Welcome to my break! Whew, last week went on forever. I’m glad to finally take some time, kick back, and write about comics. Of course, I can’t afford one of those fancy writing cruises that Amy Tan can afford. This is me in my row boat.

I gave an unfair description. Comics aren’t work for me. They’re meditation. Reading comics, like any good fiction, is joyful and calming. Making them is equally so, only with the brief hiccups of anger that you get while creating in any art form. Nobody continues their creative meditation unbroken after accidentally dropping a dipped paint brush on their carefully crafted canvas, but the anger dissipates after they start painting again.

I always tell people that the key is to have fun. You want to relax? Have fun. Relaxing is fun. How can it not be in today’s distraction-heavy existence? You want to build a fence? Have fun. You might be learning something new or making an area for your dog to run around in. That’s fun. You want to paint the Mona Lisa? Obsessively nitpick over every detail for a decade and a half, then consider it unperfected on your death bed. But have fun.

Having fun seems like such a simple mindset, but it was never there while I was in college. Sure, a lot of kids ran around naked, drunk, and screaming throughout college. I don’t know directly, but I think it’s safe to assume they had fun. I did not. College was expensive. I wasn’t a finance major, but I’m pretty certain that anything you buy in early adulthood that is potentially paid off in late middle age is expensive. That’s a lot of pressure. I thought, “By god I better make something of this experience or I’ll be reminded of this failure with every monthly bill for the rest of my years with decent knees.” Fun times, right?

No. I had to learn how to have fun after college while at work. Work taught me more than college. I’ve often thought I took the long route to work through college, but I’m glad I went. I learned about the futility of over-seriousness. And deferments. I learned so much about deferments, which was a word that was not in my vocabulary before my academic studies forced me, through strength-building exercises such as poverty, to learn it and learn it well.

Sigh. Memories. May they remain distant. Hey, is break time over? Awwwww. Thank you for joining me. We’re doing this again sometime, yes?

I tend to personify all technological devices. I did this before AI was a real threat. I know that, technically, my alarm doesn’t have a job and does not feel or care that it did not wake me up. But I could be wrong. Better make sure I’m asleep so it doesn’t feel useless.

This was based on my real life with a real worldwide corporation, so I was delighted that some commenter on Instagram wrote, “I’ve had six jobs after college and none of them have made me use up my vacation at the end of the fiscal year!” Then he went down and rephrased the same thought under other comments. “Yeah, right! I’ve never had to use up my vacation this way. And I’ve had six jobs since graduating college!” Aside from the repetition, the insinuation that I was full of yesterday’s fecal matter irritated me. Maybe it was one of my “not enough sleep” days and I was easily irritated. I thought of several clever responses along the lines of, “Good for you pal, but it ain’t so with me! And I’ve had a million jobs since graduating college!” Thankfully my inner Tabby emerged and I said nothing. Neither did he. He’s blocked and deleted.

Readers liked this one, but I don’t think anyone liked this more than me. I seldom laugh at myself, but “steep when slanted” killed me. The trick is to be so tired that my own brain seems to be going without my conscious help. I have no idea where that came from. It’s a practical warning, though.

I’ve had too many discussions about inflation. After all of the talking, I would like to tell you that I’m now an expert on the subject. Surprisingly, constant anecdotal conversations have yielded no real knowledge.

People are still commenting on this one. There are the retail workers who have very strong opinions about this joke and there are customers who are irritated that the retail workers are irritated about this joke. It really is the joke that divides the staff from the customers. Let’s try to come up with a different joke.

Being cute and young will have people questioning your authority. If you’re tall and somewhat menacing, you’ll have a leg up as a representation of leadership. You could be as dumb as a lobotomized squirrel, but as long as you’re not as cute as one you could be management material.

Some people who are angry that they can’t find something they’re standing next to are able to laugh at themselves. Some. Many others are determined to remain angry.

Many people want to be a manager for the money. It’s my contention that it’s more logical to desire the position for the parking space. The money isn’t worth it, but depending on where you work the parking space might be.

Todd and Shelby weren’t meant for each other, but they did happen to work together. Many relationships blossom and die at their place of employment.

Todd makes his bed and is surprised that he has to lie in it. Aren’t we all, Todd.

Let’s see, Friday eventually ended and I did that thing. Then I finally slept longer than usual, maybe even the amount doctors recommend, and woke up to do that thing I couldn’t do earlier because I didn’t have any time. Oh, and then I did that other thing that needed done. I put off that one thing because, let’s face it, it’s the weekend and it can’t all be about getting things done. But then I had to do that other stupid thing that took way too much time. Saturday must’ve become Sunday and sleep was involved, but I couldn’t swear to it.

I think I had fun. I know I don’t feel rested.

But we’re off to start a new week. How joyous. It’s a time of new beginnings with old responsibilities. What am I supposed to be doing? Ah yes, that one thing. It would be nice to put off things so I could just relax at home and enjoy my things, but doing things allows me to enjoy my other things and where would I be without those things? Thingless, that’s we’re I’d be. A frightening thought.

I thought I’d select strips with the theme of moody people for today’s post and I stupidly thought it would take some time to carefully select such strips out of the archive. It winds up that most of my strips revolve around moody people. I didn’t even make it out of the year 2022 with my selections.

“I’m tired of showing people how to operate their $1,000 phones!” That was said by Jerry in 2022. Jerry, sadly, is no longer with us, but the $1,000 phones are. Some of those phones have grown up to be even more expensive. Wherever you are, Jerry, I hope it’s analog afterlife.

During my thing-filled weekend I went to the art museum. I have to go there frequently because it’s where my friends hang out. Well, they don’t hang out so much as sit there bolted to the walls, but but that’s how I like to phrase it. The museum closes at 5:00 p.m. sharp and I can always see, from the distance of the parking lot, people still wandering about inside without a care in the world. I like to look at the security staff buzzing from one group to the other so they can tell them, as politely as possible, to get the hell out. I can’t relate to the mindset of a person who is unaware of closing time at all, but I suspect that somewhere in their head lies the secret to a stress free life. It must be nice to not worry about time. The problem is that a timeless mind like that requires the caretaking of those who are aware of the time.

This was a 2022 strip in which Penny actually went on a vacation to France with her boyfriend Harvey and their dog Claremont. Somehow, she got talked into watching the hotel desk for a few minutes and, naturally, was confronted by a group of Americans. Poor Penny. Escape is useless.

Ah, 2022. Supply chain problems were everywhere and prices were going up. Today, of course, the shelves are full of items priced so high that you think of 2022 in black and white. People think I’m making this up, but back then (so very long ago) Walmart had a box of crackers for only 79 cents. It was amazing. You could live in cracker heaven. Sure, the generic crackers were a bit rough and would cut the roof of your mouth, but by golly they were a cheap way to consume a lot of carbs and maintain the weight you should be losing. Today, that same box of crackers requires a credit check and payment plan.

This strip isn’t about moody people, it’s the result of moody people.

If a customer offers to pray for you, the answer is always yes. It may seem a bit passive, but the goal is to get the encounter over as smoothly as possible. They may have to pray for you as you help the next customer, but this isn’t the place for religious debate. I’m all for the separation of church and everything else, but getting along is the goal. Call me controversial.

There was a time when we were told that we didn’t have to wear masks anymore, then suddenly we were told to wear them again. I saw a lot of bold, maskless people who were armed. I never made fun of these people because, frankly, they had a gun, but I never understood the “I must remain armed at all times because there is a potential enemy everywhere” mentality combined with the “I’m not wearing this thing that might protect me from the germs that are everywhere” mentality. All I can say, anecdotally, is that I never got sick when I had to wear the mask, and I get sick a lot. My immune system gave up years ago. I should actually start wearing a mask just to see if I stop getting every stray cold that wanders my way, but not wearing one keeps the bold, armed strangers from starting up conversations.

Early April Bloom! She had shorter hair then. At first, people assumed she talked like Janice from Friends. That mystified me. I had to steer them more strongly towards a Southern dialect. Inflation was the constant theme back then, but it quickly became the ongoing yearly theme that we see today.

These people exist. I would never have imagined a customer threatening an employee with her job because they “know a lot of people in this city.” It sounds way too cartoony. Yet they exist. I wonder if they know that they are a real life cartoon.

I know it means something to the customer who says they are never shopping in a store again. It’s an emotional moment. But for the staff it’s so devoid of emotion that you might as well be telling a mortician about a dead body.

On an unrelated note, I’ve been listening to popular hits from the 1920s, according to Apple Music, while writing this post. It’s pretty wild. I’m not sure I want to come back to the 2020s. I may have to put these characters back a hundred years. At least the prices were definitely lower in that post-pandemic era.

