Bad Pick-up line

The elementary school my son attended has a system for pick-up and drop-off.
There are four sets of kids who attend the school:
Walkers - kids who walk to and from school (the smallest group)
Bus riders - kids who arrive and leave on big yellow school buses
Car riders - kids who are not bussed, whose parents pick them up and drive them home
Day Care - kids who are transported to and from school by a vehicle owned by the
.day-care they attend.

The school has organized pick-up with specific routes for all four types of entry and exit with the idea of kid safety in mind. The issues they wish to avoid are the danger of accidents (car and pedestrian), the danger of kids getting overlooked and left at school, and the danger of kids being kidnapped (there's been one non-custodial parent who tried to take his kid - the police had to be called,) and the possibility of a kidnapping scare when both parents show up for the same kid due to some mis-communication (which has all ready happened once but was quickly resolved on the grounds.) These aren't older kids; this is a k-4 school. The kids ages (in August, when school starts) range from four to ten.

The flow of traffic is organized to avoid the above-mentioned dangers and issues. The buses pick up on the opposite side of the school from the side where the parents pick up, and the day care kids get picked up several yards away from the car-riders. The walkers leave through a different door, and are led away from the school and accompanied a full mile by an adult crossing guard in a reflective vest.

Cars picking up kids come into the lot through one driveway, form a line, pick up at the door, and continue in the same direction, leaving through another drive at the other end.
At that end of the lot is a circular drive, like a cul-de-sac, except the end is open to the "road" that goes past that end of the school. That is where the day care drivers park. The cars go on the left side of the cul-de-sac to avoid risk to the day care kids.

It's all very well organized, and would work great, if it weren't for a fifth group; the Hoverparents.

There used to be a small number of kids whose parents would hover by the door until school let out, then grab their kids, and go. At the beginning of the year, this group comprised of less than five. This group should be very small. During my son's last few years there, one set of parents was justified in being there because their child had a serious, non-custodial parental kidnapping risk. The rest didn't really need to stand around the building, but some were waiting for kids who couldn't leave until everyone else did.

Parents of the kids in the safety patrol do not crowd into the line, because our kids can't leave until all of the other kids are picked up. Because of this, ours are the last kids to be picked up. We do still have to be there, throughout the process, because the time it takes varies by up to ten minutes, and the teachers do have lives outside of school, so it would be as rude for us to make them wait as it would for us to get into line knowing we're the last parents to pick up.

When my son was there, the Safety Patrol parents always parked our cars and waited until the line was gone. Some parents waited in still-running cars. Others waited where they felt they could better see their kids doing the safety patrol job. I liked to watch my son while chatting with whichever parent was there to pick up the child mentioned above. Unfortunately, halfway through Autumn, parents who did not have kids in safety patrol began joining the hoverparents, crowding onto the paved area around the school's main door. I became concerned that the group was getting too big for the teachers handling the end-of-day exit to monitor safely.


The hoverparents group continued to grow unnecessarily, including many parents who were there simply to beat the line. One day, there were enough parents there to pick up an entire classroom full of kids. There were some near-accidents in the lot that were so scary that onlookers gasped like an audience watching acrobats in a circus. It was just crazy. There is no sense in risking one's life, the lives of one's children, and the lives of others, in the pursuit of shaving a few minutes off of the time it takes to pick up a kid at school. Soon, my concerns were echoed by a few other parents and some of the teachers. Since I didn't actually need to stand by the door, I decided to set the example and switched to watching from my car.

When it boils down to it, none of us except for the kidnapping risk family actually had to be in that space waiting for our kids, and with the number increasing, a lot of confusion had been created. This presented a number of dangerous circumstances.

The most likely danger to lead to an actual disaster involved the flow of hoverparent car and foot traffic.
Car pick-up parents began lining up at the door a full fifteen minutes before the Kindergarten kids got out. The rest of the grades came out three minutes after that.
Hoverparents began arriving at about the same time as car parents, and the flow of that traffic continued throughout pick-up, with cars driving in and out of the lot, cars backing out of parking spaces, and pedestrians crossing traffic to get to their kids, and then to get their kids to their cars.

To get to the parking spaces in the school's narrow lot (just enough room for two "lanes" of traffic in between the sets of perpendicular parking spaces,) the hoverparents had to drive past the line of car pick-up parents, both in the lot, and on the street before.Then, some of them used the "left" lane to try to exit the lot through the "in" driveway, going against traffic like a salmon swimming upstream. More than once, this caused a traffic jam.

Parents were passing cars on the street, driving in the left lane for up to fifty yards to do so, then turning left into the school's lot. These parents jealously guarded their place in "line," turning left in front of oncoming traffic if they thought the driver coming toward them was trying to "cut." Several times I saw near accidents as people driving past the school were nearly hit by angry parents who assumed they were other parents trying to cut.
Once in the lot, hoverparents didn't bother to slow down much. They seemed to not understand that this was a pedestrian area... until they were the pedestrians.

Then, they would walk in front of moving vehicles without looking, and get angry when tires squealed and horns honked at them.


I normally arrived at about 2:00 to 2:05, before there was a long line in the street, and while crawling my van through the lot to find a space, I'd usually had another mom behind honking at my slowness. I rarely could get through that lot without someone driving halfway up my tailpipe. In the meantime, I had to watch for parents crossing in front of me without warning, some of whom assumed the horn they were hearing was mine. More than once I got the finger for no reason.

I also had parents nearly back into me because the don't look when they back out of parking spaces after grabbing their kids. When I had to go into the building for something during pick-up, I was nearly hit walking to the door from my car, as parents speed out of the line after picking up their kids, wanting to get on their way, not looking for pedestrians before they gunned it and went. In the meantime, parents in the line of picking-up cars didn't always recognize the danger of letting their kids get in on the unprotected driver's side of the car instead of the passenger side, where the sidewalk is. Every day I watched kids going out into that careless stream of hoverparent traffic to get into the back of cars.

The accident risk was huge! I don't know how we got through the year without someone getting hurt.

The second danger presented by the hoverparents was in the chaos they created. When it was just a small group by the door, the school staff could keep track of who was being picked up by whom, making sure that no kids were leaving with someone who shouldn't be taking them.

Once the group increased in size, it created exactly the kind of dangerous situation which made my buddy concerned about his daughter's safety in the first place. With too many people to keep track of walking up to the school's main exit, it would be way too easy for someone to grab a kid and run, especially if it was someone the kid knew and didn't understand he/she should fear, like a non-custodial parent or a "nice" neighbor. Also, someone parked in a close-to-the-door spot could grab a kid and run, and be out of that lot before anyone could stop them.

The third danger isn't one most people would think of. With an extra flow of pick-ups to monitor, there is the chance that a kid could be left out or forgotten. A child who does something out of the ordinary, such as returning to the classroom for a forgotten item, going inside to use the restroom, or visiting the office with a question, might be overlooked. Because the hoverparent pick-ups were ending up not accounted for, school staff might not realize that one kid is missing. Knowing who is picking up whom, and when each kid leaves, is vital to the staff when trying to monitor the safety of each child. A missed kid could be stuck there for hours... and an unnoticed missed kid might even try to walk home.

One day, staff members were trying to figure out what to do about the issue of the Hoverparents (no, they didn't call us that - that's my assessment of the behavior.)
Listening to the discussion, I could hear a serious amount of stress in their voices. Their biggest worry was that harm would come to one of their little charges. Their concerns are valid - I'd seen some really close calls in the accident department, and I didn't know all of the parents who I saw standing in front of the school every day. Some kids did not even get picked up by the same people every day.
Unfortunately, the teachers were quick to realize that they could not directly control whether or not people chose to hoverparent. They could give orders, but had no way to enforce them as long as the kids were all ready out of the building.
As the staff continued to brainstorm, and idea struck me, and I made a suggestion, which they really seemed to like:

Why not set up a sign-out for the car-riders whose parents do not get into the car line? The kids could be kept inside until an authorized person was there to take them. That way, school staff would know who is picking up each kid and what time they left. It would slow down the hoverparent pick-up process enough to discourage parents who are hovering just to get out faster, and protect kids in real at-risk situations from potential predators who should not be able to snatch them and run.

