rakkauden ja epätoivon laulu

Another one of those underlying reasons, it seems, as to why other low-level jobs would work for me -- rather than fast food and retail -- is that of creativity.

Well, Scott generalized it as discovery, but even in retail there is discovery -- say, a new shipment of merchandise which you get to look through and put up on shelves.

It is definitely creativity. In landscaping you not only get to see new plants and landscaping material, you get the opportunity to think about and visualize what you want a space to look like, whether you get to actually make it a reality or not. In warehousing you might wonder what the lot numbers on the sides of the pallets mean, try to figure out what the buttons on the forklift that you didn't learn to use actually do. Stocking groceries you get to figure out how you could get more apples in a stack, or make pictures stacking the different colours of bell peppers. Heck, even cleaning computers you can admire the patterns on the circuit boards. With groceries you even get to examine and speculate on how produce goes rotten!

So yes, it is sort of about discovery. But not any old discovery. It is excitement that there will be something new to discover every day, that every day will be different. Something to look forward to.

Looking forward to seeing what kind of clothes tomorrow's customers will be wearing or who the customer with the weirdest accent is just isn't possible. It's nowhere near the same thing. It does nothing for curiosity, there is nothing about it that lets you be inquisitive. You might see someone with a nice shirt but you can't ask where they got it. It's depressing to have to forcibly suppress curiosity, but even worse to do so in a more or less static environment.

They only call it a "dynamic" environment because the customers change all the time. But your tasks never change, never give you even an illusion of freedom, of using your brain in a process called "thought."

Another one of those items that was on bitchgirl's "training checklist" was 'do not go over/repeat customers' orders with/to them unless you weren't sure of something' or something to that effect.

Quantity vs. Quality.

Quantity. You can get more customers in if you don't spend the twenty seconds repeating to them what they ordered to make sure you got it down correctly.

Quality. You're less likely to screw up an order if you take the twenty seconds to go over it with them.

During a piano exam, there's usually a part where the examiner will ask you to play a certain exercise in a certain key. My piano teacher told me to always say to myself what the examiner has asked me to play, just loud enough so that the examiner can hear it and thus can correct you if you've heard it wrong. It's better to play the correct thing than to play the incorrect thing, especially if you know both of them just as well.

Well for the few days I worked, there seemed to be so many incorrectly taken/served orders we would have done well to take the extra time to get everything correct. Plus it'd improve customer satisfaction.

And people were lazy about pushing the button to indicate eat-in/take-out orders, so I'd be filling up a drink in a mug and all of a sudden, the cashier: "no, the order's to go." AND YET YOU GET ANAL ABOUT PUSHING THE BUTTON WHEN I'M ON THE TILL?!?!! I thought you were being anal about it to me because it saves you time and effort in preparing the order - that's understandable - but when I'm the one preparing orders and you don't do it, yes, it wastes time, AND it tells me that you're only anal to me about it because i'm a noob and you're a hypocrite for not practising what you preach.

That is all.

Quality over Quantity. All the time.

So yesterday I get called to meet with this guy from Wal-Mart's automotive department today for an interview.

Wait a moment...




...The automotive department?



Yeah, had me a little shocked for a while too.

Turns out they have several levels of interviews, and it's just that this guy from that department was supposed to do the first level with me. He gave me a survey which looks like one of those Quizfarm quizzes, like you have to rank from 1 to 10 whether you agree or disagree with a statement sort of thing.

Then he opened up a double-folded sheet of paper (total surface area of three sheets of paper) where he asked me questions I couldn't really answer, like "give an example of when you had to take a risk in order to satisfy a customer," or "describe a time when you faced conflict in the workplace (or at school) and how you dealt with it," or (the easier ones) "describe a goal you gave yourself and what you did to achieve it" and "describe a goal you made that failed to be accomplished and how you dealt with it" or something like that.

It ended up that they wanted me in the photo lab, and then brought up the manager, Kelly, in that department to talk to me. (Did you know there's an upstairs at Wal-Mart?) She looked at the survey booklet and asked me to explain a few of my answers (obviously the ones that didn't lean in the 'agree'/'disagree' direction that the majority would pick). Blah blah -> I had a bit of fun explaining why I think drinking is like smoking a joint ;-)

Anyway, I was disappointed that I would be considered for photo lab.

