldn’t be so bad if she could actually sing or come close to something remotely sounding like singing. But alas, she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket even if instructions were printed on the bucket.
And that’s not all! She claims to be 33, looks more like 48-50ish, is missing a very noticeable amount of teeth, on a good day, smells like a cigar factory. On most days, especially if we’re working back to back days, she smells like a cigar factory built next door to a men’s lockeroom. She’s also one of the slowest people we have, despite her constant bragging that she’s improving. This and the fact that she’s stupid as hell frustrates all of us (well, those of us of who are relatively sane) to no end.
Some time during the fall of last year, she met some guy and a week into dating him, announced at work one day that they were engaged. Also that she wasn’t making the same mistake as she did before (apparently she’d been married before) and was waiting til they were married to sleep with him. Also…she told ALL of us this AT work. Repeatedly.
From then til around the end of October/beginning of November, all we heard about was her fiance and everything they did together, from the most minute details of their dates…to what they were planning on doing once they were married. At work, during break, to/from work…it got beyond annoying.
She got married on New Year’s Eve…now all we hear about is how wonderful her husband is, their life at home (certain details I could have lived my whole life without knowing), etc. Now we come to Sunday night…
Apparently, her and her oh so wonderful husband have decided recently to have children (the world is doomed if this happens). Also, in her words, “…been tryin’ for the past 3 days…night after night. If we do it tonight and get it done right, that outta make it happen.” Not only did I hear her say this…but so did everyone else. All of my fellow bean counters and a few Gap employees as well. She also kept going on and on about having to leave at 9pm so that she could go home and get pregnant, claiming that she had told the crew manager this 8 days prior.
So 9 o’clock comes and she goes into a frenzy of ‘I gotta leave now! I gotta leave now! I gotta go home and get pregnant!”
The kicker…they LET her go!
So yeah, they’re all insane. I’ll be so glad when I leave them for good.