They could even direct the hoverparents to a separate area, such as the gym, to pick up their kids, thereby making it even more inconvenient and slow to be a hoverparent. It would mean a few days of getting out late, but after the point had been made, the number of hoverparents would probably shrink to one.

The idea was seriously considered, and the staff was interested in implementing it, but they were overridden by the administration.

Guess why!

The administration had been fielding complaints from the hoverparents that the line was slowing them down. Some of them had even complained to the school board.

That's right. The people who weren't doing it right were complaining that everyone else, by following the rules, was inconveniencing them, and they got their way.

Instead, the teachers at the school ended up having to become traffic cops, actually placing their own bodies in the parking lot's parent-created "passing lane" to keep the dangerous group of hoverparents, and a new group of line-jumpers, from endangering everyone with their inconsiderate choices. They dealt with the hoverparents by physically getting in the way of their cars and holding a set of them back for each wave of lined-up parents they allowed to leave. Only when the line was not movie as kids got into cars were hoverparents permitted to drive through the lot.

In the end, this method did work. By making hoverparenting inconvenient and slow, they slowly encouraged parents back into the line. By the end of the year, hoverparents were down to a handful, and the pick-up was down to a science. There had been several near-accidents in the process of making that happen, as parents tried to drive around the teachers directing traffic and nearly hit them, but no injuries occurred.

It's just sad that educators had to risk life and limb to teach adults how to wait in line for 5 minutes.

ID Please!

It seems to happen at least once every shift... so often that it is featured as one of my favorite Ways to Show Employees in a Convenience Store That You Are an Idiot.

Walk into the store through a door bearing a label that says, "We I.D." Go through the store past employees whose uniforms also bear the words, "We I.D." Open a cooler door bearing another label that says, "We I.D." Carry your beer purchase to the counter, which also bears a label that says, "We I.D." and then throw a fit when the cashier asks for your I.D. Extra points off if you make a scene.

Folks, we do work hard to give you good service. Most of us aren't "surly, pimple-faced teens" as I've seen described in people's blogs that all too often could easily be titled "that stupid kid at the corner store carded me for beer! What a bad attitude he/she has!" If we ask for your ID, please just show it to us. Don't act like we're asking you for the blood of your first born child. We're not. We're also not asking because we're jerks; but because we're required, and we're not just asking you.

Here is the lowdown on why you got IDed:

Federal law doesn't say we have to ID for alcohol. State law doesn't necessarily say so, either. It just holds us responsible if you're underage and we don't. The state does hire people who are 3 days shy of 21 to buy alcohol from us so they can bust us for selling to underage drinkers, because they want us to ID, and because (in some cases) they get federal money for that program). So no, in most cases it's not the law... but they enforce it like it is.

With that in mind, stores play it safe, err on the side of caution. If we don't, we could be entrapped into losing our license to sell alcohol, and the commerce that goes with it.

The law doesn't say we have to ID for all ages if we do ID. It just allows you to sue us for singling you out because of one of the multitude of reasons used in discrimination suits today, including things we couldn't possibly be expected to know about you unless you tell us, like your religion. This is not a far-fetched scenario; I've seen it happen in person, and it worked.

With that in mind, many stores are going to an "ID everyone" policy for alcohol, in order to avoid facing frivolous lawsuits.

The law does say we have to ID for cigarettes. If you look under 30 years old, we are legally required to check your ID for cigarettes. (If you are under 30 and you are not getting carded for cigarettes, either you should be offended by the slight, or they've all ready taken their toll on your looks with damage to your skin, hair, and teeth, making you look older.) 

The State does hire people who are within a few years' radius of 30 to come into our store and buy cigarettes. If we don't ID that person, we are in violation of the state laws (and penalties apply) on the basis that the State thinks that person looks under 30, even if he or she is not and does not.
 
It does not matter that this is entrapment. It is the way things are.

Therefore, if we think you look under 35, we're going to card you... maybe even if you look under 40. Some areas are now going to a system of just carding everyone for anything that has age restrictions for purchase. I have even seen cashiers IDing for energy drinks.

A few other things to keep in mind:
It is NOT the cashier's decision whether or not the store has a policy that requires ID for all alcohol and/or cigarette purchases. That kind of policy is set by an owner or corporate board. The cashier is simply required to adhere to that policy at all times. Therefore, getting mad or impatient and taking out your frustration on the cashier is futile and stupid, even if you interpret his or her act of checking your ID as "getting an attitude."

In stores which are chain outlets for a large corporation, the cashiers may actually be watched during transactions by individuals in corporate offices to see if they are adhering to the policy. This is the case where I work, and they have caught and disciplined violators.

Some businesses also have internal versions of the State's method of entrapment. They send employees around to make sure IDs are being checked during alcohol and tobacco sales in their stores. If we've never seen you before, or don't see you often, we don't know that you are not one of them.

Please also note, in instances of consumer ID related temper-tantrums, the manager may be authorized to make a judgment call on whether or not to sell you alcohol without an ID just to get your drama show out of the store. If we know one thing, it is that the authorities from the state and our corporate headquarters do not behave like this, so in doing so the manager is not at risk for getting busted. This does not mean that the cashier was lying.

When the manager does this, it means that your behavior was so atrocious that he or she just wanted to be rid of you. You may have gotten what you wanted, but you made an ass of yourself to get it. That said, throwing a temper tantrum also doesn't guarantee you a non-ID sale. It may just get you thrown out of the store. Battery charges have even been filed over adult tantrums at the location where I currently work, following an incident in which a consumer injured other shoppers in a fit of temper over a minor dispute with the cashier.

In some states (mine included), it is also illegal for us to sell you alcohol if you are intoxicated.
Did you know that belligerence can be a symptom of intoxication?
If you are belligerent, many retail cashiers and managers are encouraged by store policy to refuse the sale on the basis that you might be drunk, and selling to you could get us (ourselves and the store) busted for two violations.

The fact is, there is absolutely and without question, no excuse for getting all bent out of shape because your ID is required for a transaction involving a controlled substance. You do not have some kind of inalienable right to require anyone to do business with you specifically on your terms. In fact, you don't have the right to expect anyone to do business with you at all. Choosing to initiate a purchase is an act of agreeing to company policy regarding that transaction, and that includes whether or not you have to show your ID to the cashier to prove you aren't asking him/her to violate the law. If you can't handle that, you shouldn't drink... and well, you shouldn't be smoking, anyway. It's bad for you.

Don't believe everything you think you saw on TV

Yet another way to prove to everyone that you are an idiot... argue with an actual, real, living, breathing, ROCKET SCIENTIST about HOW FIRE WORKS... because of course, what does he know? He's only a ROCKET SCIENTIST, right?

Now, most people are aware that gasoline is a flammable substance. Especially in Ohio, where we now have a law that says you can't light a grill within 20 feet of a building, passed in response to some guy having blown up his little hibachi grill on an apartment balcony (because he used gasoline in it) and set the building on fire, people would be well aware that gas is very, very flammable.

Most smokers are aware that the tip of a cigarette being smoked is actually burning, since moments ago they had to light it using a flame. I refuse to give anyone the benefit of doubt regarding whether or not they know that when you ignite something with a flame, it is thereafter on fire. (I do fail miserably to see the logic in setting an object on fire and then sticking it in your mouth so that you can breathe in the burning ashes and poisonous gasses from it, but that's an entirely different rant.)

So... one should be able reasonably expect that most folks would be smart enough to avoid bringing a burning object into the same space as a very, very flammable liquid, especially when there's a lot of said liquid in the ground under said folks' feet. I really think this should fall under the category of common sense. Honestly, who wants to risk being blown to bits the size of corn flakes? I think having that happen to me would kind of suck. I would really prefer to not do that.

