Costumes by Kathleen

Halloween cannot be over soon enough. Working at Wal-Mart tends to suck the fun out of most holidays and Halloween is no exception. I'm not even the one trying on costumes so why, by the end of the day, am I the one covered in strands of synthetic blue hair, feathers, and glitter? And then there's all the people who are too creative for a store-bought costume and must design their own but they still all come to Wal-Mart for supplies. A person could make a small fortune selling only green tights in the weeks leading up to Halloween. This past weekend alone I helped outfit a pirate hooker, a boxer, the Honey Nut Cheerios bee, a zombie, Dick Cheney, that guy Dick Cheney shot, a pimp and three Amy Winehouses. I have used up every modicum of creativity in my body. I have nothing left for myself. Should I need a costume, I will have to go as a Wal-Mart employee.

Touchy Feely

Wal-mart's latest breed of pervert strikes without warning and is especially dangerous because they appear so harmless. I was folding shirts when I came across some misplaced merchandise from the health and beauty department including a handheld massager that lights up and is designed to look like a ladybug. I was going to return it when a man came and asked me where to find cell phone chargers. Since they can be found in both the electronics and the automotive department, my instructions involved a lot of pointing and gesturing during which I inadvertently pushed the On button on the massager. The massager, which had somehow come into contact with the customer's arm during our brief conversation, leapt to life vibrating and glowing at its highest speed. He pulled his arm back quickly. You had to be there to really understand how hilariously awkward it was. I backed away and then laughed to myself like the stranger-massaging pervert that I am.

The Fun Continues

Oh what a happy day for the ladies of Walmart's fashion department! Our 8.3% increase in swimsuit sales this season has earned us a group reward of $350 (one dollar for every white lie we had to tell pasty, bulging bikini-clad customers) to be spent on a night out of dining and camaraderie. If I know my boss Donna (and I do), she will use the money to take her friends out to dinner and then post photos on Facebook. About a month later, she will bring it up and try to convince us we were all there and act surprised when we say we weren't. Then she will tag strangers in the background of her photos with our names. In between her daily bursts of crazy, I've noticed she's been acting friendly towards me, telling me things about her life. I try to discourage these one-sided sharing sessions. Knowing these personal tidbits interferes with my hating her. Without my rage, I may die of boredom.

We have yet another new herd of associates in ladies wear. Our turn-over rate is understandably high. This latest bunch is even dumber and more apathetic than the last. Normally we take bets on how long it will take before their spirit is broken, but these girls started out with dead, empty eyes. The only one with any sense was crying by her second day. She broke down when someone got mad at her when she accidentally opened their dressing room door while they were changing. If I had a dollar for every startled, half-dressed woman I've walked in on, I could retire. One of the other new girls asked me what a blouse was. You see what I have to work with?

The poor quality of the workers doesn't surprise me. Everyone who applies for a job here has to fill in a questionnaire designed to weed out anyone capable of independent thought. I passed with flying colors, although if I remember correctly, they did identify some "red flags" in my answers that I was asked to explain. I just told them the questions confused me and I had trouble understanding them. This pleased them very much and I was asked when I could start.

To deal with the stress of babysitting these junior achievers, I have been taking lots of extra breaks. They're too dumb to notice I'm gone. I take these breaks outside with the smokers who are consistently more fun than the non-smokers. I also prefer the outside now because the staff break room has been compromised. About a month ago, in an effort to improve employee morale, it was announced that our employee lounge would undergo a makeover. We were to vote on the colors we would like to see it painted. The poll failed to generate much enthusiasm and only a couple of people voted. To teach us a lesson about workplace spirit, the higher-ups ignored the vote and painted the room with cans of mis-tint from the hardware department. There were lots on hand because a new guy was being taught to mix paint and he was not a quick learner. Amid much complaining, no one is claiming responsibility for the room which is now painted four different shades of diarrhea.

A Fine Fortnight

I'm into my second week of graveyard shifts and I have no complaints. I'm definitely tired but I expect that's because I'm not used to working 40+ hours a week, not because I'm working in the middle of the night.