I mean, developing photos isn't really a terrible thing to do. I've seen my uncle do it and it doesn't look too bad, except I don't really know what cleaning the machines might entail.

I was disappointed because that's one of the few departments (cosmetics, electronics, and automotives are the other ones) where the staff have to handle,

yes,




the dreaded...

...cash register, as well as whatever else they're supposed to do.

And definitely in photo lab, you gotta help customers figure out the digital photo uploading computer thingy, tell them about all of the options for, say, enlarging photos, burn CDs (well, that's not so bad), ring in any other purchases they might have with them...

Kelly also explained that it's a fast-paced environment (no kidding, one-hour photo, anyone? summer? people coming home from trips with rolls of film?) and all that, but I felt that it can't be any worse than Timmy's on a lunch hour.

Actually I managed to keep the whole Timmy's experience under wraps fairly well, since it's easy to use the 'my friend told me about her fast-food job' excuse when most people this age do have fast-food jobs.

Then they needed me to have three references for a background check, and of course I needed to be able to give prior notice to these references that they'd be called by some guy on behalf of Wal-Mart about me - because they will be called - so I took the form with me and had to walk over to SWC (how convenient) to find a couple of people, like Mr. Baldwin. I was going to ask Antonuk (uh, or not) or Greeniaus, but I ran into Mr. Graham first so I asked him. Then there's always Enrico from my chem labs last year and I was sure he'd be okay with it. Then I went back to Wal-Mart and handed in the form.


Anyway, I think I'll keep looking for something else. I'll take this if it comes down to it, but by no means should I consider it a finality.

Why must we look at quitting as giving up? Must we always look at persistence as a good quality?

We always hear people telling us never to give up, but what if what you expect to have come out of it isn't worth what you put in?

There simply was no way that any skill that I could have learned in there would be worth my agony.

Part of me likes to ask, why didn't you try to hang on for a little while longer? Until end of next week? And pretend it doesn't hurt?
=
But why not? Because it does hurt... a lot. Because it was the right time to say it, since no one can divinate when the opportunity could strike again. How can someone pretend it doesn't hurt?

People have no faith in me. I perceive that they are skeptical of my integrity.
=
So that's the secret, that awkward nuisance that is the piercing pain in my abdomen the morning after I drink. It's not that bad, really, since simply standing up will get rid of it. Merely an inconvienience.

The ideal job right now would be something: not marketing-talking-to-people intensive, only needs me to take orders from a handful of authority figures, doesn't involve cash registers, requires a bit of technical or dextrous skill, and gives me a bit (and not too much) of suffering (that is, a challenge).
Can it really be that difficult? Yet for many it seems too much to ask for.
=
I'm not ready for life yet, because there is still so much to encounter and enjoy before moving on. But I'm being pushed over this threshold, into the world, while other people feel they've done all they can for now and just want to move on. No wonder it seems that people are moving about around me ewhile I stay still...
=
So why can't I get up to my alarm, even though I do awake at the noise?
     a) I have no compelling reason to get up.
     b) avoidence mechanism to protect from thought of possibly having work.
     c) another of those wacky sleep things that happen after some kind of extreme mental shock, in which case I sleep later than last time because of a).

For people who have always gotten what they wanted, especially those who go out of their way to do so, then rubs it in others' faces: I'd like to see you try as much as you can, but still not get what you want. People can't win all of the time. Perhaps losing will teach you a lesson.
=
I know that I'm in so much pain, but there's nothing I can do about it except to pretend that it's not there. It also means that I have to save the rest of me before it's all suffered irreparable damage. I also feel as if there is already nothing left of me except for my body, and even that's deteriorating. Is there a part of me that isn't dying?
=
The enemy advances, but all I can do is retreat. Soon I will have nowhere left to run, but what fate is left for me to accept in the end?

You can be either a slave to one or a slave to many, but still serve many.

A doctor must serve many, but he only serves one master: the Hippocratic oath. He decides what is best for his patients based on what he knows as a professional.

A mechanic serves many people in a day as well, and although some people might approach him with a specific thing in their car that needs to be fixed, for the most part, his job is to find out what's wrong with the car and do what he can to repair it, or do routine things like oil changes and stuff.