Why, then, is it that when my co-workers and I go out to make sure our lot is clean and presentable, we find buttloads (pun intended) of spent cigarettes all around the gas pumps? Do people not realize that dropping their smoldering butts (and I've found them still smoldering on the ground) next to the pump is just as stupid as smoking at the pump?

Why, when we catch people in the act and shut off the pump, do they get angry with us? Do they really think the sign admonishing them to not smoke is just a suggestion? It's not... it's the law. In fact, we can get busted if we don't stop the pumps when we see them smoking.

My particular store just happens to be a stone's throw away from an Air Force Base. As such, we do get a lot of business from the base, including pilots, marines, independent contractors, tourists, etc.
One day, a very upset man with one of those nametag/clearance level cards around his neck stomped into the store, pointed out to the first cashier a customer smoking at the pump, then approached the manager of the store. The guy was so mad he was shaking. The cashier shut off the pump immediately while the guy quietly told the manager (who was standing next to me) about the argument he'd had with the smoker.

Apparently, when the guy had reminded the smoker to not smoke at the pump, the smoker had cited an episode of Myth Busters in which they had proved that dropping a cigarette into a puddle of gas would not start a fire. The smug smoker then continued to drag on his butt as the guy explained first that he was a rocket scientist who worked with fighter jets and had nearly a decade of schooling on the subject and multiple decades of experience with flammable substances, and then the difference between the ignition temperature of a puddle of gas and the ignition temperature of a cloud of gas fumes.

Myth Busters had not addressed fumes in that episode, nor had they stated that it was safe to smoke at a gas pump. After learning that he was talking to a rocket scientist, the smoker still continued to keep his cigarette lit, called the guy an idiot, and said that he'd seen all the proof he needed on TV.

When my co-worker shut off the pump, the smoker came in and threw a royal, screaming fit, threatened to "call corporate." The manager told him to go ahead... it's to our advantage when they know that we are following the rules. The angry customer paid for his gas, and then stormed out to his car and drove off. After he left, I calmed down our upset guest by asking the room, "What kind of an idiot argues with a rocket scientist about how fire works?" Everyone laughed, and business went back to normal.

People who think that there is no danger of setting off gas fumes with cigarettes, sparks, etc. must not know how an internal combustion engine works, something I thought was fairly common knowledge. Maybe it's not... I learned it in the 8th grade in science class, but my science teacher had taken a second job as a used car salesman, so maybe he just taught us that because he found it interesting. It's something everyone should know, but I've realized lately that there are a lot of things everyone should know which most people don't.

So, for the benefit of those who were never taught this stuff:

The very thing that makes your car go is the fact that gas fumes can be set off easily. (For those readers who didn't learn about the Internal Combustion Engine in science class in school, it's explained really well HERE.)

The important thing to note for this post is how the fuel is ignited. Remember that in an internal combustion engine, fuel and air are shot into the combustion chamber together. It comes out in a mist, like hair spray from an aerosol can, or perfume from a diffuser. In other words, what is being ignited is gas vapor, not a puddle of gas as in the Mythbusters demonstration. It's not just fuel that's being ignited. It's fuel and oxygen.

Now, think back to the last time you accidentally got gasoline on you. It totally reeked, right? You probably smelled it until you changed your clothes. Even if you didn't, everyone else did. If you know anything about why we smell things, then you know that smell means there are particles of gas in the air. (Yes, when you smell anything, that means that particles of it have gotten into your nose. Think of that the next time someone around you lets a really foul fart!)

The reason why the gas is combined with air is that fire needs oxygen. When a flammable substance is mixed with oxygen, it is much, much easier to ignite. Hopefully everyone reading this learned that in elementary school science just like I did, but if not, you know now. This is not an excuse to pour liquid gas or lighter fluid into the flames on your backyard grill - you can still get burned doing that, as the jerk who ruined it for all apartment renters in Ohio learned the hard way.

It does explain why it's a bad idea to pour gas onto charcoal, let it sit a minute, and then light it... by that time there is a cloud of fumes above the charcoal and there will be a fireball when you drop in that lit match... if you get the chance to let go before the explosion.

Even a cigarette lighter works that way, only with butane instead of gasoline. As you flick your Bic, it releases vapor from inside the little plastic part at the same time as the friction created by the device's modern version of flint and steel produces a spark. Every time a smoker lights his/her cancer stick, he/she is demonstrating exactly why one does not want to have any active means of ignition around an active means of dispensing a flammable liquid which evaporates quickly when exposed to air.

Anyway, the vapor effect is why your car has spark plugs and not some kind of flame producing device, and it is what pushes the pistons and makes your engine work in the manner which moves your car. Because it is dealing with a vapor instead of a liquid, less effort is needed to produce a flame, and all of the fuel ignites very, very rapidly instead of the ignition moving slowly across the substance as with wood, coal, or even liquid fuel. This causes an explosion inside the combustion chamber. The force of the explosion moves the piston, etc.

The same thing can happen with gas fumes next to a gas pump. A small spill can produce enough vapor to make a big fireball right where you are standing. Even a single, small spark can be enough to ignite gas fumes.

Don't believe me?
Read some proof:

KIVI-TV TODAY'S 6 NEWS
12-Year Old Fire Victim Out Of Surgery After Weekend Gas Station Fire

The kid's step brother was smoking while pumping gas. When the nozzle caught fire, he pulled it out and the kid got sprayed, and ended up burned over a majority of his body.

Woman Smoking While Pumping Gas Ignites Fire, Burns Self And Car

POSTED: Monday, October 2, 2006

Story about a woman who started a fire by smoking while pumping gas

Spark ignites gas fumes By DAVID NICHOL, T-H Staff Writer

Little-known dangers at gas pumps

From Elizabeth Cohen
CNN
(This article includes an example of a fire started by a spark from static electricity at the pump during refueling.)

If that isn't enough, read This Thread from the Airstream Knowledge Sharing Forums

How To Not Impress Your Retail Customers and Co-Workers

Since I wrote about idiotic customers, I thought I'd write about the other end of it. Often, when customers behave like idiots around retail employees, they're doing so partly in response to things other retail employees have done to them. It may not be fair for them to generalize that way, but it is a human response. As with the examples in my article, "Ways to Show Employees in a Convenience Store That You Are an Idiot," the examples below are all things I've seen retail employees do, some to me, some not. I gotta say, it always makes one so proud to work with someone who does a bunch of these things.

Anyway, without further introduction, here are a few choice ways in which retail employees can totally fail to impress co-workers and customers.

Get impatient with us because we didn't see the sign, whether it be the little sign on the gas pump that says "you must pay before pumping gas" or the little sign off to the side of the display that says "with purchase of _______ (fill in item here)" or the little sign hanging from the ten foot ceiling that points to where the restrooms are. Of course, no one who ever comes into your store could possibly be from out of the area, so we all know all ready that the sign is there. We're just asking you about it to make your day just a little bit harder, because it takes so much effort to inform us.

Call in sick every time your nose itches, then get mad when you have to work late hours or on your days off because someone else had to call in sick. Don't they know you have a life?
 
Talk to your buddy who is standing off to the side, or on your cell phone, or better yet, send text messages while waiting on us at the cash register. Don't smile, don't greet us, and if you're really talented at this, don't even tell us how much we owe you - just point at the display on your register. It's important that we know your conversation is much more important to you than our business. That's what we look for in a retail experience.

Also, stand around and chat with a friend or another co-worker while we watch one person at your store doing all of the work. That raises our opinion of you to greater levels, as we must assume you are king or queen of the store. Extra points off if your discussion is about things we'd really rather not hear, such as your latest visit to the gyno, your great weekend with that hot chick you picked up at the club, or how much you threw up after so-and-so's party. We all love getting a good case of TMI-tis.

Be willfully inept. If you don't like a particular job duty, insist that you don't know how to do it, even after you've been shown several times, even though you've learned other duties which are more complex, and even after having performed that particular task successfully under supervision. Your insistence that you can't understand this one particular task certainly won't make you look like an idiot, and no one will figure out that you're just playing dumb to get out of doing the work. Double points if you do this with simple tasks, like cleaning the bathroom, mopping the floor, or doing the dishes. Triple if you ask stupid questions such as "but where do we keep the elbow grease?"

