Hardly Workin'

With only one day remaining as a Wal-Mart Fashion Sales Associate, I'm enjoying my job more than ever. Absolutely nothing can dampen my mood at work. On Monday, I dropped a bureau on my foot. No problem. Yesterday my car broke down on the way to work and I had to run along the Trans Canada with my lumberjack lunch to arrive at work 20 minutes late covered in sweat and dust and sporting a crack whore inspired hairstyle, but I sang all the way. I just love quitting jobs. I've quit 3 in the last nine months. People I haven't even spoken to before are sorry to hear I'm leaving. My leaving seems to have started a mass exodus at our local Wal-Mart. A lot of the people who work there have been there since it opened and many of them are curious about my future plans, I think, to work out their own exit strategies. They ask me questions as if I'm some kind of expert on quitting shitty retail jobs and moving to the big city. I impart what wisdom I can.

I will miss it though. For all my complaining, I did actually enjoy working at Wal-Mart. If it weren't for the stretches of boredom and craptacular pay, I could work there forever. The people are delightful and fun to hang out with. I'll always remember spending New Year's smoking pot with my teenaged colleagues. Actually I don't remember that very well even now. But there will be plenty other fond memories.

I'm headed into the city on Friday. My cousin has agreed to sublet me his apartment on Barrington. So hopefully that will work out.

Dreams of Summer

I handed in my letter of resignation last Saturday. It was a bold move because I still have no plans for the future. Maybe the fact that a week from now I'll be unemployed will be enough to motivate me. I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to decide what I should be doing. Should I continue living here? Move to the city? Where will I work? It must have been weighing on my mind because the answer came to me in a dream that night. I had a wonderful dream where I lived in our travel trailer on the beach and worked as an actor with the local theatre company. By day, I took in the sun, the sand and the waves and had drinks with interesting tourists. By night, I performed a supporting role in a crowd-pleasing murder mystery. And in those first few glorious, naive moments when I first woke up, I congratulated myself for having come up with such a stellar plan. And then it slowly dawned on me that not only am I not an actor, but we sold the trailer from my dream eleven years ago. And that's why I hate dreams.

Stolen chocolate tastes better

Work was pretty boring yesterday, but it wasn't without its perks. I was out back in the Claims department where we keep all the stuff that people have messed up and we can't sell, and there was an entire cart full of delicious abandoned Easter candy. Chocolate bunnies with broken ears, chocolate chickens cracked down the middle and tons of 'accidentally' opened bags of chocolate eggs. So I grabbed a couple handfuls just to keep up my strength. What are they going to do? Fire me? I'm pretty sure you only have a problem when you take things you don't even want, so I'm in the clear.

"I wish I could quit you"

Another day has passed and I still haven't quit my job. I really intended to today, but I just didn't get around to it. They'll be so sad to see me go. I worked the day shift today which was good because I didn't have to attend the evening meeting which inevitably concludes with the Wal-Mart cheer. A more uninspired and degrading "cheer" I've never heard. One line that gets a particularly lackluster response is "Who's Number One?!!" (The correct answer is "The Customer!") What little enthusiasm we had fades at this point and people start leaving because although there's quite a mix of people who make up the Wal-Mart staff, the one thing we all have in common is our mutual hatred for the customers. I'm definitely going to quit tomorrow.

Creatures of the Night

I was abandoned at Wal-Mart last night. Normally, I have a car so I can drive home but we were short on cars yesterday so my parents said they would pick me up. Unfortunately, 10:30 is really late by their standards and they never though of me. On the plus side though, I got to observe the after hours inner workings of the store. One reason I was so intrigued with Wal-Mart was the Natalie Portman movie ‘Where the Heart Is’ where a pregnant, homeless teenager lives in a Wal-Mart for 2 months by hiding in the washroom at closing time and clearing out in the morning. I always thought it would be really cool to live in a department store and just have the whole place to yourself. In reality, though, Wal-Mart is never closed as I learned yesterday while waiting for someone to pick me up. Shortly after we all leave at 10:30, the nighttime crew begins to show up. These are not people you would want to run into in a dark alley. If you thought the daytime Wal-Mart workers were a bit rough looking, you should see the night crew. They make the daytime staff look like the cast of The O.C. They clean and stock shelves but they also make obscene pages over the intercom. One guy's sole purpose seems to be the capture of the roughly 5-20 squirrels that make Wal-Mart their home. They seem to have a pretty good time, but I 'm kind of disappointed that I'll never get to live in the Wal-Mart.