I worked at a place where bigwigs were flying in from bigwig headquarters for some bigwig reason and the story was that they might visit a few locations in the metropolitan area. Managers acted very professionally by excusing themselves so they could cry in the bathroom and then proceed to lose their minds. They developed a crack management team that visited each store to make sure everything was in perfect order, then a phone team was established so that they could warn store managers that the bigwig motorcade procession was headed their way. It was a solid week of panic, planning, and tidying up.

The bigwigs didn’t visit any stores. They went to a bar after their local bigwig event.

My favorite CEO interaction was with the director of a very large library system. He wasn’t a CEO until he renamed his position from “Director” to “CEO”, but by golly he was a CEO by the time I interacted with him. He spoke to me about the downtown library eventually becoming the hub of a “Silicon Valley” of information, the envy of the world. This guy thought a lot of the library. And himself.

For some reason he eventually didn’t like me. I’m not sure why. Sure, I made fun of him in cartoon form and in emails, but I think it was because (as the British would say) I’m a Ginger. That had to be it. Too much red in my hair.

One time I had to attend a late night event that was with the City Council and the CEO. There was also a television reporter and a small camera crew. Afterwards, the CEO went down the line of people and shook everyone’s hand. Without batting an eye, he passed right over me as he shook the hand of the person before me and then the person after me. I responded by bursting out laughing and making his smile falter a bit. I think we bonded that day.

I decided that most CEOs have some sort of untreated mental illness. Leadership draws the power hungry, and power hungry is a symptom. Maybe it’s narcissism, but it could also be something that’s responsive to treatment. The guy I described above was ultimately fired by the City Council. He recovered quickly, became the CEO of another major library system in the middle of the country, and then he was fired again. His career arc was over and I considered that a form of treatment.

We really need a crack telephone team to inform the customers when higher ups are coming to visit. We’d all get the best customer service we’ve ever had.

There’s always somebody who has a personal relationship with a higher up. It may or may not help their career path, but in this CEO’s case I’d be nervous around April Bloom.

Here we go. William, or perhaps Billy. You may think that I overdid his hair. I can assure you that I did not. William/Billy is based on a bigwig with the most outrageous hair I’ve ever seen on a man with grown children. I think he used whatever money that normally goes to car purchase for a mid-age crisis on his hair. It was amazing. Whatever we spoke about is forgotten to me. I was too stunned by the magnificence and perfection of whatever the hell he did to his hair.

A lot of wrong things are said by the person in charge and a lot of people who know better let them say it. Are the yes men thinking of the big picture or of themselves? I think we all know the answer to that.

Tabby is clearly making no effort to act differently. To expect otherwise is not to know Tabby.

See K in the background? That’s me today. I’ve had enough interactions with CEOs.

I’ve said it a million times, but if you’re really good at your job and they want to make you a manager of that job, don’t think that it’s the same job with additional responsibilities. Managing a job that you like is a good way to no longer like that job.

I stand by this. Some jobs just attract the best people. Call them weird if you wish.

I’ve seen a lot of people try to introduce new, great things, and most of them were just above horrible on the ol’ New, Great Things scale. I’m just a spectator on this one, but if you want a fun read Google “Who is the CEO who ruined JC Penny?” That guy, unfortunately, tried to reinvent the wheel.

There’s always a sigh of relief when the bigwigs are gone. It really is no different than being in school. We can relax, release the Berle, and focus on more pressing matters. Like toilets.

Thousands of hours? To learn how to create something like Porky Pig? Yep. Did they have Cheetos back in the days when Porky was created? They did not. Those amazing pioneers created classic cartoon characters without the benefit of modern junk food. They only had alcohol and cigarettes. Let that sink in so you can admire those amazing pioneers even more than you already do.

To be a cartoonist, you have to learn how to draw. That’s the hard part. It doesn’t take forever, it just feels like it. Maybe 10,000 drawings or so. That’s to learn the basics. Then you have to keep it up the rest of your life and continue to learn. It’s similar to the effort required to become a doctor but without monetary reward or access to medication samples.

Next, you need to break the rules. Not all of them. Leave the ones that keep you grounded to Earth, like design principals, but break what you need to in order to give those drawings your signature look. It’s your own special form of handwriting.

Remember learning how to write? I do. I remember the the first word that we covered when I entered the public school system. The word was “red”. It was the prefect word for a red state public school system, but I knew nothing of that then. I only knew that a magical door was opening up. “The fools!” I thought. “Once I have deciphered their communication system I shall take over the world! Mwah-ha-haaaa!” The magical words led to a magical acceptance letter from an out of state college.

I never took over the world, as you know. I didn’t want to. Frankly, it looked like a lot of work. Somebody would have to be crazy to want to take over everything, and modern political figures demonstrate this daily, but I did want to mock it. Being silly is much more fun.

I’ve selected silly strips for some silly fun so we can discuss and laugh at the silliness at it all. Come. Be silly with me.

This is still the goal. If it weren’t for free concerts and art shows around me I’d really never go anywhere. Sure, I can go look at new things in stores, but buying things I don’t have to have is some sort of luxury vacation item.

This one probably amused me more than the readers. At the time I made this, I was working for a Justin. He was a very nice guy, and very hard working, but he seemed to come from a school of Justins that must have also been a school for game show hosts. It’s a weird connection but I swear it exists. The same can-do spirit that permeates young leadership professionals is the same kind of energy you see in a game show host. It’s not a bad thing, it just is. I was either working for Justin or Ryan Seacrest. I really couldn’t tell the difference.

If you don’t know, there are many jobs where the reward for learning new things is to be asked to do them without an increase in pay. If Berle has any redeemable traits, which is unlikely, it’s that he can sense unrewarded work a mile away.

Tabby is relaxing and holding her cat, Mr. Thompson, here. As my friend Jim pointed out, this is Mr. Thompson 4.0. Mr. Thompson has appeared in three other comics throughout my life. He ties together a little comic universe that nobody has read. Be happy you have not read the previous comics he has been in. Trust me. As noted above, you have to create quite a bit of work before you wind up with anything good.

This is an eternal truth. Don’t say how slow it is. Inevitably, when it’s busy, someone will also say that a lot of customers makes the day go by quickly. It might even be a customer who says it. I’m not sure it’s a good thing. Life is precious, right? Why would I want it to go by quickly? Wishing for a lot of customers is wishing for a quick death.

Ah, now we’re into some supreme silliness. Berle got settlement money from the company at the conclusion of an early storyline. I would reveal what the storyline was, but then I’d be spoiling it for you and I’d have to go back and read it myself, as I don’t remember. Nevertheless, he spent his little windfall on a jet pack. The problem was that he couldn’t afford the fuel. It was so very Berle of him.

I worked at a Walmart in a very posh area of town for two weeks. I was laid off from a company and thought I’d get a little job to pay the bills while I looked for something else. Something else came along much more quickly than I thought, so it was with great embarrassment that I handed in my resignation at the Walmart deli so soon after starting. Well, the embarrassment wasn’t that great. It was little. Very little, now that I think about it. Maybe it was none. None whatsoever. Zero embarrassment. I just left. Poor Walmart. Now I’m embarrassed.

Anyway, they had the biggest unused breakroom I’d ever seen in my life. It could’ve been a Silicon Valley breakroom. Thinking about it, maybe I should’ve kept the deli job.

If a customer finds out that you’re a manager, no matter how low on the manager pecking order you may be, they might give you a million and three suggestions for changes. The fact that implementing said changes would require major decisions from higher ups a thousand miles away will be lost on them. Worldwide conglomerates aren’t known for individual, local tweaks to their cookie cutter system. Hopefully the company has an email address for such suggestions from customers. I’m sure there’s some AI bot thingy answering all emails now.

I may have posted this one before, but the theme today is silliness and this was one of my favorite silly comics. If there is something in the back that’s not on the shelf, there are plenty of workers who will be enthusiastic about finding it. Finding something that’s actually in the back is kind of like winning a little lottery. Everyone involved is enthused, and they should be. Whenever I’m with someone who gets an employee to check the back, I keep telling them that it’s never in the back. The door in this comic is really hitting me.

This was an early Tabby comic that I may have written when I accidentally bit the inside of my mouth. When you see a problem customer, the theme to Jaws may start to play in your head. I equated it with knowing that I’d bite the same spot in my mouth again. It was a very personal analogy that I inserted here. So silly.

I have known managers who eat with the staff that they supervise, but they’ve been atypical. I’ve known many more managers who never seem to eat at all. It’s very mysterious and silly.

Want to learn how to play the piano? Start tapping the keys. Want to paint? Start painting. Want to learn Calculus? Start, um, calculating? Ok, that one’s a bit of a stretch for me. My father was the math whiz but he failed to pass along those genes. Just know that you start doing something, presumably with numbers and funny looking symbols.

