In which it’s not much, but it’s what there was.

Hitting Snooze

I was scheduled to work a short noon-to-four shift today, which sucks because it’s too cold to walk and there’s no bus so I’d have to take two taxi rides. Which makes no sense if you’re only working four hours, because you’d spend nearly half your income for the day merely getting to and from work. I was considering spending an hour and a half at a nearby coffee shop to catch a ride home from my guy after, but then again, that would cost money too. So I hadn’t really decided yet.

When my alarm went off at nine, I hit snooze and realized my guy was still in bed and freaked out. “You’re–! It’s NINE! You–”

“I took the morning off,” he mumbled.

“Oh,” I said, and snuggled in and promptly went back to sleep. I hit snooze every ten minutes for awhile, then reset my alarm for 10:30. Screw having a relaxing morning with plenty of time to get ready and maybe get some chores done; I wanted to sleep.

When my alarm went off again I hit snooze one last time and drowsed, then got up and showered, dried my hair, dressed, made a latte, and scrambled some eggs with mushrooms and fake sausage. At twenty ’til I got onto the bed and whispered, “Will you drive me to work? Or should I take a cab?”

“Umnphh,” said the bundle of pillows and blankets. “I’ll take you.”

“Okay, thank you!” I told it, then went and scarfed down my breakfast in record time. Cheesy eggs are delicious.

The Walk

There’s a thing they do called “a walk,” which is when highers-up come and, well, walk around the store and tick checkboxes on clipboards. Walks are pre-announced, so the entire store freaks the fuck out in preparation for a few days. Walks of varying levels of intensity happen pretty frequently and are the main reason the weekend workshop schedule ever gets updated on the whiteboard in the foyer.

This is our third walk in as many weeks. When the last one happened, they made one of the returns girls clean the entryway carpet with a RugDoctor, which makes no sense at all because, one, that rug gets cleaned at least five times a week with a much better machine, and, two, there was ice and snow on the ground outside so the rug was lousy with salt and would be so again in minutes. And it was.

But who am I to argue with meaningless busywork. Why not RugDoctor some self-adhesive carpet squares stuck to a concrete floor right inside the salt-strewn entrance of a big box store in Minneapolis in January. Just WHY NOT.

Anyway, today’s walk was several hours late for reasons I never discovered. Which meant that, rather than being over by the time I rolled in at noon, it hadn’t even started.

Because God is good, right before the Service desk was surrounded by a herd of about fifteen corporate nerds in orange aprons and shoes completely inappropriate for a warehouse setting, plus at least as many local employees, creating a veritable crowd of humans staring right at my workspace, a cashier brought me a customer with a suspended revolving credit application and I got to seat myself and my customer at the desk and spend the entire Services portion of the walk on the phone on hold with the credit department.

This meant my department head bore the brunt of the walk, and I did not have to feign enthusiasm about whatever it is that they’re on about this quarter, like being incentivized!!! to ask customers to fill out online surveys. This is very good. It’s very important that nobody important ever asks me again about “what motivates me” to get customers to fill out surveys, because I will say something terrible, along the lines of, “Are you freakin’ serious? What incentivizes me? Well, MONEY, actually, which you don’t give me. I do my job as well as I possibly can because I’m a reasonably balanced adult human being who self-motivates, and not because I’m ‘incentivized.’ Your so-called incentives are insulting and childish, and I cringe inwardly whenever I receive any. I do not want funny money for buying soda and junk food during my fifteens. I do not want fast food gift certificates. I don’t want company bar-b-ques, either. Actually, the majority of your ‘incentives’ are directly related to the fact that so many of your employees are overweight or clinically obese, because your ‘incentives’ — as well as your corporate policy of inhumanely random schedules for all, making it very difficult to afford decent food or to have the time to prepare it — both directly contribute to poor health. But I digress. Nor do I want plastic cups with the company logo on them, or hats, or balls, or notepads, or pens, or pretty much anything cheap and mass-produced and designed to end up in a landfill. I don’t want these things because I’m not twelve years old, and I work for money, not candy and toys. If you want to incentivize adults, why not try a living wage, regular hours, easy-to-achieve full-time employment WITH BENEFITS for those who want it, and far less of this offensive, fake, infantile bullshit?”

