Day Twelve

        

            When I came in today Tammy had the Christmas music on the stereo again. I changed the station but then she sent me to the bank to pick up pennies. At the bank I was able to take in a bit of the football game while the bank teller and I commiserated about our respective bureaucracies. When I returned, much later than I should have, she had changed it back to the Christmas music. But, eventually the store filled up with enough customers that I couldn’t hear it anymore.

In one particularly bitter rush, three out of four staff members were behind the sales counter while I faced the public alone from the prints area. Unable to leave behind a potential commission, Frank, Sarah and Tammy all lounged behind the sales counter while I float from the kiosks to the print bins to the registers, answering the phones while I find mislabeled orders. I use the strategy of staring vacantly into the computer monitor and walking slowly away from the counter whenever possible. If not for a practiced lackadaisical attitude, which is practiced by everyone at the store besides Katie, l would already have melted down at the keyboard.

            I walk in back and ask Sarah how she is doing. She has been attempting to sell a couple a small point and shoot camera. She makes the vomit sign. “Ohh you want to vomit?” I ask. She puts her finger down her throat.

This afternoon the customers came sporadically. In their absences I started to stare at the clock, willing it to be later. When I misread my lunch break I felt some of the vomit pre-ordained by Sarah slide up my throat. It happened again as I gave the thumbs up to a customer trying on a camera bag and hit big time when an older lady took a photo of me posing in front of the kiosk. 

One customer who had been making eyes at me earlier in the day, returned to pick the prints he had ordered for Christmas gifts. Then he sat at the counter and assembled tree ornaments with his own picture on them. He sent me the back twice to grab envelopes. One trip back had me encounter Jane, who shoved a cardboard box in my hands and puzzlingly yelped, “It’s not an emergency”.

When I returned he asked, “Are you Jewish or Italian?” I tried not to make eye contact with him after that.

At the end of the shift Frank, Sarah and I sat around with nothing to do. We ask Sarah what she’s going to do once she graduates and leaves the store. We tell her she’s going to find success as a college graduate, even though we both have degrees, and are still working with her. Then Frank decides to define, “My ten year old self’s ideal pastime was to ride around in my own car listening to the Toadies. Therefore in the mind of my ten year old self I am a success” he tells us. I start to talk about my ten year old self, but Frank plows through interrupting me. I’m starting to notice a pattern of this among the older employees.