Expired Tuesday

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you’re back in high school and you’re like 30 and not wearing a shirt and you’re supposed to be at work for an important meeting but the teacher won’t give you a hall pass? That’s pretty much what I’m feeling right now, except I’m awake.

You see, I went back to the mall for some part-time work to support my crack addiction (obviously, I must have been on crack to even consider it, right?). Just kidding, I just wanted the 40% discount off clothing and some spending money because every last penny I make is budgeted to be spent on one bill or another. And now, instead of being ahead, I’m behind! The extra hours of work and stress wore me down and I got sick right away and missed TWO DAYS at my day job, plus one shift at the mall—about which they had a complete case of the ass!

Tuesday was the final straw. I had to get to my day job an hour early, so my day was 8am-4:30pm, and I was scheduled later on at the mall. I got there at 5:30 and stopped in at work to grab my wallet that I forgot there in case I found something to wear during my one hour of shopping for my brother’s wedding this Saturday (I didn’t). My supers were like, “Hey, why don’t you punch in NOW?” I declined. I ran around looking at dresses and grabbed some dinner and headed back. After I punched in, they informed me that we were all staying late to finish the re-set and prepare for a major corporate visit in the morning.

All that was written on the schedule was 6:30 to close, which is 9:30 or 10. No one called me to get my permission to be scheduled late into the night. They just assumed jurisdiction over my person, deciding that once I punch in, they can just keep me working until their task is complete. As the night wore on I became more and more angry.

There was SO MUCH to do and we were getting nowhere. The store was supposed to be re-set completely on Sunday night, and two managers came in early Sunday to get a jump on it, then were back after closing to finish. Well, the problem was that they had over TWENTY boxes of shipment to process. Which means twenty 24”x24”x18” boxes stuffed full of clothes that are folded up in tissue paper and wrapped in plastic, some with chintzy plastic hangers. It takes about thirty minutes to process each box (multiply by 20 boxes=ten man hours) because you have to unwrap and sort, take out the crap hangers, hang the clothes per corporate guidelines, sort by size, and find somewhere to store it until it goes on the floor. We only have 5 eight-foot rolling racks, mind you. Plus, of course we get crappy little trinket-y accessories to unpack and put out too. Each pair of earrings or keychain or ring is wrapped in its own little plastic bag and taped shut, and they all go together inside of a larger plastic bag that is taped shut and comes inside of a box that is taped shut inside of the big shipment box. There’s a lot of trash to take out.

As if enormous shipment weren’t enough, they had to do markdowns, a huge undertaking in itself and can take as long as two days between a staff of six: find products listed, pull it all off the floor, count and record each garment, HAND WRITE new prices on each and every tag—they can’t spring for a goddam pricegun?!—and place all the clothes on the floor that will fit, otherwise pack up the rest in boxes and bring to the off-site storage room, which, in the Megamall, is literally a quarter of a mile away. And THEN, to prepare for the corporate visit, each and every rack, sidebar, standout, 4-way, and gondola of clothing had to be put in order by size; all the shelves of pants had to be refolded to corporate specification, perfectly stocked, and in size order; the whole store needed to be thoroughly cleaned—another two hours of work that is just a big waste of time because in a matter of hours everything would be covered in dust anyway.

The mall is one huge dust factory. The dust comes from the fibers of the MILLIONS of garments housed in the mall. They just circulate and re-circulate through the air ducts, clogging the ventilation system and dropping whole dust bunnies that pile up in every corner of the building. The result is a definite, yet unsubstantiated Mall of America Syndrome which keeps the full time shopkeeps all across the mall sick. They think they’re just getting virus after virus, but it’s the dust and dust mites. I digress.

So there I was at 9:30 doing the most recent shipment of clothes and I’m listening to the two managers talking across the store to each other. What I sussed out was that the two of them had been staying over night till 4am both Sunday night and Monday night and enlisting the assistant manager’s beau to help without being paid. While the two of them were remerchandising walls and dressing mannequins, the assistant manager called her boyfriend and begged him for a straight ten minutes to come in and help again—for free of course. He kept saying no (I was thinking, “That’s right, guy, put your fuckin’ foot down”), but she started getting pissed so he caved and came in to clean. I guess he knows not to piss off a fat lady.

When I finished the shipment, I had to refold and re-merchandize about twenty four DOZEN pairs of pants with the other associate. When we finished that shit I called it quits. It was fucking half past midnight, my husband had been waiting out in the parking for me for half an hour with a clear view of two idiots fucking in a car, and the store was nowhere NEAR done. Clearly, this is not worth $7.00 per hour—$5.46 per hour after taxes.

I am totally quitting. Again.