Day Three

Today Tammy presented me with my nametag. It’s gold and shiny and it makes me feel official. Katie was the lab tech when I came in today. She is seems like is growing into a Marta or a Paula. She shared the lab with Jane and was pretty pleasant throughout the day. In the afternoon she dedicated herself to cleaning the glass case and re-arranging the picture frames.

             Also new to me today was Ahmed, who stuck himself behind the camera counter and stayed there, unless he was in the back on the phone. He was pleasant but I’m watching out for him because his demeanor smells of upper management.

Jane seems hostile. It’s like she’s expecting me to know the store top to bottom already. Her indigence seems like standard passive aggressive behavior towards the new guy. Everyone else seems ok with her, so I figure she may accept me into the clan at some point. Today she tells me how to tape the sales slips asks me “Do you want me to write this down. I did it for Charlie.” I feel slightly insulted be compared with Charlie, but that’s only because she’s naming me the new rookie, so I tell her no.

Today I hear Frank totally bullshitting a couple of customers. He tells them that our cameras have “more technology built in.” Lately I have been reading up on lens construction so I will not have to bullshit the customers as well. At one point he whips out an Ipad like device and spends about an hour watching YouTube videos of flash mobs off the Starbucks Internet connection with a customer.

One customer spent my entire shift designing one calendar. Everyone at the store must’ve sat down with her at one point. She spent 7 hours working at the kiosk. I wanted to give her an honorary nametag at the end of the day.

Sal, the afternoon security guy, seems to be a constant fixture at the store. He is portly and I fear for our stools as when he pulls one up and sits at the counter like it’s a bar. It’s a very South American approach to security guarding, thinking that your very presence will discourage thieves, instead of standing vigilant near the entrance like most American guards. Also, I think he may be after Tammy, if they don’t already have some sort of romantic relationship.

Frank sat down with a customer at the photo kiosk who had pictures of a safari. At first I was wary of this older couple, but then I realized Frank’s brilliant strategy. By tying himself with these customers, he could take a picture tour of Africa and waste about twenty five minutes of time not paying attention to other customers, not doing work at the lab and not dealing with the arcane computer system.