Day Eight

            Early this morning I got a call. “Do you have the Sony brrraaawwwggggieee?”
“Umm, Sony What?”

“Brrrrrawwggieee! One hundred dollars!”

“Right, on sale, let me look, what was the model again?”

“Brrrraaggeeeddd. Sony. One hundred dollars!”

“Yes” I lied, having no idea which product this man was referring to.

“What Color?!?”

“Damn” I muttered. I took a quick look around at our camera stock I noticed most of our cameras were silver.

“Silver, what was the model number again?”

“Brrrraaaawwwgiie. Do you have it in black?”

I looked around again. Black seemed to be the second most popular color. “Yes”

“I’ll be there in a half hour”

“Damn” I muttered again as I hung up.

Half and hour later he was there. He pointed at the Sony B-----, “Brrraagggie, Sony.” I grabbed him the last model in the box besides the display model. He questioned me, “It comes with a memory card?”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna want a larger one anyway. Here let me show you…”

“Where’s the memory card?”

“It doesn’t come with one, sir” I fought to be courteous.

 “No memory card? Look in the other box, find me the memory card!”

I opened the other box. “Sir, it doesn’t come with one.”

“It says right here Memory Card!”

He was becoming irate. I brought him over to Tammy.
“Tammy, this gentlemen can’t seem to find the memory card in the box of his new B------” Tammy got up.

“There’s no memory card included with the B------. I’m sorry sir”, she apologized.

“Ok, then, where’s the memory cards?!” he was back in form.

“I’ve got a special on memory cards here” I pointed to our flyer.

“Ten dollars is too much. I’ll get it cheaper somewhere else. How about tripods?”

Sensing where this was going, I whipped out the flyer to the on-sale items. “We’ve got this mini tripod on sale for 19.99”. Instantly he was back from our tripod sales area with one in his hand.

“19.99 is a firm price?” he asked.

 “Yes, how about a warranty?” I asked, knowing he’d never buy it.

An hour later he was back. I had switched out the instruction booklet and he had received two warranties. He had no idea how to charge the battery. I fear the customers will only become more desperate, aggressive and confused as Christmas looms closer. We have also sold out of the B------- as of today.

Day Seven

            This morning was a flurry of activity. It’s a blur of photos going over counters, credit card slips and ms-dos debacles. I catch myself humming along to the Christmas carols, which makes me hate myself. It seems I can find a new exception to our sales procedure every twenty minutes, as expired discount cards enter us into 5-minute Internet searches and we have to shout codes across the store. I try not to look at the customers as they wait. Employing the same technique with Jane today proved fruitful, and she didn’t yell at me when I misprocessed the paperwork on a special roll of Black and White film.

Some guy passed through the employee gateway today to look at lens caps. I didn’t say anything to him but I darted up to him with a sense of urgency and glared at him like a protective mother. To any employee with a bar, desk or counter, this boundary is sacred, accessible only to invited guests, employees or emergency personnel. After a decent one-minute standoff punctuated by us having a non-confrontational discussion about the lens caps we didn’t have in stock, he instinctively backed off hovering just in front of the entrance.

            Sal is back today. He is talking to another seasonal employee, like myself. Her name is Sarah. He is trying to discern her background, looking for some Asian roots but she keeps telling him that she’s an American. Today I start to think that Sal has a better job than I do, because he gets to sit around in the store while I do work, and he probably gets paid more than me. But Sal is enormous and so I resign myself to having the job of an average sized man.

            One customer came in today with an early nineties plastic electric motor powered film camera. After some debate, because he didn’t know how it worked either, I put the film in for him, closed the door and heard the motor go. I don’t know if the film was wound properly, but I told him not to open the door because it might expose the film. I wish him luck.

            I’m finding that Paula is more personable than Marta. But, when she went to lunch I turned her Christmas music down to almost nothing.

In the waning hours of the shift I watch Sarah muddle her way through the sale of a small point and shoot camera. Like myself, she too is a misinformed salesperson. Mid-way through John comes through and takes over, dominating the conversation. I see Sarah looking relieved than ashamed, but I know she got the commission because I saw her doing paperwork for the next half-hour.

I take a late lunch and sit at the patio furniture of the Juice Shack next door to our store. Then I go to the adjoining supermarket, where one of the employees recognizes that I’m an employee of the camera store. Factotum recognizes factotum. Quoting the film “Supertroopers”, we both realize our “relationship based on professional courtesy and mutual boredom”.

Day Six

            Today I broke down for a good two minutes. The staff had me selling cameras again. One lady came into the store with her daughter. By this point I have decided to admit to customers that I am new, simply to dispel rumors that I am a competent salesman. After motioning me around using only her finger for thirty minutes she decided on a camera. Then we had to find her batteries, memory cards and a tripod. At that point I half-heartedly suggested she purchase the warranty because John was forcibly gesturing and mouthing the word “warranty” at me. When she declined it I was relieved. But she had been drawn in by the lower sticker price associated with our in store monthly print special.

            Immediately I was plunged into the camera paperwork pit. This time Tammy tried to let me do it by myself, which was a mistake because ten minutes of paperwork turned into thirty when I messed up sending the data to the corporate website. The daughter/mother pair was visibly upset by the wait, but when the mother’s credit card was declined at the very end of the process I lost it.

