Friday, June 21, 2013

Reflections on Working at a Store in the Hood

I've been working some extra shifts at another Dollar General here in town that is kinda considered the "ghetto store." My boss from the store I usually work at said that the reason they need someone to fill in is because no one wants to work there. The reasons? Well...

  • They've been robbed a few times this year... and it's June. This reason I'll give some merit, because who wants to be working at a store when it's being robbed? I've been in that situation once, and once is more than enough.
  • The store manager is an alright lady but she's always pissed off cause things don't go well at that store. That could mean a lot of things.
  • The customers suck. Hmmm...
  • There's a ton of theft.
Well, being ready to make some extra money I agreed to help out anyway and give it a shot. I can't help but have a "what did I just step in?" feeling.
The store manager does seem alright on a personal level. I think she's just so used to things being messed up and not running right that she's always pissed off about something.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that all the customers suck, but there's a lot of them that do... meaning that they have no idea how to act in a public place. Here's a conversation that I had with a fine young lady today:

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you only have $17 on your food stamp card."
"AWWW NUH UH! I KNOW I GOT MO DAN DAT! THIS SOME RACIST SHIT UP IN HEAH, WHITE BOY."
"Umm, ma'am, I don't have any control over whether it approves or declines your card."
"WELL I KNOW I GOT DA MONEY ON DAT CARD SO IMMA JUST TAKE THE STUFF AND GO."
"No, ma'am. Can you pay for it some other way?"
"HAIL NAW I AIN'T GOT NO MONEY."
"Then if you try to take stuff you haven't paid for I'll have to call the police."
"GO AHEAD AND CALL EM WHITE BOY I DON'T GIVE A FUCK!!"
"That's obvious." At this point I picked up the phone and started to dial the non emergency number for the police.
"MAAANNN FUCK DIS SHIT. JUST TAKE SOME STUFF OFF."
By this time, there's a backed up line of about eight or so other customers.
"Ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. You clearly don't know how to act in a public place or talk to people."
"DA FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?"
Ignoring her, I ask the next customer to come up and check out and she does so. Ghetto bitch remains complaining and yelling for another five minutes or so before finally leaving in an angry huff.
On the plus side some of the other customers got a good laugh out of her being that way and I got congratulated for keeping my cool. To me a lot of things just aren't worth getting upset about. I thought it was funny more than anything.

The last bullet point is the theft. Man, there's a lot. We keep a lot of items behind the counter such as headphones, condoms, batteries, pregnancy tests, cell phone chargers, etc. Items that are easy to steal and are frequently stolen. I actually had someone arrested once for shoplifting and I felt very bad about it... 17 year old kid was stealing some headphones and a couple other things... probably wasn't more than $15 total. The other day I walked up on a kid who was probably about 10 stealing candy. His eyes got huge when he realized I saw him do it... I couldn't bring myself to call the cops on him, which according to company policy is what I'm supposed to do. Instead, I took him to his mom that he came in with.
"Ma'am is this your son?"
"Yeah?"
"I caught him stealing some candy."
"WHAT????"
She then proceeds to slap him in the face! Oh snap! And I heard her say as they were leaving "Wait til your daddy hears about this!!" Oh double snap! I think that may have been worse than calling the cops.

In case you couldn't tell, I just wanted to vent about work. I really don't like my job at all and am constantly searching for something else. There's just not a lot of opportunity where I live. I've had 3 job interviews in the past couple months and that's from applying at literally hundreds of jobs.
Thank God for alcohol.

"Oh, you hate your job? There's a support group for that. It's called Everyone, and they meet at the bar."
Thanks, George. Your cynical rhetoric has gotten me through some rough times.

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