Treat customers like liars when items among our purchases do not ring up at the price your store's display shows as the cost. Treat us like idiots when, on checking the area where we found said items, you are able to show us that the small print on the big sign says the price is for an item other than the one in front of which the sign is placed. When we turn out to be right, be impatient and make sure to look and sound put out when you tell us that you have to call a supervisor because you don't know how to "fix it" in the "system..." because, of course, you're right... we came in that day and picked that item because we knew it was incorrectly priced and we wanted to make you personally do the extra work involved in fixing it for us.

Get angry or impatient with your disAbled customers. We all know they chose to be handicapped as a form of massive, exclusive, inside joke on the rest of society. Extra points off if your reason for being angry or impatient is due to their attempts at independence. Certainly, no one who is blind should ever be seen traveling without a seeing-eye dog, because you can't possibly be both blind and allergic to animal dander, or because blind people could never learn to survive without the help of an animal. Triple points off if you complain about or make fun of the person after they leave - or in the case of a hearing impaired or mentally disabled person, while they are still in the room. Of course, no one else is going to be offended... it's not like you're talking about real people, right?

Take a smoke break every 15 minutes. You shouldn't be expected to get any work done if you're a smoker, right?
Ignore the fact that other smokers who work with you don't take as many breaks as you do.
If non-smokers complain that you take so many extra breaks, advise them to start smoking. After all, it's an addiction, and they're just going to have to understand.


When you get a customer who is paying with food stamps, be sure to state that loudly enough for everyone in the store to hear. Discretion is not deserved by lazy dead beats who depend on the government for their existence, which of course describes all food stamp users. You know we don't have jobs, we all have 4 kids by different fathers, etc. If you happen to embarrass the occasional working mom who is widowed or divorced and struggling, or laid off dad who once earned ten times what you make and is now stuck with a job like yours, that's no skin off of your nose. They should be used to it, anyway, right? It's not like anyone ever has a first time using that card.

Be as impatient and rude as possible when dealing with the elderly, the young, or those who struggle to speak your language. It's the customer's responsibility to understand you, not your responsibility to take care of the customer's needs. If they didn't understand what you said the first time, it's their own fault for not listening.

Talk to everyone - even customers - about employee conflicts and any potentially embarrassing details you might learn about your co-workers. Everyone loves a rumor-monger. Customers never have enough drama in our own lives, so we are especially curious about every detail of what goes on at your store. After all, inquiring minds want to know! Double points off if you are talking about someone who is at work as you speak... triple if they are within hearing distance, or if you are complaining about another's actions when you're guilty of having done the same thing.

Chew gum while on the job. Double points if you chew with your mouth open. We want to see your dental work. Seriously. We're fascinated. Also, blow big bubbles and pop them. We had no idea you were so talented. Wow.

Answer your work phone, "Yo," "Yeah," "What," or with some other monosyllabic non-greeting. We think it sounds totally cool when you answer the phone like that. It makes the caller feel so much more appreciated, and much more likely to want to talk to you instead of a supervisor. Don't ask how you can help us, either. You can't help us, because we just called to mess up your day.

Tell the customer "information" about the product we are considering, the veracity of which you aren't sure, just to make the sale. ("Yeah, that card will work with your camera. It's a universal memory card.") By virtue of your statement, what you say will become fact... or at least, maybe it won't be your shift when the angry customer brings the item back for a refund. If it is your shift, you can always take a smoke break when you see us walk in the door. Later, when your supervisor asks you about the sale, you have total deniability. Of course the customer just misunderstood you... just like every other time.

Come to work a little stoned. You can wear perfume or cologne to cover up the smell. No one will know... or maybe it will just make their day that much more interesting. You know you're always so much smarter and more entertaining when you're stoned!

When a customer comes in with a problem or request, do everything you can to not help. Make the person jump through as many procedural hoops as possible, from having the right piece of paper to filling out the right form. You know that if you can jerk the person around, that gives you control, man, and that level of control totally makes you king or queen of the world.

More Ways To Let Retail Workers Know That You Are An Idiot

This is another sequel to Ways to Show Employees in a Convenience Store That You Are an Idiot. For this list, I've expanded to retail in general. Having worked a few different areas in retail, I have seen customers do some pretty outrageous things. This list, however, does not all come from my own personal work experience. Though most of the items below have happened at places where I've worked, some of these are behaviors I've seen (and sometimes confronted) while shopping.

When you see that there is a spill on the floor that is being mopped up, do no go around. Stop, look at it for a moment, look around at the alternative routes through the store, and then walk through the spill. Step right in the middle of it. If there's a wet floor sign in your way, move it. We only put those there as a suggestion. It's vital that you put your foot in that one specific area, out of all of the store's vast floorspace.
That way, if it is a sticky substance like pop, you can now have the fun of tracking it all over the floor. We are desperate for the opportunity to mop up after you. We don't know what to do with ourselves if we have a clean floor for more than five minutes.
Extra points off if you are annoyed when you get the sticky pop you stepped in on your car's floor. Double that if you call the store later to complain, and triple if you actually get your car wash paid for by complaining about the stuff you chose to walk in. Triple again if you're the one who spilled in the first place.

Take a photo into your local digital photo lab and ask that an object or person be removed from the photo so that you can see the object or person "behind" it. Get really irate when the tech behind the counter tries to explain why that won't work with a two-dimensional image. Argue loudly and demand to see the manager, then get even more upset when he confirms that what you want to "reveal" by removing part of the photo isn't there. Insist that someone you know had this done by some other tech at some other lab, and we are just giving you a hard time.
Double points off if you use our inability to perform the impossible as "leverage" to demand a discount on the price quote you accepted last visit, on other work you are all ready having us do.

At a convenience store or other self-serve soda fountain, demonstrate your germophobia and your lack of knowledge regarding how things work by insisting on not taking the outermost cup, top lid, etc. At a grocery or department store, reach for the object on the back of the shelf, knocking everything else on the floor. Do this even with items which are vacuum sealed or otherwise contained in a sanitary manner, because you know other shoppers have handled the first one, and if the outside of the package has been touched by someone else, you don't want it. (Of course, it was put onto the shelf without being touched by anybody, right?) If an employee is there, make sure he or she sees you taking off the top or front few items, pulling one out for yourself, and then putting back the others, all of which you just touched, because while other people's germs are bad, yours are pure and clean.

Go into the same shop every day, get the same drink every day from the same soda fountain, cappuccino machine, or other self-serve drink machine, and complain every day that it tastes flat, watered down, or otherwise seems defective in a way that insinuates but does not directly state that you are being cheated. Each time you do this, find the busiest person in the store to give your complaint to, and ask that person to check out the machine. Watch him or her examine the machine in question, and change absolutely nothing about it, but insist each time this is done that the drink is now "better" than before you called them away from whatever else they were doing. Even after weeks of repeating this same experience, no one at the store will catch on to your act. If anyone does, I promise we'll appreciate it... this is the most fun game we ever get to play!
Extra points off if you also insist that you should get a discount because you took extra time out of your day to pull this charade. Double that if you ask for the same discount for the same reason every day.

After your first time having your digital images "processed", return to the department store photo-counter where you took them and demand the "negatives" from your new digital camera, stating with total irritation that you were in yesterday and the lady gave you your CD and your card but she kept your negatives. Refuse to accept any explanation regarding how digital photography works, especially when said explanation includes the fact that digital cameras do not produce negatives. It doesn't matter that you never put film into your camera... you should still be getting film out of it, right?