            I stepped into the back and closed the door for a meltdown. Paula was there looking at the stock. I cursed to her in fragmented sentences, “…fucking bullshit…” , “…no training…”, “…how the fuck do you expect me…” “…all this fucking paperwork…”.

Paula gave me a knowing look, “Maybe you should stay away from the sales desk”.

I replied “Yes, yes that’s a great idea, I’ll go tell Tammy”.

I went and found Tammy. I told her, “I’m gonna go stay by the kiosks, I’m not going to try and sell cameras anymore.” Tammy looked disappointed.

During and after work hours, I have been acting more courteous to people outside of work, because I’ve been conditioned by the store environment. I am constantly asking my roommates “Can I help you?” and I tell homeless people “Have a great day!”. Two nights I almost told my mother “Thanks for coming in”.

At the end of the shift there were no customers in the store, so I decided to construct a paper airplane. Instantly Frank, and Jim, who is an outgoing employee followed suit, and we all experimented with all the different airplane making materials available to us. Frank had a warranty plane that went the farthest. Even Sal the security guard joined in making one out of one of catalogues. It was probably the most exciting experience I’ve had so far at the store.

Weekend One Musings

Tomorrow I’m going back for a full week of work. I don’t know what’s going to happen, whether I’ll be fired for insubordination or the ms-dos system will take me as a host body and make a pod person out of me. I do know that I am going to be bored to tears for 40 hours of the next week, and that I am going to engage in more pointless paperwork than is tolerable. I know that I’m going to be stuck in a small space filled with products I don’t want people to buy. I know at least one of my co-workers doesn’t like me, and there is also one I that despise, but at least they’re not the same person.

            Will come out of this time with my senses deadened, my faith in humanity lost and my ability to interact normally? Should my analysis of the situation deteriorate or my text falter, the mundane world of the factotum is surely the culprit. It is now a question of my personal strength and knowing my limits to escape from this with my sanity and my ego intact.

Day Five

The lady who was here the entire shift last time is back. I figure she knows the kiosk better than anyone alive now. Some of the staff have offered to get her coffee.

John is also back today. I’m thankful that I work on his two days off. Most of the staff seems more relaxed that he’s not around. Today he’s pretty mellow . He’s almost personable as he and Charlie and I assemble a Telescope and try it out in front of the store. I find out later that his girlfriend has moved out on him the night before for New York. I expect him to return to his douchebag self by the time I get back to work on Friday.

Everyone in the store seems comfortable ordering Charlie around. I hear John ask him to get a screwdriver as we assemble a telescope. I hear Jane ask him to get her a pen. As much as it pains me to watch him be subservient I am grateful it’s not me they’re ordering around.

Katie and Marta are both in the store today. It’s like watching mother become daughter with the two. I feel bad for Katie and hope this place goes under before she becomes Marta.

Jane works the lab today after Marta leaves. I give her ample rooms using the dividing spaces demarcated by the prints racks and the back break room door. She’s been in back all morning doing paperwork and I’ve been giving her space all day as a way to reduce conflict, but I fear that bottling up my anxiety about a confrontation with her could cause the situation to explode.
           When I leave the lady is still at her kiosk. I wonder,  “Will she will outlast me at the store?”

Day Four

            Today we start to decorate the store for the holiday season. As a Jew I have always hated Christmas, and Jane picks up on this and it adds to her reasons to disrespect me. When Tammy asks me to help her pin up a streamer to the ceiling, Jane takes over as head decorator. When I try to help her wrap a streamer around the main kiosk station in an attempt to get on her good side she scolds me, “don’t pre-empt me!” I attempt to turn the other cheek by thinking “maybe Jews just don’t know how to hang Christmas decorations.”

On one ring-up Charlie teaches me how to do a “blitz”. It seems to be a free for all discount function. Like the safe haven of a cave in the formidable mountain range of our computer system, I take comfort in the fact that in the event of an emergency I can “blitz” the system.

I watch as Charlie and Jane make Cat noises and gestures at each other. Frank tells me Jane eventually accepted Charlie when he was the newbie, so I hope that before my month is up I can learn the entire store, so I can have a chance at Jane’s acceptance.

Printmaking is getting mundane, but it is still the best part of my day. The worst part of my day is selling people the pricy electronics we stock in our store. Today I muddle through the sale of a durable point and shoot camera for a couple buying their daughter a Christmas present. It takes forty five minutes and consists of me being very nice and guessing wrong about most of their questions, which they discover as they actually use the cameras and read the sides of the boxes.

I sell them a store discount, which knocks the price of the camera in half and entitles them to a number of free prints every month. This ensures they will walk through our door every month for the next twelve, or end up paying even more than the original price for the camera.

Because of the store “discount” and the fact that the color of the camera that the couple want is not in our store, Tammy and I embark upon a half-hour of triplicate paperwork, online registration, credit card carbon pressing and a five minute jaunt through the ms-dos system. During this process I try to be absent as much as possible, sneaking off to help urgent looking customers. But, Tammy keeps on pulling me back to watch over her shoulder. The customers, who were at first excited to make the purchase have had to wait patiently through all of this and are now disgusted.

A sneaking suspicion dawns on me that the couple will be back, and I will have to fill out even more paperwork. Anytime I bring up a minor change that could improve productivity Frank mentions something about a massive re-organization. I suspect he has a complex plan to revamp the place, drawn out over the four long years of working at the store.  But he resigns himself to in-action because he knows he will never get the chance to make actual changes before the business goes under.

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.