The remodeling of the fashion department is now basically done, thankfully. There weren't enough volunteers from our store to get the job done so reinforcements were called in. We got five workers from two neighbouring Walmarts. Initially there was some rivalry between the factions about which Walmart was the best but after an hour or so we remembered that we all hated all Walmarts equally. Our supervisor is a manager from another store. He doesn't know much about fashion or about what we're supposed to be doing but he did buy us doughnuts.

With limited leadership and little ambition, we had quite a bit of down time the first couple of days, during which time incriminating photos of me literally sleeping on the job were taken. Hopefully they won't end up on the internet. Today was spent undoing everything we did in the first two nights and redoing it the right way. My eyes still hurt from looking at tiny numbers and matching up 10-digit codes. In the spirit of the night, I have summed up my evening in a series of numbers.

• Minutes spent in the walk-in freezer just for the sweet relief from the nagging heat: 11
• Minutes spent deciding what toppings to get on our pizza (which we charged to the store): 30.
• Number of hammers I took from the hardware department and subsequently broke trying to beat metal clothing racks into submission: 2.
• Number of times the crazy old lady who works nights in the fashion department told me I was doing things wrong: at least 50.
• Number of times I had to listen to Enrique Iglesias's Ping Pong Song: about 35.
  

Tomorrow is my last shift on overnights and I will miss it dearly. The noise and chaos of the days may overwhelm me after the peace and freedom of the nights. The absence of customers alone made these two weeks worthwhile. It was nice to be able to do a job and not have my work immediately destroyed. Trying to keep ladies wear organized in a store full of customers is like trying to do a banana flavoured jigsaw puzzle in a cage full of monkeys. I return to the zoo on Saturday.

It's Great to Stay Up Late

There were some extra shifts available at work because the menswear department is being completely revamped. I volunteered for these shifts without asking any questions because I'm an idiot. Turns out they're in the middle of the night, 11pm to 7am. The more I think about it though, the better it sounds. I'm always up at that time anyway, I get an extra dollar an hour, I get the weekends off, two of my friends also volunteered, and I won't have to deal with any customers. In fact, it's perfect. I can't wait to meet the night crew. Those guys look like they have crazy stories to tell. I'm still not sure what I'll do during my 3am lunch break. Buy drugs in the parking lot, I guess.

For the Children!

It is performance review time at Wal-Mart, for me at least, since I am one year into a sentence of indeterminate length. I was given the opportunity to fill out an evaluation for myself, but I just didn't care enough to put any heart into it. I handed it into my boss at the last minute. I gave myself the highest score in every category, under Achievements and Goals I wrote "not applicable" and that was that. I didn't think she'd actually look at it. She values her own opinion far too much. Once you've lost respect for your superiors and don't care if you get fired, you can pretty much do whatever you want so when she surprised me and asked about my lack of goals I said, "There's not really anything I want to improve on. I think I pretty much reached a plateau after my second week." She stared at me a while, either because she was shocked by my insolence or because she didn't know what plateau meant. It's hard to say; her emotions are not like our human emotions. She finished off the evaluation and approved my raise (now I can buy that beach house). Her assessment of my job performance was not nearly as generous as mine. She suggested I work on my punctuality. It's true I'm often 5, 10, 30 minutes late. But she didn't mention how I always sneak out early so I intend to continue doing that. She also reminded me of Wal-Mart's 3 meter rule: Smile and greet every customer who comes within 3 meters. This, unfortunately, is in direct conflict with my number 1 rule: Never engage the enemy. And I enjoy the challenge of always trying to stay at least 3 meters away from everyone. So I just moved my head noncommittally in response.