Enter a store shirtless, or shoeless, right through a door with a sign on it that clearly states that a shirt and shoes must be worn inside the store. Those signs are only for other people. Surely they don't mean you... everyone wants to see your naked lady tattoo, pierced nipples, or fascinating foot fungus. Trust me... you are the only source of entertainment we have! Of course, there's never any safety concern in the store related to stuff on the floor coming into contact with your feet, or hygiene issues regarding your partial nudity and the food we serve.
Act surprised and maybe even a little offended when staff informs you of clothing requirements and requests that next time you come in, you wear said items. Certainly, it's odd for us to notice six feet and 230 pounds (or more) of half-naked man-flesh strolling past us in the store.
Extra points off if you make a big deal out of the incident in front of other customers. Of course they'll be on your side. What's a little pit hair among friends?
Double that if you come in shirtless and covered with "adult" body art, stinky pits, or if huge, painful looking piercings dangle from your nipples as you lean over our grill to get what you want to buy.
Triple if you are a repeat offender and you have the nerve to act surprised each time you are told to wear clothes while shopping.

Leave a roll of film in the bottom of your camera bag, or even in your camera, for a decade, through changes in temperature and moisture, etc. On discovering it, take it into a cheap pharmacy photo center and have it developed and printed. Get mad when you get it back and there are flaws on the film because of that time last August when you left your camera in the car for a week. Blame their developing process, and demand a refund, but expect to be allowed to keep the film and the prints.

Bring your shedding, long haired pet cat or hyperactive, ill-behaved, tiny little dog into a store where food is sold, particularly where that food is open to the air, as with a roller grill or salad bar. Expect to not be told that your pet cannot be in the store around the food. Insist that your pet is your helper animal and you can't go anywhere without her. Certainly, everyone should understand that your super-special pet is exempt from reality, and therefore has no offending dander, will never find a person with whom he/she can't get along, and won't drop any hair anywhere in the store.
When another customer asks for your "card", (a requirement for helper animals) because your animal isn't behaving like a helper animal, act offended that anyone would doubt for a moment that your pet would be one.
If store employees insist that you take your precious little furbaby outside, throw a fit. Demand the phone number for customer service, and leave in a huff.
Extra points off if you think you have the right to bring the pet in simply because she's riding in your arms, on your shoulder, or in your purse or pocket, rather than roaming freely about the store. Double that if you argue the point with customer service. Points off the chart if you do this with a pet no one will believe was a helper animal, like a speechless bird, a ball python, or a chinchilla. We all know how valuable that helper gerbil can be! God forbid we separate you from your helper mini-lop. Our apologies! We had no idea you had the only salmonella-free iguana in the known universe! We stand corrected.

Ask the tech at your local photo center to fit a long rectangle (your entire 35mm negative) into a shorter, fatter rectangle (an 8 X 10 print) without any cropping, borders, or distortion. Accept no explanation as to why printing an 8 X 10 requires the choice of one of those compromises. Double points if you insist you've had this done somewhere else. Triple if you try to argue this with a professional photographer who has been doing darkroom work since 1985.

Smoke while you are pumping gas. Get angry when the attendant turns off the pump. Act offended when you are told that it is illegal to smoke at the pump, because, of course, we'll believe you didn't know that before we told you, even though it's been illegal now for years. Argue the point with the attendant, as if he or she has any control over the law, because we know that while laws may apply to everyone else, you personally are exempt. Extra points off if you get other patrons involved in the argument. Double that if you call customer service to complain that you feel mistreated because the attendant wouldn't let you smoke while pumping gas. Triple if you quote myth-busters or any other group of entertainers during any point of the argument or customer service call.

Go shopping for something that does not exist. Be unable to clearly describe the non-existent item you crave, so that when you ask for help at retail establishments, no one else will know what you're talking about. Get angry when no one can help you find "the thingy that fits into the other thingy like this (Insert awkward, kind of obscene looking hand gesture here) and gets used in the electric doo-hickey that you use in your back yard." Oh, yeah. Every store carries one of those. It's in aisle six, with the what's-its, thingamajigs, do-dads, and three-pronged widgets.

Flush things down the toilet at our store that you would never try to flush at home because you know they are not flushable. Even though this toilet looks the same as yours, it isn't. It's a magic toilet, and it can flush anything. Really. Yes, you can even flush that fifteen feet of paper towels you used to wipe your derriere instead of toilet paper, because you just didn't notice the roll next to you. Ladies, this is also the best place to dispose of the cardboard tube from your tampon. There is no reason why you should be required to put it in the trash can clear on the other side of our giant, four foot by six foot bathroom when you're right next to the Magic Toilet Which Flushes All Things.
The clog is an illusion, and if you keep flushing, it'll go away. If not... well, it's the people who work here who have to deal with it, not you, so why worry? You know we just live for the opportunity to clean up exactly that kind of mess. How would we survive without you?

If something doesn't ring up right, hold the cashier responsible. We all have psychic control over our registers, allowing us to manipulate the way everything rings up according to how much we do or do not like the customer.

If the store is so busy that there are lines at every register even when they are all open, hold the cashier responsible. We store extra registers in our derrieres so we can pull them out and set up new aisles just for people like you, but we won't do it because we're all lazy jerks who want to watch you suffer... especially during the Christmas season and on Black Friday. Certainly, those are two times of the year when you shouldn't expect the stores to be busy at all, right?

If the bakery was out of your favorite doughnut late in the afternoon, well after baking time, hold the cashier responsible. We go back there on our breaks and take them all just so that you can't get the one you want... and yes, we know exactly which one that is. In fact, we went back there to get it right before you came in, because we knew you were coming.

If the guy in front of you in line grabs a bunch of the "impulse buy" items near the register, thereby lengthening his checkout time, hold the cashier responsible. The stuff there is not dictated by corporate... it was all our idea, just so people would grab stuff and hold up the line. As with the register, we have psychic control over all of the customers in front of you, and we make them do this so they'll take more time checking out.

If there's a new (or existing) store policy you don't like, hold the cashier responsible. Our corporation's chain of authority is totally upside down, and we make all of the rules. In fact, we made that one just to inconvenience you.
If your dog peed on your leg this morning, hold the cashier responsible. If there was an earthquake in Timbuktu this morning... hold the cashier responsible. If your chewing gum loses its flavor on the bed post overnight... hold the cashier responsible. We're all-powerful and can control everything, so it's all our fault. In fact, we're psychic vampires who live on the energy you exude when you are annoyed. If you don't yell at us, we'll starve. That's the only reason why such all-powerful beings as ourselves would work such lowly jobs as this.

At a very small store with a skeleton staff (one person for each area), try to trick the front counter girl into giving you an impossible discount by telling her it was promised to you by "the other girl." Even after learning that there is no "other girl" working at that store, continue insisting that you were there another day and "she" waited on you. Demand to talk to the owner/manager of the little store, and give him the same story. Act shocked when he tells you that no, there really is no "other girl" working at that store, and offended when your made-up deal is not honored. Threaten to go to the Better Business Bureau. If you are adamant enough in your point, the owner/manager will produce your mythical "other girl" by pulling her head first out of his derriere, and she will give you your made-up deal because the mythical, magical "other girl" has more authority than the boss.

The rules of convenience store and fast food coffee are as follows:
The pot that is the most full is always the most fresh, even if you just saw another pot finish brewing, and even if the full pot was all ready sitting there when you came in.
The "bottom" of the coffee pot is poison. Don't take it. Even though it's part of the same mass of liquid that was there when the pot was full, and even if the whole thing has been depleted in the space of about a minute, that part is no good because it's been at the bottom the whole time, and it's magically different from the rest of the coffee that was in that same pot. That's how liquids work, right?

The laws of physics don't apply to coffee.
For one thing, all things you seek should always be right in front of your face. If they aren't, it's because we deliberately hid them from you. This includes pots of coffee that are on the back burner, because in the alternate world that is the convenience store or fast food joint, it is possible to have twelve pots of coffee all on the bottom front four burners at the same time.
For another, the coffee should simultaneously be heated to state food safety standards, yet cool enough for you to drink it right away without having it feel too hot for your mouth. Convenience store and fast food workers have super psychic power over temperature, and we can make that happen.

