Chapter 71
Honestly

Yesterday I was stuck on express and I had this one customer that kind of stood out to me. People usually don’t stand out to me because of good things; they are usually annoying or do something that makes them memorable, such as an older couple getting into a fight over medium eggs. So this customer was paying using our debit/credit machine and with this machine you can slide your store card and then your credit card, but if you slide your credit card you can’t slide your store card…have I lost you yet? So the guy slide his card but it didn’t go through and then immediately after he slide his credit card; so I tell him that his store card didn’t go through. Now, the screen is asking him for whether or not this is a debit or credit card and he is trying to slide his store card. I tell him that it won’t read it while that information was there; I guess I should have said because he already slid his card so he presses “credit” and continues to slide his card. I have one of two options here and unfortunately kicking him out of the store is not one of them. I could either tell him I’ll have to just ring his card up or I could reset the machine for him to slide through his store card, but he would have to slide his credit card again. I take option two because it doesn’t involved speaking to the customer and sometimes you get the feeling that certain customers just don’t want to let you slide their card for them…I don’t know what the big deal is, but whatever, I reset the machine. His card finally goes through and then he sits there and I tell him he’ll have to slide his card through, genius thinks that the machine can differentiate between two different cards…I don’t know, maybe I’m being mean to this guy, maybe it really is that hard to understand. Regardless the guy gets all upset and I just think to myself, “Don’t get mad at me because you’re stupid”.
Speaking of not caring about customers, I am applying for placement advancement at work. It turns out that there is actually openings for temporary trainers, we’d work on a when they need us basis. I saw the sign up yesterday and I just had the conversation with my manager the day before so I figured what the hell. I got the proper paper work yesterday and I am taking my resume in today. Jaq thought it was for a permanent position and was telling me I couldn’t work at that location anymore, but I explained that it is temporary, so I would still work there most of the time, just travel around to other stores when they needed me. It’s extra pay and I figure while I’m there I might as well get some positions that look better on my resume. Because I can’t control how long I’ll be there, but no matter how long I am there I could either stay a cashier the whole time, or get more money and a better title, am I stupid to think that this is a good idea?
When I was mentioning memorable customers did I bring up the boy that was wearing one of those toilet seat papers that you find in many public bathrooms? Yeah, so this little boy is shopping with his grandmother and I see him walk by and I have to do a double take because at first it looks like he has a really thin x-ray vest on, and then I realize it’s one of the toilet things. Grandma doesn’t seem to notice or care, and the kid seems pretty happy to be wearing one. So I just smiled at him and he was the talk of the front end for a good five minutes. It’s like the kid whose mother lets him chomp down on candles while they are waiting in line…one word, “weird”.
Yesterday Jaq informs me that he did something without asking me first, so I automatically knew that I was going to be in café sometime next week. He goes into a whole spiel about how people are sick, or on vacation or something over there and I really don’t care. He always has to explain everything to me, it doesn’t really need explanation, if I wanted an explanation about how he is in a bind and he figures that I know how to close café so he put me over there despite the fact that a lot of other people know how to close café then I would ask. Dropping in there that you know that even if I didn’t know how to close café I could figure it out doesn’t really help either. It doesn’t make me feel any smarter, it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel like, “Oh great, Jaq thinks I’m smart enough to figure out how to sweep, mop, empty coffee and trash, and wipe down tables man, I should go back to school to be a rocket scientist because I’m so much more smarter than my coworkers.” Then out of the blue, at least I felt like it was, Jaq says, “You don’t like me very much do you?” I said, “No,” I mean, he wanted me to speak honestly right? Or would he prefer that I flat out lie to him, “What do you mean? Oh course I do, I mean, you always listen when I say that I hate café and you always put me in it. You’re a man whore and the way you shake my hand makes me feel like you are helping me out of a carriage rather than saying ‘hello’ in a business like manner, oh and you always squeeze the fattiest part of my arm Why wouldn’t you be my favorite manager?” Ok, so to lie I would have just said, “Of course I do.” But what is the point of that? If I had felt bad about not liking him I would have stumbled over my words and thought to myself, “Oh crap I’ve been caught” as I try to fix the situation. But I didn’t feel that need, I didn’t miss a beat, and I looked him right in the eye. I suppose the conversation in that situation was taken as my disgust for being scheduled for café, and a closing shift no less. But I knew that it wasn’t simply meaning in this conversation, I really don’t like the guy. I asked him what part he missed when I told him that I hated café, was it the ‘hate’ part that confused him or was it the ‘café’ part he missed? You know, that may have been the comment that brought on him asking me if I didn’t like him, but right now the whole conversation is a blur.
A couple of minutes later though I thought to myself, ‘what would he do if I said no?’ He had told me that I could say ‘no’ but when have I ever? So I went back up to him and asked what he would do if I had said ‘no’ not that I was, but hypothetically speaking. He missed the part where I said that I wasn’t saying ‘no’ I just wanted to know. So he goes off on another spiel and I am left regretting that I ever wondered.
Finally we get it cleared up, by this time we have moved and I am back at my register and there is good distance between me and Jaq when he says, ‘Thanks it’s just one day’ and then he starts to walk away and I say, “yeah no problem,” and then under my breath where a kid standing next to me barely heard I said, “one day every week.” It really has been that way, last week; when the watermelon cake fell on me, I was suppose to be in café. Tomorrow, I am scheduled in café, and now next Wednesday I am working in café. That’s almost a month straight. I’ve worked it numerous times before as well. Now Bakery is trying to get their little claws in me. The bakery manager wanted me to work there next Saturday but fortunately I am going to be out of town visiting my sister and brother-in-law.
Oh and Puppy Love came in yesterday as well. Good news, no hug. Better news, he’s trying to make me jealous with other girls but really I’m just relieved that his attentions are elsewhere. He’s “seems” really attached to these two other girls and I am praying that he isn’t trying to make me jealous but that he really has moved on and that one of them work out for him. I should still fabricate a boyfriend just in case.