When you learn something, starting is step one. Are we all clear on that? You’ve got to start. Many of us try to start by reading about what we are wanting to learn. Then we can watch interviews with people who do whatever we’re learning on YouTube. Then we can watch people doing whatever it is we’re wanting to do. Then we can go to sleep comfortably with the knowledge that the “pre-start” activities are accomplished and that we can start the actual starting tomorrow, with tomorrow being some vaguely defined day in the future that is not the current day in which we now preside. There may be even more pre-start items to consume before starting, who can say, but starting is definitely on the horizon.

If and when you actually start something new, it’s possible that every part of you will be telling you to stop. There may be cake in the fridge that is getting lonely. Ignore that. Keep starting, keep going, no pain no gain, mistakes will be made, eat the damn cake, keep going, make a million more mistakes. Have you reached the million mistakes point? Very good. That’s a good start.

Once you’ve started you may wonder when it’s ok to stop. I don’t have any advice on that. Frankly, it took me so long to get started that the idea of stopping is terrifying. Additional mental health cakes may need to be purchased to cope with that. Just know that you can stop if you have something else to start, like a dive into this month’s comics.

I changed Tabby’s wording just for this post. In the original strip she says, “You found my cat food smoothie.” That had some readers assuming she was actually drinking it. I can see how they thought that. I didn’t think that, obviously, but I changed it to avoid confusion. Feedback can be a writer’s best friend.

People are still commenting on this one on various Meta-owned social media platforms. There are some pretty insightful comments, tinged with some bitterness, but a few are very pro-business and using the comments section to promote their stringent views. Or they were. I deleted some of the nutters.

This was a personal favorite, because it’s me as a college freshman with a credit card that has an obscenely high limit. Why they chose to give an unemployed eighteen year old access to spend whatever he wanted at the mall bookstore is beyond me (yes, I was that kind of crazy partier in my day). I’m sure it was for solid business principals. I not only learned a valuable lesson, I now have some really cool books that are no longer in print. Let’s just say that I no longer do business with that credit card company and move on.

I liked this one because of the sign. Now that I work at home, it really is too fattening. I have to watch it. If I eat a candy bar I have to leap onto the treadmill. Unfortunately I can afford a candy bar but a treadmill is out of my price range.

This one didn’t work. Isn’t that great of me? Posting the ones that didn’t work? No? Well, it’s frustrating. As a clerk, if you have someone who is nice but won’t stop talking, it’s very challenging to scoot them away as a crowd builds up behind them. The trick is to waive the next person forward as you’re listening to the talker. That usually provides a nice conclusion to the conversation, but not always. You have to work at three times your usual speed to make up for such a customer.

The night before your day off is always the real day off, at least for me. I did know a guy who would be at the tennis court at seven in the morning on his days off and I called him Mr. Perfect. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to mind that insult.

Readers took this opportunity to throw insults at Berle, as expected, but all of this was to lead up to Todd covered in paint. Using two strips to satisfy an urge to see a paint-covered Todd may have been a bit of overkill.

At my local big box store they have a paint department that is pretty nice, with a big table, paint mixer, and checkout area. It’s also completely spattered in paint. I think Jackson Pollock is the manager and Todd is the sole clerk.

The last CEO hasn’t been seen in quite awhile. She was based on an actual person who left the company to be some sort of motivational speaker. I have to wonder what kind of motivation she’s trying to instill because sending positive vibes wasn’t her forte.

There is such theater when a higher up visits that it was only natural to turn it into actual theater.

It made sense when I was a kid. The Oscars were a big deal. Celebrities weren’t seen outside of movies or whatever talk show they were on to promote a movie. Seeing them supposedly being themselves was an event in and of itself. Why, they might even use their acceptance speech as an opportunity to speak out about a political issue of great importance. How shocking.

That was then. Now they’re in our face every day telling us what to eat and who to vote for, and we, as informationally overfed receptors of their product, are very thankful that YouTube exists so we can simply speed through a highlight real. We might watch that tomorrow. Or five years from tomorrow when we’re feeling nostalgic.

Yes, cartoonists get awards, and yes, it’s wonderful to be recognized by your peers, but they don’t televise the occasion. You know who should? Scientists. Scientists are always having to be peer reviewed anyway, why not cast a ballot at the same time? “And the award for discovering DNA goes to….James Watson and Francis Crick!” There wouldn’t be much suspense on who the winners are, but I think it’d play big on PBS.

Vickie is not wrong, here. When confronted with a crowd of people, try breaking them up into individuals so that you will like them. The best way to do this is to stand behind a service counter.

We all know there are no stupid questions. In theory. In practice we know that there are indeed stupid questions.

I’m always fascinated by customers who give detailed instructions on how to improve the store to a cashier. Unless the cashier is the owner or the owner’s daughter, it’s really not going very far. In fact, even if the cashier is the owner’s daughter it may not go very far. One reader commented that the usual expectation is that the cashier will tell her manager, who will tell her manager, until, I can only assume, the feedback is presented with helpful charts and graphs to a board of directors.

In reality, the cashier tells her manager who responds back to the cashier that she just needs to tell the customer thank you and move on. It’s not a game of advancing helpful information, it’s a game of ping-pong.

I’ve known managers who like to pretend that they are customers. I think their secret, lifelong ambition is to be a spy and this is as close as they’ll get.

The signs upset a few people with emotional support animals. They were told by Walmart that they cannot place their dog in the cart, which is interesting because this was one of the few signs that was actually inspired by a real sign. In Walmart, of all places. Go figure.

Another person talked about a Yorkie who licked the hand of its owner when her blood sugar level was low. I was interested in this because one of the real life inspirations for Tabby is a Type 1 diabetic who has a little monitor somewhere on her person. So I asked her about it. Her response, not verbatim, was that the dog is a real thing but it doesn’t need to be in the cart.

I love dogs, I just don’t want their butt where I set my bananas. My question was what do these people do when they’re not in a store with a handy cart? Do they have a little doggie carrier or something? Love finds a way, right? There were no immediate answers from the complainers.

My little signs don’t usually inspire a wider discussion of what constitutes a service animals, health code laws, and potential roundworm contamination, but that’s the power of the comic strip.

My friend Jim pointed out that Star Trek had no new shows in production and thought Tabby must be devastated. I raced to address that.

The best five year present I saw was a wood-burning pen. The guy who got it could have started decorating the walls, but he was more professional than that.

There was a real life counterpart to this. We really couldn’t place which jerk she was. It was a jerk-heavy time period. All was forgiven until the anticipated next incident.

This is why I haven’t been sleeping well, even when I’m allowed.

Always the best gift.

I conclude with the Academy. It looks like the Best Picture is one I actually saw in the theater. That never happens. I should get an award for that.

You know who gets offered all of the overtime hours? Part-time workers. Part-time workers are typically hired to work full time hours part of the week. It’s seldom a happy four hours a day, as the description of “part-time” would have you believe. No, a typical business, especially in retail, can stretch those part-time hours out to look like a grueling full-time schedule.

Part-time work is often described as having “flexible hours to meet your needs”. When they say meeting your needs, of course, they mean their needs. You’ll need to be flexible when you bend over backwards to accommodate six hour shifts at weird times off the day. Then you’ll be asked if you want to work longer. Or you’ll be asked to drive to another location, hopefully within the same country, to help out at another store.

Yes, you’re an eager beaver part-timer who is hungry for full-time work! Would seventy-two hours a week be enough? We promise, once we aren’t busy anymore, we’ll cut you down without notice to twenty hours a week. Hope you weren’t planning on a consistent paycheck.

This always happens when I’m sick. I have fever dreams about part-time work.

They don’t give the average employee the power to price match because they are afraid cashiers will go crazy and just constantly lower prices. It would ignite some sort of revolution, cause all of the stores to fail, and make the world economy collapse. Well, at least that’s what they act like what would happen.

This one wasn’t a favorite but I liked the little signs. The little signs can occasionally save a mediocre strip.

One thing’s for sure, if employees are going to make more money then somebody’s going to have less of it. A store is going to make sure it isn’t them. Prices started going up the second store employees started making several dollars more an hour. There was a brief window when employees could do things like pay rent and still have some money left over to save or spend on other things. Then rent went up several hundred dollars and now everyone is broke again.

I don’t know why, but I was looking at a bunch of TV displays and imagined Berle on every screen. I was probably tired. This was one purely to amuse my tired brain.

This is an update of an old theme about Tabby getting the last customer to leave the store. If you want someone to leave, silently staring at them usually does the trick.

This upset some people. Well, it upset the people that work from home. I currently work from home, so it was really about myself, but I should’ve considered the feelings of other people who work from home. Or should I have done that? It winds up that if you overly consider feelings, you won’t have any comic. I’m all for empathy, but the pie has to hit somebody’s face.

