Wal-Mart Diaries, Day 1.
My friends page is very screwed up. I don't know what's wrong with it, but since the new LJ layout started I haven't seen a single update on it. Sorry for not commenting on you all, but I haven't been able to see your posts!
I got a job at Wal-Mart T&L for 7 bucks an hour, full time. Given the cost of living in Rolla, that's a pretty decent starting position. They're looking for management too, so I'm hoping to be bumped up within a month or so. Today was the first day of on the job training.
Having worked at Wal-Mart and about 50,000 other big box stores before, I'm pretty familiar with the training regimine. Safety first, customer care, code babystealer, how to survive in a wal-mart firefight, proper procedures in the event of someone spilling three drops of liquid soap, and so on and so forth. Nothing that actually relates to the job I'm supposed to be doing, but it's all pretty entertaining nonetheless. Of particular interest this time were the co-trainees, and the trainer himself.
Frank, our safety supervisor, is an old man who looks a little bit like the James Stewart from "It's a Wonderful Life." Sounds like him too. Only, Frank is missing one of the fingers on his right hand. It's sort of a glaring omission, the kind you can't really look away from once you've noticed it. I've had a long history with this sort of thing- my shop teacher in middle school had two fingers missing, my deli supervisor was short a few digits. I don't know why losing appendages makes you a safety authority, but he was clearly respected (and he told stories about Nam) so I decided to give him a pass on that one.
The coworkers were a little scarier. First there's the obviously gay sporting goods trainee. Now normally I don't jump to conclusions, even when presented with a lisp and a distinctive swaying of the hips. This guy certainly didn't jump out at me- scruffy beard, ragged dress, going into a job involving rifles and sports equipment. Then as we were standing around, I noticed the small, pink hoop earrings. Then the stars tattooed on his left forearm. Fascinated, I observed him for a bit. Definitely not a fan of the ladies, this one. Next we had the lady who felt it necessary to share the trauma that moved her to get a job at Wal-Mart. There's one of these in every group. This time, though, it was quite a story. Then another trainee topped it.
I'm sitting in the training room watching the clock tick minutes of my life away, waiting for the supervisor to get out of a meeting and come back to move us along through the paperwork. There is some sort of personnel survey going on, and little old ladies keep coming in and sitting at the computer across from me. I've been spying on them, and am really amused to note that all of them click "Extremely dissatisfied" with every option on the survey, as quickly as they can. Most of them miss a box or two and are then stuck, hitting the "Next" button over and over as the computer prompts them to finish the damn survey, please. Then I tune into the story my co-trainees are going through. I am immediately horrified.
"75 feet? Off a cliff?"
"Oh yes. Well, not a direct fall, I bounced off it a couple of times. I have scars. See?" She lifts up her shirt and flashes the room a nice jelly roll, with a hideous two foot scar extending from the front of her stomach to her lower back. "I gained a lot of weight afterwards, because of all the damage I couldn't move. I lost two ribs, broke my arm, fractured my clavicle, my kidney was hanging out right here" and here she gestures to the scar, "attached only by the veins. So we moved here." Her target for this story considers for a moment, and then launches into his tail of woe. The little old ladies have paused in their clicking at this point, the room is silent.
"I was in a car wreck. My dad bought me a camero when I got out of high school, and I was going way too fast on a back road. I hit a bump and lost control, off a shoulder and over a hill. They told me later I hit a tree almost twenty feet in the air, and then the car rolled. I hit my head and passed out early. I was in a coma for weeks, but I can remember everything people said to me at that point."
Cliff lady is shocked. "It's amazing you weren't killed! Were you wearing a seatbelt?"
Car wreck nods. "Yes, but my two friends in the back weren't. They both died." I thought the room had been silent before. New levels of quiet are being reached, here. "When I woke up they said I was being charged with involuntary manslaughter, and one of the parents was suing me for a million dollars. At that point they didn't know if I was going to live or not, and I hadn't been drunk, so they dropped the charges. But I wound up having owing 50,000 in insurance for the payout. It's been a year and I don't hold myself responsible for their deaths, but it's still hard to cope. We moved out of that town and came here, and this is my first job- I need it to pay off the insurance."
Cliff lady tries to lighten the situation. "Boy, after an accident like that, I think I'd take to drinking. You're doing pretty well."
Unfazed, car wreck continues. "I can't drink. There was so much blood in my brain that it felt like a vice on me, all the time. I had migraines so bad I couldn't sleep for weeks. They finally gave me pills, but I'll probably always have this headache and if I drink while I'm on the medication, it'll kill me."