Coffee pots are also magically able to change their contents to whatever kind you want them to be. If you are used to getting decaf from a red-handled pot at another store, all you have to do is pick up our red-handled pot, wish for decaf, and that is what it will pour into your cup, even though it clearly says 100% Colombian on the side.

Our coffee brews itself. There should never be any reason why anyone should have to be working over in that area. Obviously, that girl in the apron went over there just to get in your way. Make sure you tell her off.

Coffee attendants and food servers are not people. You can say any rude, inconsiderate thing to us that you want, including making generalized, disparaging remarks about the "kind of people who do this job" and quality of work "you people" do, what an easy, no-brainer job we have, and how lazy we all are. It's twice as okay to do this if you are at a store other than "your" neighborhood store.
Other customers will not hear you and make fun of your sorry attitude after you leave. I promise.
Double points off on this one if you do this while dressed for work in garments which identify your own workplace. Triple if it's in the same neighborhood as our store.

All items in small stores, especially convenience stores, appear there by magic. We never have to deal with deliveries. Therefore, you have every right to be outraged and upset if, while you are shopping, some guy has to wheel in and stock a load of pop or several boxes of snacks. What the heck is that guy doing, getting in your way? Also, it is of absolute importance that you notify the store manager that there is a big truck parked in front of the dumpsters or at the far end of the lot, taking up all of the "unmarked" parking spaces. She had no idea that our merchandise came in a big truck, and will most certainly call the offending vendor's company and demand to know why they can't send it using the all-powerful pixies we know they keep in their warehouse!

Come in looking for merchandise which has been advertised as some variation on "coming soon," long before the item's stated availability date. Get angry with clerks, cashiers, and management when we don't produce the item for you. Throw a fit when we tell you the item is not yet on the market. Insist that some individual with two or more degrees of separation from you (my cousin's roommate) has one, and you know we have them "in the back." Create as much of a disturbance over the item as you possibly can, because if you do, we'll be sure to call the all-powerful magic warehouse pixies to bring you one, or maybe we'll even bring out the special secret pre-release versions of all merchandise we keep stored in our derrieres along with everything else we need to meet impossible demands.

Ways to Show Employees in a Convenience Store That You Are an Idiot

I wrote this partly out of frustration, and partly because I felt that compiling a short list of some of the more odd and sometimes less intelligent things people do convenience stores might be... entertaining as well as cathartic.
Yes, all of these are things which actually occurred at my workplace. (Keep in mind that I have worked at more than one convenience store.) This is not a copy/paste from the internet. Some of these occur daily, some even hourly. It's given me a new outlook on society as a whole. Without further ado, here is my unnumbered  list of ways to show employees in a convenience store that you are an idiot:

Tell us what the gas price is right now. Please make sure we know, because really, we have no idea until you tell us. We are totally clueless, despite the big, tall signs outside and the 27 customers before you who also told us the price of our gas.

While you're at it, blame (insert politician here) because of course, we all agree with your political viewpoint, and therefore must hate that person as much as you do.
Lose extra points of if you manage to start a loud political argument between a group of regulars in our store. Double that if you insist on trying to drag us into it.

Tell us what the gas price is at other stores belonging to our chain. We have total control over how the gas price is set at our location, and we promise that we'll go right out and change our location's price just as soon as you tell us what it should be.

Also, please, please tell us your own personal whacked-out conspiracy theory as to why the gas is not the same price on our corner as it is at that other station which is 5 miles up the road. We are desperate to hear it, because we have been told that corporate uses the dart board method to make that decision.

Complain to the manager of a 24-hour store that you don't think employees should be mopping the floor, stocking the shelves, cleaning this or that piece of equipment or area, that the frozen beverage machine shouldn't defrost, the truck shouldn't fill the gas tank, etc.  while the store is open and suggest that instead, these tasks should be done during closed hours.

Wait for the foam on your cappuccino to "go down" so you can add more to your cup, while stating out loud that you need to do this so that you can get your "money's worth."
(Not only will this lose you I.Q. points in the eyes of the store's workers, it will also demonstrate to us that you've never had a cappuccino at a "real" coffee shop... and no, I don't mean Starbucks, I mean a real coffee shop!)

At a display of merchandise all bearing the same expiration date or time, reach to get the one in the back because you think it's more fresh than the others.
At a display of hot food, reach to the back (past the label that says "caution, HOT!") to get the "more fresh" item, then complain because you burned yourself while doing so.

Grab an item from behind the "still cooking, not ready" sign on the store's roller grill, then complain because the item is not hot.
Grab a pot of coffee from behind a sign (which you have to move to get to the coffee) that says, "not ready, still brewing" and then complain when the still-running brewer spews hot liquid on your hand. Lose extra points if you yell at the coffee girl for cleaning up your mess as if, by claiming it isn't there, you can un-embarrass yourself. Double that if you threaten to sue for the hot liquid on your hand, or if you complain until you get something free.

Step over a wet floor sign and full mop bucket, move the "cleaning in progress" sign to get to the doorknob, then act completely surprised when you see someone cleaning the restroom. Lose extra points if you then complain to the manager that "signs should be posted when someone is cleaning the restroom." Double that if, in a 24 hour store, you suggest that this should be done "after close."

Park in the handicap spot which is parallel to the front of our store, when you are not handicapped and don't have anything on your car that says you are. Better yet, try to be clever. Park beside the handicap spot, in the path of traffic driving around our pumps, or behind the handicap spot, in an area which is not marked as a spot. Either way, you get to block the handicap spot but you aren't actually in it. If you want to be really clever, park beside or behind the spot, but with one or two tires inside the border of it, so that you are simultaneously blocking it, taking it up, and still able to consider yourself to not actually be parked in the handicap spot. Real geniuses will argue this point with whichever police officer happens by and starts writing a ticket, because there's no way they've heard that one before.

Walk into the store through a door bearing a label that says, "We I.D." Go through the store past employees whose uniforms also bear the words, "We I.D." Open a cooler door bearing another label that says, "We I.D." Carry your beer purchase to the counter, which also bears a label that says, "We I.D." and then throw a fit when the cashier asks for your I.D. Extra points off if you make a scene.

Park in the empty but unmarked space front of the dumpster, blocking access to it, instead of using one of the marked parking spaces beside that area. Get really mad when the operator of the dump truck asks you to move your car so he can do his job. Threaten to call his boss.

Drive-off (Pump & Jump, in some states) and seriously think you won't get caught. Act offended when you are caught. Lose extra points if you complain to customer service about getting caught pumping your gas and driving off without paying!

Empty a years worth of trash from your car into the trash can at the pump, then complain that it is full and you can't throw out your used coffee cup. Don't bat an eyelash the whole time, because of course we didn't see you stuffing that can.

Call at 3am and ask if we have pop in the bottle. I swear to you, we've never heard that one before, and we'd really like to know the punchline. Better still, call when you're drunk, and totally mangle the joke. It's much funnier that way.

When asked to present your I.D. for an alcohol purchase, insist vehemently that the cashier absolutely must not scan it "into the computer" (swipe it through the credit card slot in the register) because you know that information goes directly to the police station so that they can come and bust you for DUI.

Come into the store when you're really, really stoned. I promise those mustard-covered chili dogs you stuffed in your jeans pockets will taste great later when you re-discover them during another munchies fit. The chili and mustard running down your leg really accentuate the trim on your jacket. Also, there are never any police officers in here buying coffee and making sure we are safe, so you won't get caught, either.

Come in during the day's biggest rush when the store is packed with other customers and every pump is occupied. Ask to pre-pay and give a wrong pump number because you didn't look, then get mad at the cashier because you were wrong. Insist that she should have known which pump you were on without having to ask you, and complain to the manager. Use racial slurs and other foul language, so we'll be sure to take your complaint more seriously.

Pre-pay a pump without putting your car there first, then get mad because the car that was there got your gas.

Buy 20 scratch off lottery tickets, and insist on scratching them all off at the register so you don't have to wait in line to cash them in. Get really mad at us when we wait on the long line of other customers which built up behind you as you were agonizing over which 20 scratch off lottery tickets to get, because you were here first and they should just wait.

