I think there's something in the air...

I work in an enormous entertainment superstore. My job isn't so bad; the work is fairly easy, the pay isn't zero dollars an hour, and I get a decent discount on DVDs and books. When I think about it, the only thing I dislike about my job is the customers. Yes, I realize what a conundrum this is: I hate the very thing that keeps me in a job. If it weren't for the customers, I'd be working somewhere else. I'm sure there's a downside to that somewhere...

Anyway, I've worked this kind of job before, and while I've dealt with many unreasonable, rude, infuriating, ridiculous people, I've never dealt with it as much, and to such dizzying degrees, as I currently do. I think there must be a reason for this. I think it's because my workplace, this giant entertainment superstore, is an unnatural environment. People are not meant to have places like this. It's not like Wal-Mart, which holds its own strange aura of bitchiness; Wal-Mart may be huge, but you can buy some semi-important things there. You can buy groceries there, and life-saving Bayer aspirin. You can go to Wal-Mart with a good reason. That's not how it is where I work. When you walk through the doors here, you are assaulted with billions upon billions of items you do not need, but that you want more than you will ever want life-saving aspirin or groceries. I think the combination of variety and uselessness of the things we sell causes a chemical reaction in the brain, making people feel disoriented and grumpy.

I know my theory may seem a bit extreme, but it's the only way I can explain what goes on in there. I had a woman get very upset with me because there were no signs declaring which DVDs were the new releases, and when I pointed to the Texas-sized signs posted every three feet with "New Releases" in huge block letters, she screamed that I should have shown her those before, when she was walking through the door. I'll admit that I got frustrated with her and wanted to smack her around a little, but I should have offered her some water, directed her to a bench where she could sit down and adjust to the atmosphere. Another time, a woman asked for help finding a book, but instead of letting me track down the book she wanted, she just stood there and gave me all the icky details of her last love affair. Turns out her boyfriend of the last nine months had another girlfriend, a "real" girlfriend who apparently keeps this guy's heart (She didn't say heart. Use your imagination.) in the bottom of a purse. That conversation ended with this woman opening her jacket like a New York City flasher and demanding to know if she looked like she needed to steal someone's man. I told her she looked like she had sufficient amounts of whatever it was she was trying to show me to find her own man, and after a good three minutes of awkward silence, I told her to have a good day and walked away. It may seem rude of me, but honestly, offering free therapy to strangers is not in my job description. If it were, I would have quit months ago.

I know I'm sounding like a complete downer, but hey, there are some good customers out there. I've dealt with people who say "please" and "thank you," who throw their garbage in the garbage cans, who don't stand in line just to ask where the bathroom is and then get mad that they stood in line. These kind of people are bright spots in my workday, and I'm grateful for them, I really am. Maybe I can find a way to get those people to stand in front of the other people, like some kind of a jerk-shield to protect me from the jerkiness of strangers... That would be as nice as it is improbable...

There is no fairy section.

Well. I don't really feel like blogging right now. I've had plenty of sleep, but it's overcast outside, so I feel tired anyway. I'm also feeling guilty about the fact that I am not currently at the gym. Still, I need to get this blog thing started, so I'm just going to do it. If it sucks, well, you'll know why. I'm not ashamed to admit that I phoned it in. I just hope first impressions aren't nearly as important as my parents always said they were.

So I think I'll start with an explanation for the title of this blog, since it will make sense only to those who have had the pleasure of hearing me bitch about my job. I have a total crap job working in retail, sitting at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Some may think that garbage men and janitors have it worse, but that's not so. Those people don't have to deal with the public, so I say they have a much better deal than I do. I love people, I really do, but honestly, people are pretty stupid much of the time. Don't get insulted; you should know that when I say people I really mean the vague, nameless face of Joe Public, the people we've all heard about but have never been (right?). I'm not talking about you, even if you're guilty of any of the things I talk about. When people do these things, it's infuriating and annoying. When you do it, it's totally different and completely justifiable. Like when you talk on your cell phone while driving or when you leave your empty coffee container on some random shelf because you don't want to bother anyone and find out where the garbage cans are. It's okay if you do it, it's even reasonable. When people do it, well, there's no excuse. Got me? Good. Moving on now...

So the other day I was working my crap job doing some menial task, when a woman approaches me for help. She has her five or six-year-old granddaugther tell me what they are looking for. See, the young girl has a bit of a lisp and she's speaking very quickly, so the only words I actually understand are "fairy" and "book." She's looking for a book with a fairy in it, and possibly some stickers. Does she know the title of the book? Does she know the author? What the cover looks like? Anything? No, she does not, but the grandmother repeats the fact that there is a fairy in the book, so that should make it easier to find. I let her know that there are approximatey three billion books with a fairy in them, so I can't possibly track it down based on that simple fact. The grandmother looks at me like I'm stupid, rolls her eyes and says, "Fine. Just direct us to the fairy section, and we'll find it ourselves." I explained to her that there is no fairy section, that all books with fairies in them are going to be mixed in with all the other books with stuff in them. She stood there blinking at me, unsatisfied with my response and upset with my lack of a fairy section, and says, "No fairy section? There is no fairy section?" For a moment I thought she might cry. I tried to make her feel a little better by showing her a few fairy books I knew of, but I don't think she ever fully recovered from the knowledge that there is no fairy section.

So now I can say that I know how my parents felt when they told me about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, who doesn't even have her own section in the book department. There's something sad, almost tragic about disillusioning someone, but also something deviously satisfying, I must say. And that's what this blog is going to be: sad, tragic, and yet, deviously satisfying. There is no fairy section, people. There never was, there never will be. But it's okay. We will get through this together. Or you will get through it all alone and I will laugh at you. Either way, it's going to be fun.