Well, it's here. After a process that literally took WEEKS, for a job MOVING BOXES, the night is here. 10pm-6am. Today and tomorrow. This after spending all day today working on a proposal and trying to nap at some point so that I can make it to 6am. It also helps that I was going to have my teenage daughter pick up her sisters from school so that I wouldn't have to worry about them and could nap, but she put happened to "puke" in the toilet at the EXACT time my wife came in to ask was everything all right, leading me to believe someone had a test today that someone didn't have to take and she knew a Mrs. Someone would buy a couple of coughs and a wretch and keep her home from school. But that's just someone talking. Seriously, when I wanted to stay home from school, I knew "puking" was the way to go. That's why you keep a rancid bottle of milk under the bed. Open it up and if the smell alone won't get you spewing, putting your lips to the bottle will definitely do the trick. But you'd pretty much be guaranteed of having to wash your sheets, though as a teenage boy going through puberty I was used to daily sheet cleansing anyway...sometimes twice daily.
This will be my first "real man's" job. I know that's ironic seeing as the picture above is showing a woman. What's also ironic is that, Christ Almighty, that person is a woman. I swear to God I thought Nipsy Russell was in some sort of warehouse movie I'd never heard about, but apparently the site I stole it from calls it "Woman Working in Warehouse" so I'm guessing it's really a woman. Wow. That's a shame. But be that as it may, when I HAVE been employed, I've had to wear a shirt and tie and the most physical labor I've ever had to do is help Donna with moving the cabinets from the upstairs office to the downstairs office because Donna just dislocated her hip, we think because she was running away from her husband Pat who we all assume is beating her on a nightly basis because of the bruises and knife marks, only this time things got serious and he pushed her down the stairs, only Donna will never say anything because Pat has already told her that if she ever tries to leave him he'll kill her and he's bought a shovel and kept it in the bedroom as a reminder and don't ever use the phone to call your family because I'm all the family you've got. (Sorry, Maury's on).
So because this is my first job of this nature, I have no experience and aside from the 5 minute video they showed at orientation, no idea what I'm going to be dealing with when I get there. I find it's best in these situations to write down potential scenarios, so that when I am confronted with said scenarios I'll feel more comfortable. For example, let's look at what I'm assuming will happen tonight...I find it best to be as detailed as possible:
9:57pm- Clock in. Find a place to put my backpack. Was told that backpacks will be checked for merchandise on the way out, which is why the backpack is just a diversion and the real merchandise will be hidden in my Ugg boots. Sure I hate Uggs but dammit they're really good at hiding packages of Barbies.
10:00pm- Meet with my supervisor. Let's call him "Mitch Bohrman the Foreman" because it rhymes and is all around sprinkled with fun. Mitch Bohrman the Foreman will introduce me to one of my "teammates" for the evening, 70 year old Sally Dugan, whose husband of 35 years, Guy Dugan recently died after accidentally swallowing Sally's bellybutton ring after a night of vigorous love-making (You see, during the 60's Sally was quite the vixen, and was one of the pioneers of the bellybutton piercing). Well, ol' Guy had taken a little too much of the blue pill and went a little overboard. Sally never forgave herself, she'll tell me, which is why she's moving boxes now, as an homage to her husband, a former boxer. Guy was 2-29 in his career. Guy couldn't speak so well.
10:38pm- After the rest of my teammates and I get to know one another and our positions are established, we start the process of moving boxes. Because this is my first day, Mitch Bohrman the Foreman says I need to be the "Loader", the guy on the truck taking the boxes and throwing them on the rail. I tell Mitch that my back is hurting and it probably would be best if I was on the floor, you know, glad-handing the customers and running the P.A. system. Mitch says either I am the Loader or I can go home. I ask Mitch if this is a "black thing". Mitch says yes. I respect him for his candor and begin my night as the loader.
11:45pm- I've been loading boxes for an hour and haven't really made a dent in the truck. So far in the hour I've missed the rail five times, and oddly all five of those boxes seemed to be filled with something made of glass or ceramic. Thankfully Mitch Bohrman the Foreman had left us to our own devices by this point, and I was able to talk the rest of the crew into just throwing the destroyed merchandise in the "box smasher" machine, but first taking the label off the boxes and scanning them into the system as if they had arrived safely. I figured by the time they figure anything is wrong, Christmas will be here and the job will be done. I think everybody is on board with the plan except this squirrelly little runt bitch named "Simon". He looks like he just broke out of a mental institution. And the first thing he asked Mitch Bohrman was whether we were running on "redundant earth time or the "more accurate time of the sentinals". Simon scares me.