Here we are again with the part-time work topic. This comic was on my mind because it keeps getting shared and has slowly become quite popular. I was happy about this for my character K. K hasn’t been appearing in much and she deserved a win.

I do think the ten minute break is a worthless insult, but this was inspired from my time at a university library. There was so much time devoted to sitting around and talking about things that it’s almost impossible to parody. Entire work days could be written off as group discussions.

I’ve had part-time jobs where I was consistently called in on every scheduled day off. It always made me wonder why they bothered hiring a part-time worker in the first place. It was usually because they were wanting to hire a couple of more people but hadn’t filled the positions yet. Then they would fill those positions, things would look perfect for about a day, and then a couple of people would quit. Really, if you want to work an obscene amount of hours, you can ironically find it in part-time work.

I work in such a state. I worked through my lunch break, but it never meant that I could go home earlier. I just wound up with overtime for the week, which would sometimes confuse and anger management. I would like to publicly apologize to management for the inconvenience. I would like to, but I won’t. I needed the money.

I need a break from the news.

The news is something I try to read in small doses. Some days I just peek, skim quickly, and go back to perfecting my milkshake recipe, or whatever serious task happens to be at hand. Other days I’m minding my own business, testing the stability of the top of my refrigerator as a storage shelf, or whatever, and the news barges in my front door, grabs me by the shoulders, and forces me to learn new and terrible things that I would rather dedicate my ignorance to.

I read the news instead of watching it. Reading allows me to go faster than people talk and cherry pick the facts, if there happens to be any. Written news is now hilarious because there are many “news articles” that require quotes because it’s not really news and it’s only an article in the sense that there are words that make up sentences that form paragraphs.

I’ll be reading the news and see something like “Stephen King Reveals His Most Hated Movie On Netflix”. I click on it and the article begins “Stephen King, born September 21, 1947, has been the Master of Horror since the 1974 publication of Carrie. The first two paragraphs of Carrie are as follows:” The super-fluff piece goes on forever to reveal, after you’ve scrolled down past five or six dozen ads, that Stephen King posted “Goodfellas is on Netflix. Never liked that one.” on whatever social media platform was open on his iPad. That’s enough to create entire paragraphs to form content for whichever site is getting the ad revenue. (Please note that this paragraph was for demonstration purposes only. The author has no idea what Stephen King thinks about Goodfellas, which is in fact an awesome movie.)

I’m not like that. God, I hope I’m not like that. I have actual content to share. You can read comics and be protected from any imposing and constant news, be it super-fluff pieces or actual facts. Let’s get going with that.

Stephen Beals has been the Master Of The Retail Comic since the 2020 publication of an Adult Children strip that caused “quite a chuckle” on GoComics. Now that the comic focuses on retail workers, the name Adult Children doesn’t quite work, but he is ignoring that for now. The first few weeks of his February 2026 comics are as follows:

I’ve been around long enough to discover that some very horrible customers have very horrible lives, so I reserve my gloating until I learn more. Once I establish that they are very horrible customers with decent lives I gloat at any misfortune they may have.

If you are in a superstore that has an automotive department, it’s like stepping into a different world when you enter it. The whole vibe changes. I think it’s the smell of new tires. That new tire smell tells you that your surroundings immediately became boring.

It’s true. Coworkers can rub off on you. This is only a good thing if you like them.

District Managers love Managers who work extra hours for no additional pay, even if there’s no real reason for them to still be there. It’s an easy way to judge a manager, regardless of its accuracy. These easy measuring methods are often easy for a reason.

I have yet to encounter a self checkout machine that I think is as good as a human cashier, but by god they’re trying.

Online databases know more about me than I do, especially because a lot of it isn’t accurate.

I never knew the purpose of this question, but then I had it explained to me by a group of people whose sole job was to train new managers. After it was clearly explained to me several times I can confidently say it’s for a stupid purpose.

I’ve worked at several places where we had to leave as a group but nothing ever happened, not even at the “scary” downtown library. I do appreciate safety, but I’ve never been able to appreciate the slowest employee while off the clock.

I’ve heard all of these lines at closing time. My favorite was “Well, I guess you don’t like to make money!” Maybe they think we get a commission. Who knows. The guy who yelled “This is important!” was in a completely darkened library with cathedral ceilings. His voice was echoing in the dark as a security guard was escorting him out. I guess his need for something important didn’t occur before 9:00 p.m.

This went viral, much to my delight. Early birds will forever mystify me. Why not, I don’t know, enjoy a comfy bed for a few more minutes?

I deeply appreciate everyone who reads this, but I’m giving an extra shoutout to paying subscribers today. Thanks to you I was able to survive winter without scrambling to figure out how to afford the high heating bills. Yes, your contribution goes to actual bills. We had an unusually cold few months. Apparently winter occurred on the moon this year, but paying the bill is still cheaper than moving somewhere that requires minimal alteration of the temperature. Hawaii will have to wait.

But I do like one-on-one, back and forth interaction with a customer. This can be for a design project or selling toilet seats. It doesn’t matter. It’s still more fun than sitting alone at a computer all day proofreading books, which I’ve also done. It’s not for me. Working all day at a computer involves a lot of not talking. I don’t like not talking. I’d rather not not talk.

Cashiers are like little independent contractors. They’re out there with the rules hanging over them and a manager just out of visual range. They are upholding a written set of procedures that they have mostly memorized and when they interact with customers there is a lot of ad-libbing going on. Ninety percent of what they say may be true, and that’s good enough to get through the day. A cashier has to talk a lot and pretend to be attentive.

A cashier’s job is also easy and then suddenly not. The right customer can create a challenge that requires information from three different manuals and several obscure updates. After it’s all done they may feel like they’ve successfully landed a damaged aircraft. It’s as mentally and physically exhausting.

The end of the day makes a cashier finally appreciate not talking.

I’ve had to stand by a lot of machines with clearly written, step-by-step instructions and read those instructions to a customer. Daily. I don’t know why that is. It takes me forever to operate new things like an expert, so I sympathize, but it can be a little weird in certain situations. There’s only one way to interpret “Step One: Push The Red Button”.

I did enjoy instructing people on using the first self checkout machine at the library. It always had trouble scanning barcodes. I told one customer to make little airplane noises while he circled the book downward like a single engine aircraft that just lost power. He did and it worked. He scanned all of his books that way. Now that’s what you call a team player.

There are a lot of grumpy-looking people who will surprise you with their ability to laugh at themselves. A lot of their grumpiness is directed inward.

The person who can’t decide when it’s close to closing needs to discover the concept of time. I’m not suggesting that they master the Theory of Relativity, but at least learn to empathize with people who want to go home. Maybe the people who can’t decide are actually moving close to the speed of light and what seems like forever to me is only a few seconds to them, but I don’t think I’ve ever had Clark Kent as a customer.

If a happy customer thinks you remember them, just roll with it. The point is, they’re happy. Use your ad-libbing skills to try and keep up for the duration of their visit. They really need to emphasize your acting ability during training.

Oooh, early April Bloom. She had a more aggressive hairstyle at first.

Customers who are angry for reasons that are their own can go one of two ways. They can laugh at themselves or double down on their complaint. The current trend has been on doubling down. It would be funny if it weren’t a bit sad.

This was a long one that I had forgotten about. I like the twist here and the fact that he still wants to speak to a manager while being escorted out in handcuffs. Where did I come up with the name Frank Pocker? A quick search tells me that it’s uncommon, but German. My apologies to any Pockers out there.

I’ve seen customers escorted out by police but no reward money was collected. Rats.

I’ve done variations on this, but there are customers out there who make a point of complimenting good service. Thank you, customers who compliment good service.

People who like their experience are never motivated to leave reviews as much as people who are angry about something, which is why I take reviews with a grain of salt. My favorite review is always on Amazon for a book. A customer will give a new book a one star review and their reason has nothing to do with the contents of it. They’ll complain about the packaging or late shipping. Doesn’t exactly give me any insight into the book.

I put this one in here just because I liked the idea of looking at a cat beneath the counter. If we were all looking at cats instead of phones, would the people who like to complain about us looking at our phones all of the time switch their complaint to cats? This needs to be studied.

It’s a likely scenario, Carl.

If a store doesn’t open on time, expect to read all about it in Google Reviews. It probably won’t affect your visit.

Well, hey, I got to be a kid again! I was picking out old strips for this post and they brought back memories, memories that seemed ancient and arcane. A different time and, I realize, a different me. It was even a different world. It was five years ago. Back in the mysterious depths of a pandemic and a crazy news cycle.

We no longer have the pandemic, but the crazy news cycle is still here and I want to thank the craziness for making a couple of months seem like forever. Well, I exaggerate. A bit. Four years is forever.

These strips were plucked from a time period that I can only relate to in memory, thank god. I miss the people I worked with, but not the job. The job is still there. Alas, all of the people are not. We all moved on to greener pastures and I wonder if any of them are experiencing a “different pasture, same green” sort of vibe these days. I hope they aren’t. I hope that five years seems like twenty to them as well.

Here’s our hero, Penny, reenacting my life. At the time of this strip, Penny is new to the main character label. She is preforming better than expected.

I have often refused to give the best hours of my day to whatever job I had. I wanted my full energy reserved for my time away from work. I usually had to point to other cultures in different countries when explaining my attitude to people and I was annoying in that way. Sorry, people.

My job had a way of getting most of my energy anyway, but at least I tried.

At this point in the strip, Berle was constantly applying, and temporarily working, other jobs. This one makes me laugh in an evil sort of way. I have no idea what I was going through at the time, but the strip definitely gives me clues.

Oooh, I remember this guy. I think I’ve had more than one person do the “I’m out” arm-sweeping statement/gesture. The hardest part when dealing with a customer who does this is to not burst out laughing. Obviously, I wouldn’t laugh if it was something serious, but it’s always over something somewhat benign. In fact, “somewhat benign” describes so many things that people are angry about.

I’ve seen people sing who were not granted headphones. The manager is playing the long game and realizes that the singer will ultimately annoy the staff, which will cause them to rise as one and do the manager’s job for him. It’s not pretty.

I had a store manager who was notoriously not there. I found out he was notorious from other store managers. Apparently his ability not to be there had made him famous. He would come in around nine and be out the door as early as one in the afternoon. After seventeen years of working for a company that allowed him to do this, he decided he needed to work for a place that appreciated him more and he got a job elsewhere. I don’t know where he went, but I know that somewhere there is a man not doing his job and somehow getting away with it.

Oh, this was me. I volunteered to work at another store because I applied to be an Assistant Manager there. I didn’t get the job, but they continued to want me to work there. I drove 45 minutes just to get to the place and was often the only one in charge. I basically got the job without getting the job. A year later, I was an actual manager when I found out that the manager who didn’t hire me was fired.

Sometimes these stories have a happy ending.

And I remember this, too. My recollection is that he was thinking of some pricing scheme that had ended the year before. My favorite bad customers are the ones who think they know your job better than you.

Ok, so the manager who left early was replaced by a real manager. The previous manager had a philosophy that we were to serve a customer even if it was one second before closing time. The nature of the business was such that doing that could cause us to stay up to thirty minutes over. The manager was never there to deal with such a thing, but that was his philosophy.

The new guy was very big on “We’re closed, get out”. He was awesome. He still is awesome, now that I think about it. He moved up the ladder.

These stories continue to have a happy ending.

Penny’s eventual promotion left the problem of Berle technically working for her. I’ve continued to fudge around that issue. I think I just wanted to write “Holy wallopin’ Walmarts!”

Yes, this was me. I was very happy to finally tell a mean customer to go away. Happy endings all around.

Still, I did face nature like the fool that I am. I walked to the gas station, which is a little ironic considering that the main purpose of a gas station is to provide what is needed for driving, but I walked. I got my Slurpee, or whatever, and walked back. I’ve been recovering ever since. You see, it snowed up to my knees about a week ago and it hasn’t melted. I know it snowed up to my knees because the public sidewalks are not cleared here. Apparently I’m the only tax paying pedestrian in my area and a hop to the gas station is literal hopping. I think I left my feet about a block away, but I’ll go back and get them in the spring.

The gas station was amazingly clean considering that customers were dragging in snow every five seconds. The clerks there were doing an amazing job. They may have been a tad grumpy, but they are forgiven. The station is open 24 hours here and the fun never stops.

There’s either everybody or nobody at the gas station. When there’s everybody, the job is to help the person in front of you and occasionally race from behind the counter for a typical customer emergency, like someone just dropped five large fountain drinks and flooded half of the store. When there’s nobody, the clerk has to clean, maintain, and stock the store. Then they have to be worried about thieves and lunatics. If you see them being extra nice and cheerful to the local police, there’s a good reason for that. I don’t know what type of person has a successful career at a gas station, I just know that they’re better than me.

You know who could help a gas station? Tabnam.

This gag was in my head for well over a year. I’m glad I remembered it. Some readers finally noticed that Tabby’s hair resembles a cat. She does have a nice silhouette. This really should be the usual way to signal for help at a store. Everyone would know that help is needed and it could be a symbol of hope.

There really are superheroes that work in stores. They may not have cool costumes, but the staff knows who they are. They especially know when it’s the superhero’s day off, because that’s when the big emergencies happen.

I looked at a random 1950s Batman comic to get Tabby’s pose right. I read a lot of superhero comics growing up, but I was never interested in actually drawing them. I was always interested in funny comics. There can be a lot of humor in superhero comics, but it’s never about the colorful spandex and that’s the funniest part.

This went on longer than I originally intended, but I couldn’t resist giving Tabby a costume. I don’t think that a colorful costume would deter a truly violent criminal, but I do think it would be effective against a customer.

Several readers thought the boss should’ve been sent to HR for saying Tabby looked cute in her costume. As sensitive as I am about sexual harassment, I didn’t think that would make the cut, at least in my area. I hear the word cute all of the time regarding clothing, but I’m not in HR. If Tabby doesn’t like it I’ll back her one hundred percent when she makes that complaint, not that she needs it. The boss will be toast.

I missed Rusty, so I checked in on him and his one liners.

And I brought back Susie from Ogle Mobile. The people making sales pitches to unsuspecting customers are still lurking about and they still drive me crazy. It’s difficult to ever put a sympathetic spin on Susie.

Remaining indifferent has always been my Achilles heel. Now, in googling Achilles to make sure I spelled it correctly, I learned that the autocomplete adds the word tendon before it suggests heel. Sadly, the body part has become more popular than the Greek myth. Or is it sad? Either way, that’s your tidbit of trivia for today.

As popular as Tabnam was, this comic was even more popular. Apparently a lot of people grew up while being forced to eat liver and they had strong opinions on the matter. Some people liked liver, but the anti-liver crowd was significantly larger. I had no idea this was a hot button issue.

I was not forced to eat liver as a child, so when I had liver I really liked it. I thought it was great. I even started eating liverwurst. The older I got, I started thinking more about the liver and what it does for the body and my desire to eat it significantly dropped.

I brought back this crazy customer, but I don’t think I made her crazy enough in this strip. In real life this person has been around forever and I think she’s enjoying her life, but man is she off her rocker at times.

Did you see what I did in the first sentence above? I used the phrase “unplanned emergencies”. I’m going to keep it there as an example of ridiculousness. I’m not the first to use this phrase and I won’t be the last, but I will always make fun whoever says it even if it’s me. “You had an unplanned emergency? That’s your problem, right there. With a little planning, emergencies aren’t an inconvenience at all!” Whew, I feel better now.

Drawing a comic during an emergency really reminds me that I’m a weirdo. I’ve drawn comics in hospital rooms, cars, and other unexotic locations. This is all thanks to modern equipment that allows me to draw on a portable screen. Before that I was dipping a brush into a bottle of ink in a hospital room. I kind of miss that version of weirdness. It made me feel like Monet spontaneously painting a stack of hay. Now I’m just another goober with an iPad.

Deadlines never care about dignity.

The answer to this, mentioned by many readers who don’t like to read the comments of the others before them, is a pizza cutter. But I loved the engagement this strip produced, despite the fact that fifty percent of it was “pizza cutter”. It did really well and I had fun writing it. I just wish I had remembered it correctly.

This comic was inspired by an actual conversation. I complained about something sharp and pointy in my shoe. The person I was talking to said that you don’t have to use sharp and pointy together. I only needed to say pointy. Pointy is sharp. I messed up her observation for the strip, but since people liked it I’m ok with it.

The fact that I was in pain from something digging into my foot while debating my use of adjectives did not make it into the strip.

I love water bottles and have one with me at all times. Unfortunately, water bottles are now bigger than the average baby. Mine also tend to fall over more frequently than babies because I have the coordination of an inexperienced drunk. I really need a cart like Tabby’s.

I think I made pretty good comics in January because I made an concerted effort to watch every episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show. “What?” I hear you asking. Yes, the Dick Van Dyke Show. Well, Dick Van Dyke turned one hundred years old and it made me want to watch it. It’s always been named as one of the best shows in the history of television and one of the few that never jumped the shark. Carl Reiner wrote most of the episodes that first season by himself, which is jaw dropping, and the writing was perfect.

Anyway, I watched them all as I worked. Go big or go home, right? I think it made me write better. I need something else of equal value to watch so I don’t lose that edge.

I’m jealous of people who can save money better than me, which is everybody.

I go back to the very first time Tabby met Berle with this strip. She kissed him. Tabby was new and I needed something big to establish her character. That wasn’t it. But it was big and I liked writing this callback.

I just wanted to draw Tabby’s cat-themed house again, but this is also me. Fitting in the amount of sleep I need to get is unusual. The problem is always that I need to get up before I’m done sleeping. If there’s an obvious flaw in my logic, it hasn’t resolved the problem.

Talk about a callback. Long before this comic’s focus was on retail, Penny’s character worked at the store bakery. Her coworker was Kyle. I should do something with Kyle. He doesn’t want to come back to the store, which is the correct mindset for an employee.

I like the signs here. One of the rewarding things about helping a line of people is informing someone that they cut in front of the person you were getting ready to help. That’s just one of the rewarding things. I’ll let you know if I think of another.

I’ve been someone who called in sick a lot, and I’m here to report that if I truly do not like my job that I can make myself a magnet for viruses and germs. It’s one of my natural talents. In fact, getting sick a lot is a good sign that I need to work elsewhere.

I drew this lady’s face and immediately decided that she’s applying for a job. I loved it. Just look at her. You’ve been helped by her. We’ve all been helped by her.

Speaking of ice, an artist I admire thanked me for helping her be distracted, temporarily, from the horrible daily news. Real life has stifled her creativity, which is the usual thing that happens to artists. It’s hard to paint a sunset in chaos.

I thanked her sincerely, but the truth is that I’ve never been able to function in chaos either. However, I didn’t used to have the greatest inspirational tool an artist can have: the deadline. No, that’s wasn’t it. Not really. Maybe it is. No! What I meant to say is that I didn’t used to have a cast of characters who live outside of my timeline. It’s very easy to want to escape this world and see what Penny, April Bloom, Berle, Tabby, or many of the others are up to.

With the thought of happy distractions, I grabbed a handful of comics featuring Tabby from her first year. Well, it was at the end of her first year when she finally wasn’t wearing a mask. Nobody really had a good look at Tabby’s face when she was first introduced because it was during the pandemic. Remember the pandemic? That was the last time we needed to be distracted.

Out of chaos comes Tabby.

This comic make me happy. For whatever reason I reached into Monty Python territory here. Many store apps are unnecessarily confusing, which is as politely as I can phrase it. Actually, apps do belong in a Monty Python sketch. It’s too bad apps were after their time.

This was an immediate favorite because many customers say this. “You must’ve found out that I like it and stopped ordering it!” I even say it. It’s some sort of requirement to say it.

I like the odd bottle stuck in the middle of the yellow things for sale. Customers pick things up, change their minds, and place them back wherever they happen to be standing, even if they’re in the bathroom. So it has always been, so shall it always be.

This was a little gem that I forgot about. Many of my comics are based on real life experiences, so you may be asking if this was one of them. No. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. You can tell which of my comics are based on real life because inevitably someone comments “this would never happen”. It never fails to amuse me.

If you’ve never worked for a company that is obsessed with customer reviews, you have escaped a hell that you don’t want to know about.

Another one that pleased me, but now I remember that a reader told me to never draw Tabby from the front again. I’ve ignored that advice.

Some people get annoyed by “Have a nice day”, and I get it. But what if I sincerely want you to have a nice day? Maybe I care about the human condition. Should I say nothing? That’s kind of creepy. Should I just shout “Next”? That’s uncaring. What about “Goodbye”? This isn’t a phone call.

I tell you to have a nice day. Now deal with it and leave.

Penny dressed up when she first became an Assistant Manager. I used to make fun of new managers about this. People dress up and get a new hair style with a promotion. Then you can have fun watching them as time goes by. They slowly revert to their old selves.

This has been posted a lot. It was the first Tabby strip to go viral. I still love it. Yes, I got the “this would never happen” comments. Yes, it happened. The phrase “crazy lady” was actually used and I thought it was a bit harsh. The customer was simply…eccentric. She wore this big hat with a fluffy ball on top that was too cartoony to put in the comic. It would’ve distracted from the joke.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the fact that some people are so weird that I have to tone them down. Many real people just aren’t believable as cartoons.

This was an actual conversation between one of the main inspirations for Tabby and an HR rep. I think she got written up for it. She’s been promoted twice since then, so we can safely say that she escaped unscathed.

This was my first comic on the “I’ll never shop here again” trope and it was always my real life reaction. News that you’ll never shop again at a successful worldwide conglomerate isn’t something I can emotionally attach myself to. Try me again if I’m working for an independent bookstore.

Do you ever look back with fondness at things you used to do without any prompting? You’re going down memory lane like a parent, only you are your own kid, and you didn’t raise yourself to the best of your ability. For shame.

I used to read more. I’d read one or two books a week. I was also organized. God, I was organized. I knew exactly where everything was. I even exercised. I had a morning workout routine. I ate healthy foods and had special evenings when I rewarded myself with a little dessert. Where did that guy go? He’s still the one typing this, right? He’s in there somewhere, yes?

Hang on. I’m eating pizza as I type this. Tomato sauce is on the keyboarsjfkad

My point is that I can do better. Years ago I did things that I now envy, but if I put my mind to it, I can do them again. The concerning part is that before I was doing those things without prompting. When I read a lot it was because I wanted to read. When I exercised it was because I enjoyed exercising. I was organized because I liked to spend a lot of time cleaning and putting things away. What’s stopping me now?

Comics, of course. Making a comic each and every day is quite a workload, and very intimidating. Before I was syndicated by GoComics, I would put off the hours required for writing and drawing with all kinds of crazy things that I thought were equally good for me, like…like…oh my.

To avoid working on comics I would start cleaning, exercising, or reading a book for hours. Now I remember. I made a resolution to stop procrastinating with those things. Well, aren’t I something special? I almost made a resolution that was vanquished by a previous resolution. I’m glad I figured that out because I really want to finish this pizza.

Dedicated to the Goodwill store near me. Their closing announcement usually makes me jump like a basketball star. One thing’s for sure, they really want you to bring your final selections to the counter for a fast and courteous checkout.

Some people said they never heard of the phrase “helpful olive in the pickle jar”. Others, to my amazement, said they googled it. They could’ve saved time by asking me, since I made it up. Sounds like a weird, old saying, though, doesn’t it? Actually, Google’s AI Overview tries to come up with an explanation, which is more of an explanation on how goofy their AI Overview can be.

I’ve made the distinction between “good weird” and “bad weird” for years. I try my best to be “good weird”.

I got to hear from several people whose companies pay for their shoes and I handed out several congratulations. I only had that for the two days I was technically employed as a package handler for FedEx. I got to keep the shoes and wore them during my time as a graphic artist for Gannett newspapers. They made two of my toes on my left foot swell up so badly I had to go to the doctor. Considering that I was only sitting down all day as a graphic artist, I’m glad I never wore them as a package handler.

This reminds me that I still have an exchange to make.

I keep running into check writers. There’s still a major industry that demands the use of checks and that’s the people who commit fraud for a living. Yes, check fraud is still alive and very healthy. Before you dismiss checks as something you’ll never use again, just think of the unfortunate thieves that will be out of a job. Workers on the new prison just outside of town are depending on you, too.

Walking through a line of not-so-happy people to become the one who is helping them is not a very enjoyable walk, but it helps if you try whistling a fun tune as you go.

He totally hid the scanners.

I knew managers who made this mistake. They had four times the inventory that they were supposed to have because they didn’t properly count. I inherited a store that had enough posterboards to hand out to every classroom in the state. They were only supposed to have twenty-eight. Since they didn’t technically exist, I did not technically give them away.

Tabby is the one character who I imagine giving a lot to charity if she were to win the lottery. I envision an animal shelter in a perfect replica of the Sphinx. A Sphinx with Tabby’s likeness as a head would be even better.

I kind of feel sorry for stores this time of year. They are pumped with adrenaline from the Christmas season. Swelling with confidence, they put their all into the next holiday, which is poor Valentine’s Day. Racks and racks of February 15th’s clearance aisles are now for sale at laughable prices. Couples from all walks of life will examine the items and look at each other with a knowing expression that says, “Who buys this stuff?”

The answer is simple. Somebody. Somebody is buying all of the Valentine’s Day stuff or they wouldn’t keep making it. Somebody has never run in my social circles because I’ve asked everybody and nobody buys it. But Somebody is out there, overly excited straight out of December, and clutching Valentine’s Day snow globes, puffy pink socks, and a toaster that will blacken a heart into your bread.

Good luck, Somebody. Make us proud.

I’m trying to think of the next holiday that I’m looking forward to and it’s an empty void. Groundhog Day would be fun if I knew any groundhogs, and then we have President’s Day here in America. I don’t know any of them either, which is nice, but isn’t every day President’s Day here? Maybe we could make President’s Day the day when we don’t have to think about a president.

No, the next holiday I’m looking forward to is in May. Free Comic Book Day. That’s the one to get excited about. It’s not a national holiday, but it should be.

Yes, I’m a nerd. Shocking.

K is me, here. When I get too exhausted I lose all verbal capacity. Most people enjoy the break from the sound of my voice, but it’s a good indicator that I’m past my expiration date.

There are a lot of jokes out there about customers asking an employee to “check in the back”, because the usual answer is “if it’s not on the shelf, then we don’t have it.” Of course, that answer isn’t written in stone, but when there is a lot of stuff in the back it can be almost impossible to check it. Anyone waiting on a clerk to check a thousand boxes is impatient. That one is written in stone.

I’ve had offers of free, yet menu restricted, lunches many times. It’s always sprung on me at the last minute and my first thought is usually of my poor peanut butter sandwich that will go uneaten. Have you ever tried to take home a peanut butter sandwich and bring it back the next day for lunch? It makes you feel pathetic, but not as pathetic as your sandwich winds up tasting.

I was in Walmart when I heard an announcement for the associates who work there. Walmart loves to give instructions to team members that we can all hear. Whoever was giving this announcement concluded it with “team work makes the dream work.” I’m sad to report that I did not see eyes light up with motivation.

This begins Shelby’s latest attempt to escape. Customers do like to talk to team members about their career options in real life.

I don’t wish to make anyone faint with the revelation that I used to be a smoker at one point in my life, but let me just say that when you work in hell that smoking outside of the building takes you away from it all and gives you the revelation that you are stupid. Both for smoking and working where you work.

I made the lady here burn through her entire cigarette, but only one reader seemed to notice. That lady exists, by the way.

There is no dignity in smoking, unless you were a cast member in Mad Men.

I don’t really drink, but the idea of drinking around my coworkers seems like a disaster. I can barely contain my internal monologue as it is.

I wrote this when the lottery was up to an Evil Billionaire level. It got a lot more attention than I imagined because evidently everyone bought a lottery ticket. Somebody won and became an evil billionaire, but I don’t think it was one of my readers.

One happy accident has been my readers. Having my work be read is better than money, please tell no one, and readership increased substantially over the past year. I’ve been making comics for quite awhile, with each reader carefully obtained like a precious stone, when things suddenly clicked a few years ago. There was no planning involved, I just worked like an monkey with an infinite amount of time until people liked what I was typing. I’ve learned that being an overnight success takes at least a decade.

It should be noted that the readers who are not better than money have been blocked.

I’ve never done this, but I’m going to select one comic from each month last year as a representation of that month. Each comic stuck out for one reason or another. I hope. Maybe I should’ve planned this better, but we’re on a happy accident theme and I’m sticking to it.

January: This one was a great success and brought in a lot of new readers who were blocked. Ha! Just kidding. Only the most hateful were blocked. What I like most about this is that it’s the POV of the cashier. A cashier knows who is standing way too close and constantly nudging forward. It’s disconcerting and…what’s the word…annoying. Very annoying. I learned that drawing your pet peeve does not get rid of said peeve.

February: There was quite a bit to choose from in February. Surprising. I have to go with Berle hiding out of sight during Todd’s date and slapping him whenever he said something stupid. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like that.

March: This was the middle of my “Tabby the Cheerleader” storyline, and it’s the silliest one. I love the idea of a “Rah” magically changing customer attitudes.

April: I just liked drawing a shopping cart on fire. That’s a good reason to be a favorite, right? Anytime you see someone shopping with a cute dog in their shopping cart, which is a health code violation in most places, we should be able to set the cart on fire. I love dogs but I don’t want my food touching whatever dogs have on their fur. I’m pretty sure what some of the stuff on their fur is and it’s worse than most preservatives.

May: This one was a surprise hit, but it’s my favorite because I got to show how some people actually spend more time complaining about waiting than the actual time they were waiting. If you have to wait thirty minutes, you might spend the rest of the day complaining about it.

June: I introduced Rusty in February and he was still around by the summer, which is a good sign he’ll stick around. I personally love Rusty. He’s based on a couple of people and if you have a Rusty where you work give him a hug for me.

July: I just loved this joke. I made it in real life and then passed it along to Tabby. Sometimes I achieve a state of Tabby, but I’m never as cool as her.

August: In August, Berle went to purgatory and was rescued by Ian and Tabby. So weird. I was switching day jobs in real life and was in a kind of purgatory myself. August is always weird anyway, so it was time for Berle to shine. By shining, I mean almost dying.

September: September is my fiscal year. I was born in September, so it’s the month I accept an extra digit into my life. There were a lot of comics I liked, but this was the favorite. Sadly, an Emotional Attack Animal should remain a fantasy. Some people are emotionally on the attack at all times.

October: I had trouble writing this comic and was surprised it came out so well. I was more surprised by how well it was received. All comics that were difficult to write but turn out so well should be celebrated.

November: I drew part of Tabby’s cat retreat in the mountains for the first time. As always, I must add that this place doesn’t exist. It should, but it doesn’t.

December: I just loved writing this one. I love the idea of running from an awkward social situation. Why can’t we just run? It’s one more thing from childhood that should be brought into adulthood. If anything, it would be funny.

Happy New Year to you all. Thank you so much for reading. You make life worth living. Usually “life worth living” statements are easy to dismiss as an exaggeration. This one really isn’t.

It’s here, I’ve accepted that it’s here, and I’m happy it’s here. I’m talking about the official time of year to use the word “merry”. We don’t usually use the word merry a lot. Perhaps it’s different in your neck of the woods, but mine isn’t good enough for the likes of merry. We just say “happy”.

Happy is a good word, don’t get me wrong. It can cause a frown in a tense situation. Nobody wants to be reminded that it’s important to be happy while they’re pouring gasoline near an open flame, but otherwise happy is an excellent companion. It’s stood the test of time. Solid, dependable happy. Are you happy? No? Well, let’s fix that. We’re going to go out and try and make you happy.

This time of year we hit the breaks on happy. You’re now merry. Nobody says Happy Christmas. If they do, they’re put on some sort of watchlist and possibly prosecuted. It’s Merry Christmas. You can use it as a greeting or as a farewell. Some enthusiastic people use it for both during the same interaction. They are too happy.

I’m going to see if I can keep using the word merry throughout next year. Are you merry? No? Let’s fix that. We’re going to go out and try to make you merry. I might possibly get punched, but that’s the risk you take when doing trivial, yet interesting, research.

There’s just something more festive about the word merry. It’s an important time of year for many people. Family will be arriving soon. By god, Great Aunt Rudell from Purvis is coming. Let’s get out the good adjectives, shall we? The Oxford Dictionary defines merry as “cheerful and lively”, which also means happy but we wouldn’t dare use a word like happy to describe merry. Happy is for everyday use. Merry must be described with more upper crust adjectives.

Now let’s all be merry and look at some recent comics about retail, a job which will work you to death during this merry time and make you absurd. Absurd is another word for loopy, but I wouldn’t think of using loopy around merry. I’ll wait until the guests are gone and I’m happy.

April Bloom, as usual, is being highly optimistic here. Glitter never goes away. It just hangs around until it’s in season again.

The problem that I have with gift sets, and I always fall for this, is that they’re interesting. By golly, I would like a wallet, key chain, and pocket knife all in one snazzy box! Bought individually, these items may give me years of pleasureful use. Bought in a gift set they fall apart within months, maybe even days. The reason there are so many leftover gift sets is because we’ve bought them before.

I speak from experience here. There was a time when all you had to do to get antidepressants was to visit your doctor for a cut finger or a runny nose. I don’t know how it is today, but I don’t use them anymore. I subdue panic disorder by making comics.

Yes, I’ve been dealing with some mandatory overtime. It’s made me merrily absurd.

I love privacy laws. All you have to say is “doctor”. After that, it’s none of their business. After privacy laws, my favorite is “reasonable accommodation”. A chair is a reasonable accommodation if it doesn’t change the nature of the job, for instance. The only problem with that one is that many employers aren’t even vaguely familiar with the world reasonable.

I was working voluntary overtime and then they made it mandatory. It wasn’t so much fun after that. I went from feeling like a hero to just doing what I was told. The word mandatory hasn’t yet been changed into some new, feel-good term, but when it does it will be a great one to make fun of.

I did work at a book factory in California where employees slept between shifts. They had a whole section with cots during busy seasons. I didn’t do that, but it was actually a fun job and we got free books. It was a temp job that I got instead of filing for unemployment after being laid off. You can discover some interesting places that way. By interesting, I mean that it’s interesting because you know you’ll never be staying there long. I’ve had the best time at jobs that I knew I was leaving.

I liked this one only because it was fun drawing the guy in the background. Just a fun doodle.

The original version of this really confused a reader in England. In the second panel, Todd said “I don’t know what all they do.” It turned into quite the back and forth on Facebook. Several readers commented on how it made sense to them, even some English teachers. I explained that, in my area, it’s short for “I don’t know what all of the things are that they do.” I think the reader stopped reading the strip because of it. He was pretty irritated. He wound up arguing about it with people. I changed it to what he suggested because it got in the way of the joke. Still, I watch a lot of British TV and have managed to pick up on a variety of sayings that I didn’t initially understand, so I’m not sure what the big deal was. Oh well. At least I didn’t use “pitch in” when most of the country says “potluck”. That was another confusing experience several years ago.

I always think of going to individual stores as a fun expedition. Alas, not all shoppers do.

I made the above comic innocently enough. It was late (it’s always late) and I remembered something that happened to me when I worked for Sheds and Dignified. A customer (a man) wanted to speak to the manager (not a man). He kept referring to the manager as “he” and I kept saying “she”. Later, when the manager couldn’t find the man, I said it was probably because he was off looking for a fellow man and walked right past her. We all laughed. Easy comic. I made it, posted it, and (probably) went to sleep.

I first noticed something was wrong on Instagram. Comments were through the roof. It got an unusual amount of hits, which attracted the trolls, which made the hits go even higher. Misogyny oozed out of the comments like pus. The pus attracted maggots. I had to sift through the maggoty pus to delete and block people.

The tame ones were along the lines of “cry me a river!” There were confused comments from people who speak English as a second language. Then there were the people who like to emphasize their point with cursing, mostly because four letter single syllable words are easier for them to remember. There was also a long rant from a guy who called my character Shelby a whore among other exciting insights. His account was suspended by Instagram.

Facebook was surprisingly better. Only a couple of people were blocked there. Then I remembered that Instagram automatically reposts to Threads. Remember Threads? I didn’t. I was a couple of days late on that one. You can’t delete comments on Threads, maybe because they need all of the content they can get, but there were plenty blocked. The guy with the most hearts, likes, or whatever they are called on Threads went on a long rant about how this would never happen in real life. I belatedly responded to his rant that it did, indeed happen in real life. I think nine people hearted, liked or whatevered that comment.

I stopped posting on Twitter when it stopped being Twitter.

Between Facebook and Instagram, I must’ve made a hundred dollars off this comic, which in social media comic strip terms might as well be a million. Apparently all I need to do to make money is to make people mad. I knew this of course. It explains everything that passes itself off as news, but I’m shocked at how innocently I engaged in it.

My mother has the stories about equality that will make you want to vomit. This comic was just a retelling of actual events. If it angers you I will be bewildered and cash the check (metaphorically, of course).

I do remember going into an online rant on the Daily Cartoonist when Cathy Guisewite retired. If you don’t know, she is the cartoonist for the comic strip Cathy. She was hired to make that comic without knowing how to draw because she was (and is) a brilliant writer. She did draw effectively, though. My design teacher at CalArts went to some lengths to show me how well she could design and pace a strip.

When she retired, however, a fellow cartoonist, a cartoonist I otherwise admire, commented “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.” I responded with about five paragraphs. Cathy always attracted that kind of bizarre anger and always from men. I would ask my mother why that was, but she is no longer with us. I thought the anger, naive me, remained in the past.

This comic had to be rewritten. I’ve been posting my comic on Instagram and Facebook before it’s “official” posting on GoComics for one simple reason: readers can spot mistakes. In the graphic art profession we have a ton of proofreaders, but in comic strips there aren’t any. Even if your comic is appearing in newspapers, mistakes can stay in (google Wiley Miller and Trump for the worst offense, although that was more of an intentional mistake). I don’t know if you’ve heard, but newspapers stopped making serious cash a long time ago. Proofreaders are a luxury.

In this case, it wasn’t spelling. I had to have Tabby spell out that she saw the husband walk into the wrong aisle. I was too vague in the original. Thank you proofreaders!

This started a little series that has become a current favorite. Go Tabby.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. Zoom meetings suck. They somehow waste more time than in person meetings. If they want you on camera, try to chew whatever you’re eating to supplement your lack of passion off screen.

I did get a cardigan from a job for the wintertime, but I really had to whine for it. You had to dig deep on the internal intranet to see that they were even offered.

This is what makes lying not worth it. It’s also how many horrible criminals are cornered. They can’t remember all of the details of the lie. You know who would make perfect criminals? Robots. When robots learn to lie, we’re doomed.

I had to make it morally motivated to skip work. I’m like this in real life. If I’m going to go out of my way to give myself an excuse, there’s usually something I don’t want to do involved.

The robots haven’t learned how to lie yet.

What was she given that made her so loopy? I don’t remember the name, but I was the driver for somebody who was prescribed a pill that made her like this. Frankly, seeing the effects a drug has on a person has made me less interested in drugs. It’s kept me away from all of the wild parties, but I’ve lived with that burden.

The boss is not stupid, but he also has a fatherly disposition towards Penny. When thinking of how to end this I had to let the character guide me to it.

But good things can come out of the cold and snow, like staying inside and reading. Ok, maybe you can go up to the mountains for skiing. There’s good reading chairs at the lodge. Other than that, most of us aren’t doing anything except being inconvenienced with the snow. Do you own a one horse open sleigh? You do not. It’s better to read a good book.

Of course, I recommend Calvin and Hobbes for the best snow-oriented humor. Nobody got more traction out of winter than Bill Watterson. Then there’s Ruth Ware’s suspenseful mystery novel One By One. That’s good. Oooh, there’s also snow in Stephen King’s The Stand. You know, I wasn’t really expecting to list reading materials with snow as a setting, but that’s the risk you take when you’re writing in the middle of the night.

Let’s forget about cold and snow. The following comics are going back to a magical time, a time before snow. It was a time when I could still ride my bicycle. Snow was a laughable, distant thought. Come with me, won’t you, to early November.

Experts are expert at adding credentials to their expertise. There’s a reason that they give you their credentials and that’s because they can sense your skepticism. If you want to shorten a conversation with an expert, just say “wow” to everything they say.

Everything can only go according to plan if there’s actually a plan. This is why my plans never pan out. I never forgot when somebody was going on vacation, though, because I was usually the sucker filling in for them.

I gave Tabby a cat retreat in the mountains to go to on vacation a couple of years ago and now I really think there should be such a place.

Rusty is the obvious mentor to Tabby, but Tabby was Tabby before Rusty arrived. Now he’s just the store Obi-Wan.

The first three customers are the reason to do the job. Most customers are nice and normal, but the bad ones, like everywhere else, get all the press.

I always find myself sympathetic to Todd. Giving each cut of meat its own backstory would be a great sales pitch for vegetarianism, but I don’t think that’s what he’s going for. He’s just making his job more interesting.

Fun fact: I’ve left stores because of their music selection. I’ve also stayed in stores that might have something I like despite their music selection, but didn’t stay as long as I would’ve. And I’ve stayed too long in stores that didn’t have much that I liked, but great music. Music matters.

It always seems like the stores that play music I hate play it extra loud. Or it could be that I hear the music that I hate more loudly than the music I like. If that’s the case, it’s a really cruel trick for my ears to play on me.

One day I hope to be as smart as Tabby.

I’m always ready to leave but I can never leave. It makes for an easy tombstone. “He Left”.

The best place to leave was the library. I didn’t work for just any library, it was the huge downtown library of one of the biggest systems in the country. So on a busy day, the front checkout desks could have lines stretching down a huge cathedral lobby and out of sight. When it was your time to leave, you were off the clock. Every second you stood there you weren’t getting paid. The state didn’t care. The state didn’t care that there were people waiting, either. Your tax dollars at work. When it was your time to leave, you left. If there were two people checking out patrons and it was three o’ clock, time for one of those two to leave, the clerk walked away. A hundred eyes would follow the retreating clerk and return sadly to the one clerk remaining. It was like walking off stage in a play.

Again, this place should exist.

This particular Thursday, however, we have a good excuse for overeating. Our Thanksgiving holiday falls on that day. Turkey is served. We don’t know why. We grew up being told that turkey is to be served and were given various stories of its origin, all false, and have stuck to it. We’re malleable that way.

It’s also a day traditionally reserved for distant relatives to gather together and argue about politics. Nothing goes together better than dry turkey and loud arguments. Hospitals stock up on emergency gravy to treat countless choking patients this time of year, and it’s another reason to give thanks.

After such a loving description of the holiday, it may surprise you to learn that I did not care for Thanksgiving. