Meijer, Thomas, and New Paths Unfolding
I quit Meijer; my orientation at Hollywood Video is tonight at 9. I did kind of regret having to go to my manager at Meijer and quit without any notice, but she was very understanding. Much more understanding than I would have been, probably, and she told me to let her know if anything changed! How generous is that?
I thought for a while (particularly during days one and two at Meijer) that my experience was going to be somewhat akin to my first (and only) days at McDonald's. See, I worked there for two days a few years ago, and I felt completely overwhelmed by the tasks I was assigned. I was basically just put into back cash (their term for the position in which you take drive through orders and then collect the customers' money) without having any kind of feel for the keypad. My trainer, Hamed, had a zillion other things to do, so instead of helping me, he kind of wandered off on his own and I was left struggling to ring the customers through. I had to ask some of them two and three times to repeat their orders so I could have time to enter them into the system; calling it traumatic probably wouldn't be much of an understatement.
My first day at Meijer was somewhat similar in that I struggled and was working with Thomas, an employee who seemed to keep wandering off. A bit more on him later; anyway, he wanted to go on break and leave me alone for fifteen minutes with absolutely no idea of what to do. Unfortunately, that's actually what he ended up doing. I somehow managed to get a bit of a feel for the work by the end of the night, but I still felt overwhelmed. My second day, I was provided with much more assistance from my official manager (she wasn't there the first day) and a couple other coworkers of mine (who also weren't there the first day).
I couldn't believe I had a coworker named Thomas. I had a hard time remembering his name for the first few days because he truly has the look of a generic bum--nothing against generic bums, of course--but calling him Thomas was a great bonus. I call about 75% of the guys I talk to "Thomas" regardless of what their parents tried to name them, and here was some 40-something dude with a southern drawl whom I could address as Thomas completely legitimately in a professional environment. Truly, I had a hard time holding back the tears. It would have been a beautiful thing had he not been such a strange one.
You see, this particular Thomas claims he can only work 20 hours a week because he's receiving so much social security from disability. He alluded to a very unpleasant military experience in the mid '80s in Beirut in which he came back disgruntled, insane, and with a burning hatred for many ethnic groups. The government, he says, was rather worried about him for a time, being that he worked with top secret nuclear weapons and stood to leak information about them to various countries. They followed him around undercover, they prevented him from buying guns, and they even had him committed for a time. Now that it's been a couple decades, however, he's finally starting to get back his civil rights, like voting and packing heat.
I guess this could all be true, but I have a bit of a difficult time believing it when he comes across as such a slow one. He talks with a trudgingly slow drawl, he directs every customer to "home fashions" regardless of what they ask, and he claims DVDs are part of a vile plot to extort money from all the poor consumers. "Hey Joe," he once addressed me, "Look at this! They claim DVDs are unbreakable and now they're selling repair kits for 'em?" What a guy.
Not to be overly cruel, but I did kind of fear for my life when I was around him. I felt as though anything I said could trigger something that'd leave me being strangled, bloody, or dead. Later, Meijer. Later, Thomas.
Getting back to the main subject, however: I ended up working about six days, and while the job never became fun, it did become bearable, as was mentioned in my last entry. It actually got to the point where I made the job challenging for myself (by choice) by seeing how fast I could get things done and seeing how much work I could complete before clocking out for a break. Jobs in general aren't so bad, I've found, when you turn them into challenges like that. That said, I wasn't completely positive I was doing the right thing when I told Sandy I was quitting to go somewhere else, but I'm truly looking forward to work at Hollywood Video. It seems like my type of job.
Oh yeah, and I wrote this song yesterday when I was feeling kind of down. It's kind of cheesy and my vocals could use some work (and some different filters), but I like the progression. Nizzles.
I thought for a while (particularly during days one and two at Meijer) that my experience was going to be somewhat akin to my first (and only) days at McDonald's. See, I worked there for two days a few years ago, and I felt completely overwhelmed by the tasks I was assigned. I was basically just put into back cash (their term for the position in which you take drive through orders and then collect the customers' money) without having any kind of feel for the keypad. My trainer, Hamed, had a zillion other things to do, so instead of helping me, he kind of wandered off on his own and I was left struggling to ring the customers through. I had to ask some of them two and three times to repeat their orders so I could have time to enter them into the system; calling it traumatic probably wouldn't be much of an understatement.
My first day at Meijer was somewhat similar in that I struggled and was working with Thomas, an employee who seemed to keep wandering off. A bit more on him later; anyway, he wanted to go on break and leave me alone for fifteen minutes with absolutely no idea of what to do. Unfortunately, that's actually what he ended up doing. I somehow managed to get a bit of a feel for the work by the end of the night, but I still felt overwhelmed. My second day, I was provided with much more assistance from my official manager (she wasn't there the first day) and a couple other coworkers of mine (who also weren't there the first day).
I couldn't believe I had a coworker named Thomas. I had a hard time remembering his name for the first few days because he truly has the look of a generic bum--nothing against generic bums, of course--but calling him Thomas was a great bonus. I call about 75% of the guys I talk to "Thomas" regardless of what their parents tried to name them, and here was some 40-something dude with a southern drawl whom I could address as Thomas completely legitimately in a professional environment. Truly, I had a hard time holding back the tears. It would have been a beautiful thing had he not been such a strange one.
You see, this particular Thomas claims he can only work 20 hours a week because he's receiving so much social security from disability. He alluded to a very unpleasant military experience in the mid '80s in Beirut in which he came back disgruntled, insane, and with a burning hatred for many ethnic groups. The government, he says, was rather worried about him for a time, being that he worked with top secret nuclear weapons and stood to leak information about them to various countries. They followed him around undercover, they prevented him from buying guns, and they even had him committed for a time. Now that it's been a couple decades, however, he's finally starting to get back his civil rights, like voting and packing heat.
I guess this could all be true, but I have a bit of a difficult time believing it when he comes across as such a slow one. He talks with a trudgingly slow drawl, he directs every customer to "home fashions" regardless of what they ask, and he claims DVDs are part of a vile plot to extort money from all the poor consumers. "Hey Joe," he once addressed me, "Look at this! They claim DVDs are unbreakable and now they're selling repair kits for 'em?" What a guy.
Not to be overly cruel, but I did kind of fear for my life when I was around him. I felt as though anything I said could trigger something that'd leave me being strangled, bloody, or dead. Later, Meijer. Later, Thomas.
Getting back to the main subject, however: I ended up working about six days, and while the job never became fun, it did become bearable, as was mentioned in my last entry. It actually got to the point where I made the job challenging for myself (by choice) by seeing how fast I could get things done and seeing how much work I could complete before clocking out for a break. Jobs in general aren't so bad, I've found, when you turn them into challenges like that. That said, I wasn't completely positive I was doing the right thing when I told Sandy I was quitting to go somewhere else, but I'm truly looking forward to work at Hollywood Video. It seems like my type of job.
Oh yeah, and I wrote this song yesterday when I was feeling kind of down. It's kind of cheesy and my vocals could use some work (and some different filters), but I like the progression. Nizzles.