Bring in a brand or size of merchandise we do not carry at our store, but that is similar to things we do carry, and try to return it. Insist that you bought it at our store. Get loud during the discussion, because the problem isn't that we don't believe you, it's that we didn't hear what you said. Also, if you yell loud enough, the volume of your voice will magically change our store's planograms, and we will suddenly develop a space for that specific item in our inventory just so you can get your money back from the wrong store.

Try to buy parts of our displays as if they were merchandise. Be offended that we won't sell them to you. Insist that we are saving them for ourselves, because we really need plastic milk crates and giant cardboard candy displays all over our small apartments.

Be offended that we don't carry every minute little thing you can buy at the grocery store a block away. Use body language, grunts, groans, and long-suffering sighs to let us know just how inconvenient it is for you to drive one more block to purchase that relatively obscure (for a convenience store) item because if you look put out enough, we just  might pull one out of our derrieres.

Leave strange objects in obscure parts of the store. Everyone knows that we all crave the unique experience of fetching your used thong from inside the beer cave, and all of the used condoms we find behind the dumpster are going to make a pretty dress. Your little black book of phone numbers was a very interesting read. (We wonder if Krissy the D-cup - stars and exclamation points - ever called you back.) We are convinced you probably never wore those dentures, anyway, and we were out of hemorrhoid cream until you came in. It really helps with the pain from pulling out those obscure objects you didn't want to buy at the grocery. Thanks!

The stupid! It's everywhere!

I grew up in a small town. My parents still live there. For purposes of this post, I'm going to call it Small Townville for anonymity.

My son regularly visits my parents' house, and stays weekends with them. When we arrived one Friday to for his visit, we found a note stating that we had to go to the library, where Mom was attending a meeting.
Mom used to be on the city council, and in fact spent four years as president. She's been retired from city politics for years, and she's partially disabled, so I wondered what could be going on that would cause her to want to get involved again.

Well... it seemed that the thriving and sophisticated community of Small Townville, Ohio, has nothing bigger over which to have a political controversy than... (drum roll please)... the regulation and control of CATS.

Council was considering a proposal to require that all cats be either kept indoors, or kept on a leash. (Obviously, no one on city council has ever tried to keep an outdoor cat indoors, or leash train an adult cat.) The ordinance would require owners to license their cats, and allow for the capture of loose cats by private citizens. Captured cats would be turned over to an authority - the humane society, if I understand correctly - and the owner would be required to pay a $50.00 fee to get the cat back.

Are they serious? They want to take the first line of rodent population control off of the streets of a town surrounded on all sides by farmland? What do they think is going to happen to the field mouse population on the edges of, and somewhat creeping into, their town?

Whose idea, I asked, was this?

Apparently a local resident's regular visitor from out of town suggested it. It was stated that other municipalities have passed similar ordinances, and this guy thinks Small Townville should follow suit.

Now, I've seen what happens in Small Townville, Ohio when the number of outdoor cats is reduced in just one neighborhood.

Ten years ago, when I was still living at my parents' house, there was a fire at a warehouse in my their neighborhood. The warehouse (which was for the storage of lumber) burnt to the ground, and all of its little inhabitants - mice, chipmunks, rats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, deer, and (so we were told) a coyote - had to find somewhere else to live.
Local residents ended up with a plethora of little critters in our garages and backyards. Trash cans became a war zone, with the battle between the critters and the human residents waging daily. It took major effort to keep one's garbage from ending up all over one's back yard. Worse, a fair number of folks had to deal with rodent infestations in their outbuildings.

In our part of the neighborhood, there were a lot of outdoor cats, who quickly began the task of getting the pest population under control. My own Tabbyrella began the practice of tithing mouse, rat, and squirrel parts to the family, which is how I learned of the upsurge in local animal population. It became really inexpensive to keep her fed... all I had to do was let her out in the evenings.
Our neighbor, a crazy-cat-lady-in-training (her house was clean) had seventeen cats, ten of which were living in the neighborhood as strays before she "adopted" them - paid for them to have their shots and everything. She also saw a big upsurge in the hunting habits of her cats. Her catfood supply lasted a lot longer than it normally would have.
Soon, our two homes and the homes around us began to have a great reduction in our trash problems. This was great! All we had to do was keep our cats healthy, and eventually balance would be restored to the neighborhood.

One neighbor, noticing the increased wandering activity of the cats, decided that they must be responsible for the tearing up of her trash. No amount of discussion could convince her differently. She called police, ranted and raved, and even physically attacked cats which dared visit her property. My cat came home with a broken tail, bent at an angle as if someone had stepped on it. We were never sure it was her, but Tabby wouldn't go into her yard after that.

Finally, in her infinite wisdom, the cat-hating neighbor poisoned her garbage and left poisoned "treats" sitting around her back yard. Squirrels, mice, and rats feasted, then got sick. The sick animals were easy to catch and kill, so those were quickly picked off and eaten by our neighborhood mousing champions. Seven cats and a little kitten died of rat poisoning. My own cat got sick, but the vet managed to save her by injecting a huge amount of fluid in between her skin and muscle tissue. Cats have loose skin, so that didn't hurt, but it was a weird and very uncomfortable experience for her.
After *someone* reported to the sanitation department that the woman had rat-poisoned her trash, the trash collectors rightfully refused to come pick it up until she got rid of the poison and replaced her cans. However, it was too late for the cats.

After the deaths, the rodent population began to increase again. In a funny twist of karmic fate, the cat-hating neighbor ended up with a squirrel infestation inside her house... which *someone* reported to the health department. She was fined and ordered to exterminate. Too bad she didn't have any cats to help her out with that!

It was months before we started to get things back to normal. During the winter, several residents had to have outbuildings cleaned out by an exterminator, including my parents. By spring, the ill-fated kitten's siblings had grown, and the cat population of the neighborhood was back to normal, though Tabby wasn't hunting much except for bugs. The poisoning permanently damaged her digestive system.

With the increase in cats came another slow decline in the pest population, as evidenced by reduced interference with our trash, reduced sightings, and no more infestation issues. Eventually a balance was restored. There were enough critters to be cute, but not enough to be a nuisance. That meant we had to go back to being our cats' main providers of food, but at least no one had to deal with squirrel infestations in their outbuildings.

The lesson was obvious - outdoor cats are a community's first line of defense against overpopulation of little pests. Remove the mousers, and suddenly you have a rodent population control issue on your hands.

Apparently, council members never learned that lesson... they were seriously considering the ordinance. A petition was circulating to bring the issue to a public ballot, and it seems that the local population was all up in arms about the huge cat controversy.

Months later, I learned that the ordinance was defeated on the public ballot by a respectable margin, but not unanimously. Too bad. I would have loved to see the cat haters get skunked.

Failure to anticipate one's baser customers

My company allotted our store a small budget to improve the appearance of our restrooms. That was a nice idea. My boss was really pleased to have the chance to make them more presentable, as they were really plain and boring; white toilet, sink, and ceiling... gray floor tiles, off-white walls, and beige waste bin. We have some advertising on one wall of each room, and the dispensers for toilet paper, hand towels, and hand soap, but other than that, there hasn't ever been anything else.

To make the rooms look prettier, she decided to get a nice picture for each, and for each, a plastic Ficus tree in a wicker "planter" pot.
I have to say, the Ficus in the ladies' room is lovely. It does definitely brighten up the place, and makes it feel more homey and comfortable.

It looks something like this:

  

I wasn't so sure about the one in the men's. I voiced my doubts, and noted a behavioral probability.

Before going on, I should probably explain a bit about our men's room.

One of the fun things about working in a convenience store is that people will do things in your restroom that they would never engage in at home. In this case there is a serious issue regarding the correct way to use the toilet.

By that, I mean putting one's bodily wastes inside the toilet rather than simply near it.

This is not just a problem of men "missing" the hole. It's more like interior decorating.