I volunteered for the Wal-Mart Walk for Miracles in support of children's charities this past Sunday. I was designated part of the tear-down crew, which sounds like fun but is, of course, just Wal-Mart speak for picking up garbage and stacking folding chairs. Sort of like how "party" is Wal-Mart speak for someone bringing in a box of Timbits but by the time you get there all the good ones are gone and there's just those plain ones left. Those plain Timbits are worse than no Timbits at all especially when you see someone else with their mouth so full of the delicious chocolate Timbits they can't talk. Anyway, I volunteered for the same reason everyone volunteers for these things: to meet attractive singles with kind hearts and good morals. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man at a charity event, must be in want of a date. I guess I didn't really think about the fact that all the other volunteers would be people from work, all with whom I was already more than sufficiently acquainted. When I left home it was sunny, as I traveled downtown the sky was darkening, and by the time I arrived at the Walk it was raining. With all that ominous meteorological foreshadowing, I was not surprised at all when I signed in at the volunteer tent and met up with the rest of my crew. One of the organizers introduced me, "Kathleen, your team leader will be your mortal enemy, Her Majesty, the Queen of Wal-Mart, your boss Donna!" AHHHHH! She actually said "Kathleen, you know Donna." I try to do something nice for the sick kids, or abandoned puppies or whatever the hell charity this was and this is what I get in return? Why could I not have been partnered with that pervert from Automotive who yells "Nice ass!" every time I walk by or that weird new girl from the pet department who spent her entire lunch break one day sketching me in her notebook? What these people lack in tact and sanity, they make up for in their dedication to me. And so we have at least that in common. The only thing Donna and I have in common is that we both like it when I'm not at work. She did behave herself for the most part though and the Walk was a success. My sneakers are still drying out from the water damage they sustained and my arms ache from loading five million gallons of beverages into a van. I hope those kids are happy.

Virtual Work

Facebook is ruined. My boss is on it. Under 'Activities' she has listed "being a bitch" and "ruining Kathleen's life". It actually says "Curling" and "going to the spa", but I can read between the lines. Of the top five fakest conversations I've ever had, at least three have been with her. I ask about her geriatric cat, she inquires about my college classes. We exchange nearly identical pleasantries each time we meet to mask our hostility towards one another. She's the closest thing I've ever had to an enemy. She has an eerie sixth sense when it comes to my job performance and magically shows up when I'm slacking off or negatively representing the store. Exchanges I've had with customers I wish she hadn't heard:

- "What kind of strapless bras do you carry?"
- "The ones here suck. You should go to Sears."

- "I can only take 4 items into the fitting room? But I have 15."
- "Whatever. Just go in."

- "You don't know how the gift registry works? You work here, don't you?"
- "Barely".

Whenever I turn around, there she is. Since I fancy myself an optimist, I like to think her being on Facebook could be an advantage. I hope that by studying her profile, I can determine her weaknesses. So far though it's just been an annoyance having to delete all the incriminating wall posts I've written.

The other day she informed me that I had neglected to do a portion of the required on-line training and that the particular lessons I had to do were supposed to have been done over a year ago when I first started working. I feigned ignorance and said I had no idea, which was a lie; I just didn't feel like doing it. The computer training modules are 20 minute animated pieces of crap designed to inform and entertain. You are subjected to some lecture on a topic like "Being nice to customers" and then you have to do an activity to prove you fully grasp the concept. Your guide through these lessons is a talking cartoon shopping cart who says "Good try!" after everything you do. The activity is usually a game so simple a child of three could master it. Sometimes it's a word search with words like basket and shelf. Or it could be paper doll style game where you dress an employee in the proper safety gear to clean up a chemical spill. If you're lucky, it might be a game similar to Pac-Man where you are a virtual janitor who has to clean up spills and move hazards out of the path of a virtual customer.

The sexual harassment game was by far the most hilarious. To "win" you have to participate in a virtual interaction with your imaginary co-worker Gene (picture Tom Selleck if he worked at Wal-mart and was a greasy cartoon character) who makes increasingly inappropriate sexual advances. After each move by Gene you have to click "Sexual Harassment" or "Not Sexual Harassment". I wanted to see just how far Gene would go and ended up having to repeat the lesson due to my poor score. I was apparently not the only one to have enjoyed getting to know Gene. Someone had written on the wall behind the computer "Gene is hot". Below that someone else had responded "I'd do him".

It's pretty much the most pointless thing I've ever done... which is why I don't know why I've been putting it off. I get to sit out back in the computer room with my snacks, put my feet up and "learn". I learned important lessons like NEVER climb inside the trash compactor and DON'T put heavy merchandise on top of eggs when you are packing shopping bags, neither of which I would even have opportunity to do in my capacity as a slave to "fashion". And I was disappointed to find out that according to company policy, employees are not allowed to date other employees, which is the tragedy of the century. This important learning comes too late for the two (possibly three) staff couples who are expecting babies. And I hope it doesn't negatively affect attendance at the upcoming nuptials of Ken from electronics and Christy from jewelry.