Welcome to retail, kid.
I got a job at Wal-Mart T&L for 7 bucks an hour, full time. Given the cost of living in Rolla, that's a pretty decent starting position. They're looking for management too, so I'm hoping to be bumped up within a month or so. Today was the first day of on the job training.
Having worked at Wal-Mart and about 50,000 other big box stores before, I'm pretty familiar with the training regimine. Safety first, customer care, code babystealer, how to survive in a wal-mart firefight, proper procedures in the event of someone spilling three drops of liquid soap, and so on and so forth. Nothing that actually relates to the job I'm supposed to be doing, but it's all pretty entertaining nonetheless. Of particular interest this time were the co-trainees, and the trainer himself.
Frank, our safety supervisor, is an old man who looks a little bit like the James Stewart from "It's a Wonderful Life." Sounds like him too. Only, Frank is missing one of the fingers on his right hand. It's sort of a glaring omission, the kind you can't really look away from once you've noticed it. I've had a long history with this sort of thing- my shop teacher in middle school had two fingers missing, my deli supervisor was short a few digits. I don't know why losing appendages makes you a safety authority, but he was clearly respected (and he told stories about Nam) so I decided to give him a pass on that one.
The coworkers were a little scarier. First there's the obviously gay sporting goods trainee. Now normally I don't jump to conclusions, even when presented with a lisp and a distinctive swaying of the hips. This guy certainly didn't jump out at me- scruffy beard, ragged dress, going into a job involving rifles and sports equipment. Then as we were standing around, I noticed the small, pink hoop earrings. Then the stars tattooed on his left forearm. Fascinated, I observed him for a bit. Definitely not a fan of the ladies, this one. Next we had the lady who felt it necessary to share the trauma that moved her to get a job at Wal-Mart. There's one of these in every group. This time, though, it was quite a story. Then another trainee topped it.
I'm sitting in the training room watching the clock tick minutes of my life away, waiting for the supervisor to get out of a meeting and come back to move us along through the paperwork. There is some sort of personnel survey going on, and little old ladies keep coming in and sitting at the computer across from me. I've been spying on them, and am really amused to note that all of them click "Extremely dissatisfied" with every option on the survey, as quickly as they can. Most of them miss a box or two and are then stuck, hitting the "Next" button over and over as the computer prompts them to finish the damn survey, please. Then I tune into the story my co-trainees are going through. I am immediately horrified.
"75 feet? Off a cliff?"
"Oh yes. Well, not a direct fall, I bounced off it a couple of times. I have scars. See?" She lifts up her shirt and flashes the room a nice jelly roll, with a hideous two foot scar extending from the front of her stomach to her lower back. "I gained a lot of weight afterwards, because of all the damage I couldn't move. I lost two ribs, broke my arm, fractured my clavicle, my kidney was hanging out right here" and here she gestures to the scar, "attached only by the veins. So we moved here." Her target for this story considers for a moment, and then launches into his tail of woe. The little old ladies have paused in their clicking at this point, the room is silent.
"I was in a car wreck. My dad bought me a camero when I got out of high school, and I was going way too fast on a back road. I hit a bump and lost control, off a shoulder and over a hill. They told me later I hit a tree almost twenty feet in the air, and then the car rolled. I hit my head and passed out early. I was in a coma for weeks, but I can remember everything people said to me at that point."
Cliff lady is shocked. "It's amazing you weren't killed! Were you wearing a seatbelt?"
Car wreck nods. "Yes, but my two friends in the back weren't. They both died." I thought the room had been silent before. New levels of quiet are being reached, here. "When I woke up they said I was being charged with involuntary manslaughter, and one of the parents was suing me for a million dollars. At that point they didn't know if I was going to live or not, and I hadn't been drunk, so they dropped the charges. But I wound up having owing 50,000 in insurance for the payout. It's been a year and I don't hold myself responsible for their deaths, but it's still hard to cope. We moved out of that town and came here, and this is my first job- I need it to pay off the insurance."
Cliff lady tries to lighten the situation. "Boy, after an accident like that, I think I'd take to drinking. You're doing pretty well."
Unfazed, car wreck continues. "I can't drink. There was so much blood in my brain that it felt like a vice on me, all the time. I had migraines so bad I couldn't sleep for weeks. They finally gave me pills, but I'll probably always have this headache and if I drink while I'm on the medication, it'll kill me."
Welcome to retail, kid.