The room isn't big... it's about four feet square with a ten foot ceiling. The toilet is only about one step from the door. There's no lid or anything, so there's no reason why, once he makes it into the room, a guy shouldn't make it to the toilet.

There's no urinal, either, though there is a re-painted area on the wall where there had been a urinal, which was removed before I started work at that location. It is my understanding (from the word of a former co-worker) that the urinal was removed because guys didn't seem to understand that it was just for urine. I'm not sure what was the problem understanding that. It isn't called a crap'n-all. It's called a urinal. ...but I digress.

The use of the toilet isn't much more sensible than the use of the urinal. At least four days a week, we have to unclog it because some guy with an atrocious diet comes in and drops a giant, wax imitation of a turd. I swear, this guy must consume even more animal fat than I do, and that's saying a lot. He must be on something like a strict diet of hard salami and cheese. I'm serious... the thing looks like it was molded from a brown candle. There is no way this guy ever eats anything but animal fat!

He then proceeds to attempt to flush it despite its huge size and all previous failed attempts, and much to his surprise, it clogs the toilet again. When flushing does not get rid of it the first time, he continues flushing until the bowl fills with water. 

Then, he leaves without telling anyone about the mess he just made, so that the next guy who needs the restroom is faced with it. Usually by that time, the water has gone down, and the guy finds a bowl full of debris surrounding the biggest, shiniest piece of crap he's ever seen (unless he drives an El Camino.)

This is not a plunger-friendly mess. Before I started working there, the manager who hired me (and who is now retired) was having to call a plumber on a regular basis because of this guy.

I figured out a better way to handle the problem. It's not fun, but it works.

Since the problem is made up mostly of waxy fat, all it needs is something to break it down and it will move along. I discovered that pouring really hot water onto the wax turd will cause it to break up into smaller, kind of melty wax turds which can be flushed. Now, I am the store plumber. Whenever we have a restroom clog, I get first crack at it. I've probably saved our store a few thousand dollars in plumbing fees just this summer.

The Big Brown Bomber is not our only problem, however.

As I mentioned before, there is a spot in the men's restroom where there used to be a urinal.
"Used to be" is the operative phrase.

This distinction seems to be lost on some of our late night and early morning customers, who insist on using it anyway. There is a permanent stain on the wall.

Once, when I was working the night shift alone, a guy came in and "missed" so badly that I had to assume alcohol was involved.

At least, I hope alcohol was involved.

I'd hate to think that a sober person would spray the walls of a convenience store restroom to mark it as his territory. Yes, I mean spray... he started by the door and made it more than halfway around the room, hitting about five feet off the floor (just below eye level for me).
I found it after it had run all the way down, leaving pretty golden streaks on our off-white wall. I'd been wanting the time to wash down those walls, but I never said I needed an excuse. 

Mad as I was, though, I couldn't help laughing about it. The mental image I kept getting wouldn't let me stop. All I could think of was some ornery looking guy in a trench coat (why, I don't know... maybe because that's the stereotype for what flashers wear, and this was the same kind of ornery as that) whipping it out and spinning around yelling "Weeeeeeeeeeee!" as he let fly.

It's not strictly a men's room issue, mind you. There's a regular visitor to the ladies' room we like to call "Poocaso."

I'll let that digest for a moment so you can think about why I might call her that.


Usually, we find it on the wall next to the toilet. Most of the time, it's only a bit, and we're not sure if it's done manually, or if she splashed. Recently, though, there have been unmistakeably deliberate finger smears along the wall. There is no way this was a splash... I'm talking a foot long and three inch wide professional paint job. Thinking it was a complaint, I checked the dispenser, but there was plenty of toilet paper.
I think that gal is just disturbed.

Anyway... when my manager came in with those two little Ficus trees to put into the restrooms, I had to say something. I mean, in an area where guys regularly pee on the walls, the floor, anywhere but the toilet... where they can't even always poop in the toilet, why would you want to add a feature that, in nature, works as a substitute toilet?

Her theory was that if the restroom looked better, it might get treated better. I knew not to argue. Once she's decided how she wants the facts to be, my boss will not accept evidence or logic.

In went the Ficus.

It took a week before the first guy used it. She was insufferable the whole time. A number of days count was kept on our dry-erase message board.

As in, "3 days without a Gross Ficus Urinary Incident"

We do have a sense  of humor at our store.

We also have a sense of told ya so. I confess that I took some satisfaction on the eighth day in erasing her seven and replacing it with a big, fat zero. I didn't say anything. I just wrote the number, and took the tree outside.

I have now learned that the foam and other filler in the wicker basket planter in which the new urinal... I mean ficus... sits can withstand the temperature of boiling sanitizer-water, and that if I use enough of it, I can get rid of all traces of yellow stains. It's not so good for the grass growing up through the cracks in the pavement behind the dumpster, though.

I was nice. I didn't actually say, I told you so.
(But everyone else did!)

It's been like this forever

From one of my older blogs:


Either someone at my job’s corporate level is completely naive (and lousy at using
punctuation), or they got a real kick out of sending my store a memo (via email) stating the importance of having the ass mgr do the shift anal by (I can’t remember what time...)

We all decided that there could be no one better qualified to do the shift anal than the ass manager...

Just wondering

How in the heck does anyone make it all the way into adulthood, much less into a store management position, without learning the following things?

1) Do not stack big, awkward, heavy objects on top of smaller, more fragile objects.

2) A tall, skinny, unevenly positioned stack is much more likely to fall over than a short fat neatly made stack.

3) A broken cardboard box isn't strong enough to hold its shape, especially under the strain of 150 pounds of weight.

4) Saying something over and over doesn't make it true.

5) Preventing something from being said doesn't make it not true.

6) A wet floor is still wet and slippery even after you put up a sign.

7) Chocolate melts when it gets hot. Pretzels don't. Therefore, it should be easy to decide which items get placed in the room where the temperature gets up over 90 degrees every day.

8) If there's a label on it that says "CAUTION, HOT!" you really shouldn't put your fingers on it. It might be hot.

9) Heavy stuff stacked in front of a freezer door will get in the way of opening the door and getting into the freezer.

10) Everyone around you can hear your end of your cell phone conversation.

11) Gravity never stops working.

12) If you watch a co-worker touch something, and it electrocutes him, that is evidence that the object will also electrocute you if you touch it.

13) Flammable substances will catch fire when directly exposed to an open flame, even if that is not what you were trying to do.

My theory, my opinion, my blog

I've been working since I was fifteen.

I've had part-time jobs, summer jobs, "temp" jobs, and full-time jobs, and worked as an independent contractor... in the fields of retail, food service, manufacturing, security, health, journalism, and more. Currently I'm in a combination retail/food service position, below the bottom rung, but full-time.

I've noticed over the years that often, corporations which have multiple outlet locations, which I've seen in every one of the above-mentioned fields, all have one issue in common: Policy made at the corporate level, pertaining to the outlet level, often makes absolutely no sense when applied to real-life workplace situations.

I've seen tried-and-true customer service techniques abolished, red tape put into place where it holds up accident prevention, enforced requirements for the completion of paperwork that nobody ever reads but which quality assurance checkers look for (and no, it's not required by law, just the company), good employees lost over stupid management mistakes, and much, much more.

I've developed a theory over the years:
I think all corporations keep a secret room full of chimpanzees on acid. Corporate execs give the chimps paper, and crayons. They take the resulting drawings, put them up on the wall, and pick policy via thrown darts. Then, they institute that policy and enforce it upon those of us at the peon level.

So far, that theory is the only thing I can come up with that comes close to explaining the nonsense I've seen at every corporate-owned place I've worked!

It's frustrating sometimes, dealing with the chimpanzees.

It's also frustrating sometimes, dealing with the consumer.

Both ends of the equation have a habit of starting with a desired outcome, and then ordering it to happen without regard to the existence of a means by which it can be achieved. What's a peon to do?

Well, this one needs to vent. That is the purpose of this blog. Enjoy... or don't. I'm going to write it anyway, because I don't have a corporate chimp to tell me I can't. ^_^