But I must serve many masters. Every customer is a new master -- I must do to their specifications. I am not an instrument in shaping their lives or their wellbeing, or somehow affecting their estate, but slaving to fill their bellies the way they want it to be filled. I can't give any opinion or advice, only do what they want me to do.

How can I be human if I can't exercise any educated information or opinion?

How can I be human if I'm just a slave, doing 100+ other people's biddings?

How can I be human if I'm not allowed to make any decisions or suggestions?
=
There I will never be any more than a face with a name -- never really know who the others are, where they've been, their stories. Only know them as smiles. And even then, don't really want to know the smiles since they remind me of how fake this all is.

I had a Rajaton dream. I worked with them, sang with them, asked them questions, drank with them. And they cared who I was and I was more than willing to help them in any way I could.

And I dreamed of being on stage, introducing my song to the audience, reading in heavily accented Finnish off a sheet of paper a speech that I had written but someone had translated for me.

I dreamed of being significant, and looked on as human. Of being treated as having free will.
=
I'm watching hope go up in smoke - it's only a matter of time until I can no longer pluck it out of the flames and blow it out.

The only solution I can think of that would satisfy all parties relies on that hope. If it fails me I will be trapped in this hell for months, dreading every moment every night before work, instead of looking forward to something to do and using those nights to do good and interesting things like music or painting.

But all I can do right now is to downplay how much I hate it because I know there are some close to me who think this is a necessary people skill to learn this way, when (although there is that measure of intereaction) the other issues are the sheer monotony and cash registers inseparably associated with bitchgirl.
=
I'm waiting for you to come back. (Well, I could say that to a lot of things.)
=
I suspect that I may have to live with this pain for the rest of my life. (Well, I could say that for fewer, but still a lot of things.)
=
A moment of falling glass / Shattering in slow motion / Maybe I can reach out / And catch it before it's too late / Or even after that / Before it becomes too many pieces.
=
I am frozen up in a fear I have no choice but to face.

I want to be at school again because I want to be doing something with my brain, something intelligent, something that makes me think and solve problems.

I can hate homework a lot but I don't hate it any more than this work.

I am worried because the longer and more I work and the more I talk about it, the faster I'm running out of ideas and the ability to articulate what is it I hate about this job... and the more desperate I am to get out of here and to a job I'm actually comfortable doing.

Bitchgirl showed up today with a handful of stapled sheets. So she was supposed to be my "trainer" and needed to check off that I learned all of these things on her 7-page checklist. Hmm....

I "confronted" (not in a confrontational way) bitchgirl about her bossiness, and she revealed that she had been a manager at McD's for a few years...

That might explain a lot.

Then I kinda ended up yelling at my supervisor a bit during the last part of my shift - she wanted me on the till and I was explaining that my insistance of not doing it and reluctance to do so is not about a lack of practice or lack of knowledge of how to do it - it's a refusal to take orders from someone whom I don't know and is a totally random person off the street. I can handle a few individuals giving me orders - parents, bf, friends, supervisor, doctor, etc. - but these are people I know and trust. In any event, she eventually dropped the case.

*sigh*

The Hallmark store where siromygod is working might still hire for the summer. I'm so working there instead if I can.

Oh!

Edit:

...and bitchgirl was reading off the checklist something about aggressively getting customers and stuff (like, you know, aggressively trying to get their attention when they're next in line). Okay okay what's with the strong wording? :P

...and again, bitchgirl was reading off the checklist something about 'suggestive selling' like suggesting that people buy a donut with their drink or 'would you like to upgrade to a combo' crap - I mean I know all retail and service businesses try to do that but it really really pisses me off - can't we just leave people alone to get what they want and stop just trying to get money for yourself!??!?!?!?!? If someone wants to supersize their meal at McD's, LET THEM DO THAT ONLY IF THEY FREAKING WANT TO! It's not like people don't know the option exists, YOU'RE JUST TRYING TO MILK THEIR MONEY OUT OF THEM!!!! Call me an idealist, but business shouldn't be about selling people what they DON'T want (or what is bad for them) so that YOU can make more money! Business is about satisfying people's wants and needs - not about your own wealth!

Edit again:

I was telling bitchgirl how I was rather enjoying cleaning the hot cappuccino/chocolate machine (since it was a machine and not a human), while she was showing me how to do it, so she was like, "well, since you like working with machines so much, why don't you clean the other machine too?" Later, she got me cleaning the coffee makers which I thoroughly enjoyed also. Anyway....