1:03am- You've got to be kidding me with these fucking boxes. I've been at it for 2 1/2 hours and this fucking truck hasn't goddamn changed. My arms feel like I've been lifting Della Reese, um, once, and my back is as sore as a 590lb shut-in waiting for his five pizzas to be brought upstairs by his nurse. This is fucking stupid. How many boxes can there be in a truck. And I was out there on the floor. I didn't see a need for this much bullshit merchandise. Oh you best believe I'm stealing some shit now.
2:00am- "Lunch". We get 1/2 hour lunch in the breakroom. However we can't leave the premises because 1) the alarm is on and would be a bitch to keep turning on and off everytime someone leaves, and 2) I'm black. Look, I understand completely about number 2. 2am is a perfect time for a savvy brotha to start some mayhem. First of all a brotha cousins' been drinking all night, and since the bars close at 1:45, it would give them a perfect amount of time to drive their drunk asses over to the store, wait for you to open the doors at 2am to "go to McDonald's", then bumrush the place, each grab a cart and the next thing you know the family is having the best Christmas ever over at Big Momma's. Meanwhile, lunch in the breakroom blows because Vijna just heated up some sort of food that has stunk the room to Holy Hell, and Sally won't stop crying because her husband must be so proud of her. Christ.
2:42am- Thank God. Mitch Bohrman the Foreman has finally heard my bitching apparently and has moved me to the floor as the "Cleaner". Yeah, just like Benjamin Bratt only without the good looks and the indeterminate racial makeup. Only I do have a SAG card, so you know, screw you Bratt. Anyway, the cleaner basically takes the now smashed and empty boxes at the end of each aisle after the stocking crew is done loading the toys on the shelves, and takes the boxes to the box smasher and desposes of them properly. Well, this will become boring in, oh, about 10 minutes, so I start finding other things to throw in the smasher to see how smashed they can become. I'll find out that, surprisingly, a Wii smashes cleaner than an XBox, and I don't know what a PS3 is made of but by God if that bitch doesn't smash at all. It's like made out of some sort of Japanese space-age godzilla skin shells or something because as much as I try, the box smasher won't smash them. After six PS3s go unsmashed, I'll repackage five of them and put the sixth in my Ugg.
2:59am- I'm in Mitch Rohrman the Foreman's office. He is asking me about the smashed Wii and XBox found in the box smasher. Well how in the hell did he find...at this point I turn and see Simon behind a shelving unit, peering inside the office. Well played you crazy asshole. However, you're a douche and I'm one of the more amazing orators of our time. I proceed to tell Mitch that Simon asked me where the Wii's, the Xbox's and the PS3s were because he felt by combining the three elements he could create an exoskeleton that would protect him from falling boxes. As shift leader, I told him not to do it, but he did it anyway. Oh, by the way, I will ask Mitch can I be shift leader. He'll say no, but will fire Simon on the spot. Simon will vow vengance.
4:03am- Fuck this shit. I'm tired of sweeping and I'm tired of moving boxes. I'll go to Mitch and ask him for something else to do. "Mitch," I'll say, "As shift leader I believe my qualities could be used in other ways to support the team more efficiently." Mitch will sigh, remind me that we already agreed that I was NOT the shift leader, and will tell me that I can go through the store and check shelves for displaced merchandise which I can then check into the back storage area. Fine. A PS3 will fall out of my Ugg. I'll say Simon must have put that there in an effort to frame me. Mitch will buy it because Mitch is high. The drool on his desk tells me it's prescription pain killers. Good for Mitch.
5:43am- The last hour and a half went pretty well because when you're walking around looking like you're doing something, no one questions if you really are. Since there really was no displaced merchandise to find and catalog, I spent the last hour and a half unwrapping WWE Raw toys and having my own wrestling matches. When I was little I could only afford the action figures, not the actual ring. But holy shit will I have created some bad ass matches with all the stuff available to me here. I'll have a Steel cage death match and open ten different wrestlers up and make it some sort of bad ass winner take all shit. Then after each match I'll walk around like I'm doing something and then come back to the ring to continue the Main Event. This job rocks.
6:00am- Clock out. The morning crew is coming in and the sun is coming up. All-in-all, a pretty good first da...oh. There's gun shots. Oh, there's Simon. Oh, there's the 70 year old teammate, Sally, who I'll use for a shield and who I'll whisper in her ear, "This is for the best. Your husband wants to see you." Upon her death I'll run to the P.A. system, and tell Simon to put down the gun, and instead challenge him to a light saber battle to the death at an agreed upon store location. Simon will agree because he's an idiot. I'll meet him in the place where they sell the bikes, hand him a plastic light saber, ask him is he ready to fight, and then take the box cutter I have in my pocket and take out his achilles tendon. I'll be a hero, and at Sally's funeral, I'll be approached by the store manager who will reward my bravery with the offer from a different shift, this from 9-5. That's when the PS3 will fall out of my Ugg. And since the store manager isn't high, he'll have me arrested.
What a first night.
u crack me up!
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