You see, the last time someone asked me if movie tickets or stationery store gift certificates would “motivate” me to ask customers to fill out online surveys, I laughed in his face. “People will fill out the surveys if you offer them the chance to win money or if they’re upset about their experience. That’s how surveys work.” Luckily it was “only” a district guy (the same guy I told, the very first time I was scheduled during a walk, that “the problem is with the survey itself,” because at the time it was something like 35 questions long and written by someone who apparently didn’t know any actual English), so I didn’t get fired on the spot, but it goes to show my poor impulse-control when asked stupid fucking questions at work. “You know what would motivate me?” I wanted to say. “A raise, better hours, and less sunshine blown up my ass. Maybe then I could muster up some care for this ridiculous survey you’re all so horny for.”

All that said, though, I do my job, oh yes I do, and I push the survey. I push it in any transaction I can in which it’s not inappropriate — I’m human, and I have some skill at discovering mood, sense of hurry, or a low tolerance for bullshit. But I can’t stand my employer’s expectation that I be excited!!! about it in return for heart disease-causing refined carbs and plastic crap with logos on.

Anyway, like I said, God is good and wise and I was buffered from the walk by actual work, and I did not laugh in anyone’s face or say something terrible in response to a stupid question, and I am grateful.

An hour later as I was returning to the desk after pushing an RTV cart back to receiving, I heard, “–E! P! O! T! Home Depot! Home Depot! Home Depot!” loud and clear from the far other end of the store. The walk was finishing up at the Pro Desk, and they were literally cheering, all the corporate and district guests and the department managers screaming out a chant in unison, loud as a football game, followed by applause and whistles.

I’m so glad it happened at the other end of the store, because I would not have been able to stop myself from rolling my eyes, even if the CEO of the entire company had been looking right at me. Because, you know, I work hard and I do my best, but I cannot put the entirety of my beliefs and observations about the way the world works on hold for ten bucks an hour. Just can’t.

Because HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS, IT’S A FUCKING CORPORATION. It is not a team, it is not a club, it is not uplifting or motivational or a force for good. It’s a for-profit corporation, making money off its employees by institutionalizing low wages and crappy hours, withholding benefits, and in general just being what corporations are: entities that suck money out of the lower classes and relocate it to the top. Cheering a for-profit corporation is utterly inappropriate, and deeply creepy, in my opinion, especially considering how many of its full-time associates are on fucking welfare or work two or three jobs or have to live with their parents because they’re incentivized with junk food rather than a living wage.

Still later, I got my hand shaken by a couple of guys from Atlanta for wearing my orange Crocs to work. That was fine. I did buy them for work, after all. Immediately afterward someone from my store tried to freak me out by suggesting they were backless shoes and that I’d just committed some kind of corporate faux pas by wearing inappropriate footwear, but after a brief moment of worry and fear I shook it off. If the goddamned shoes are good enough for fucking food service, they’re fine for a warehouse.

Overall, though, in spite of the rants above, it was a pleasant shift and I got a lot done. And I do like wearing my orange shoes with my orange apron, because MATCHY-WATCHY!

Afternoon

My guy came and picked me up at four, thereby saving me another cab fare. He’s awesome.

When we got home he promptly shed his outerwear and crawled into bed.

I followed him. “Are you sick?”

“Don’t feel good,” he mumbled.

“You’re sick?! Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were just working from home!” I tucked him all in and cuddled up next to him and took a nap. It was awesome.

Evening

I woke up at five thirty and IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUT. Just barely, but even so!

I got up, assembled a load of laundry, put it in the wash, tidied the apartment, did the dishes, and made a lovely dinner of blackened salmon, oven roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

My guy got up from his nap and hugged me tightly and scarfed down his dinner and had seconds and did the dinner dishes, because he’s an awesome partner and I can’t believe nobody had snatched him up before I got to him. He seems a bit under the weather but he’s eating and I think he’ll be okay after a good night’s sleep.

Now I’m comfortably snuggled into the couch with my laptop blogging, and my tummy is full and my kitchen is clean and my laundry is clean and I’m not even thinking about the fact that IT’S TOO DAMNED COLD OUT or that I’m scheduled to be at work at SIX O’CLOCK IN THE GODDAMNED MORNING tomorrow.

I’m comfy now, so I’ll just think about that later. 🙂