Continued from here.

(And speaking of the corrupted... Odd Boy, the partly corrupted showoff.)

Not to say that we don't all have our own evils, those little quirks you know are bad for you but you have anyway. I know mine.

I know that drink is one of my evils. I know this because 99% of the time, I don't drink for any particular effect -- a feeling or a mood, any reason at all, really -- but simply because I want to, as if I just have to.

I know that things with multiple sets or are collectible are my evils. It's an obsession with completeness.

I know that that evil itself is one of my evils. It calls me from within, as if scratching at the bottom of my head. But I am unable to heed it because I also know the world I'm in, a world where it would not and cannot go unpunished.
=
Yet that is the evil that calls me strongest. When it strikes me it ignites a fury in me -- a raging fury, but not wild enough that it breaks free from under my conscience. At times, though, it feels like it's so close to getting there -- so close to exploding -- that I'm taken into a war-like mood.

He who knows me knows that once I have a motivation, there is no unconditional surrender. It's why it's so dangerous to me -- it causes me to be temporarily dependent on grisly fantasies to guide me to sleep. And being dependent on anything isn't good.

If your words cease being mere fantasies, Dangerous Boy, then you will never be free again. You will be a fugitive forever, but a slave to fear, chained to the law by your flight!
=
At least my dependence is only temporary -- I feel bad for anyone who has a permanent dependence on it -- they'd get in so much trouble.
=
One of the few things I've learned is that a lot of people can do really stupid things but are totally convinced that it is amusing and that no harm will come to them. They also seem totally convinced that wasting evenings "dancing" away to loud "music" and other noise while doing stupid things is amusing.
=
School is to life as alcohol is to school -- one thing to escape the other. So, when stuck and/or frustrated with life, I think of school and wish so much that I could have classes five days a week rather than seven days a week of real life.
=

Close your eyes and dream a dream
Anything to take you away from here
Close your eyes and hide the pain
Anything to chase away the tears
„End the nightmares,” you cry aloud
„Stop this noise blasting in my ears
Let me be what I'm worthy to be
And please stop preying on my fears.”

=
First and foremost, I am an artist -- free to express myself by whatever means possible and necessary. I also work with my hands.

I am a truth-seeker -- I want to know the answer.

I am a scientist -- so that I can say that "given what we know and how we understand it, this is the right answer." and it be true.

I am an engineer -- not because I want to be a slave to some company trying to maximize their profits, but because I want to make things that will make people's lives more safe and efficient so they don't need to worry as much and have the oppotunity (should they choose to take it) to sit back, relax, and think about the big questions, the choices they've made in their lives, and if necessary, do something about it.

How could I study the arts and social sciences when, told that there are no wrong answers, I can still be wrong?

You will notice that, of all these roles, none of them are completely reliant on subservience. I don't have to put on a cheery smile for everyone who walks by and do everything to their specifications within 30 seconds. I can't deal with other people as the main basis of a job. I hate repeating myself or asking people to speak more clearly, or when there's some totally bizarre request that will take so much to remember and might not even know how to fulfill.

Scott: I wish you were here. I really miss you.

First, a thingy.

From muora:

Reply in here with something you would like to do with me someday. Then post this in your journal to find out what people want to do with you.

And now for something completely different:
[cue drumroll]

Work: Part Two the Sequel!

[cue clearly faked enthusiastic applause]

Today sucked even more than yesterday. One of the girls, who has been around for a while, was really pushing me around until she got off at 2. She basically tried to force me to stay on the till until she decided I should go wash tables and dishes, which REALLY SUCKS because when the dishes come out of the dishwasher, like, duh, they're frickin' STEAMY and HOT. Even though I didn't feel so pressured after she left, I was still really pressured because there were so many customers, and so many of them wanted iced capps, which apparently I can make really well but the machine close to where I was working hates me, so either it doesn't dispense the slush properly or the beaters go insane and get the stuff all over the place. Chelsea let me go home at 4 again.

Anyway, one good thing did happen: since I was handling so much money, I now have a Lucky Loonie, a Terry Fox loonie, and the 60th Annniv. VE-Day nickel, so siromygod, you only need to be on the lookout for a coloured Remembrance Day quarter, thanks.

Speaking of which, I'm *still* in need of my alcohol fix.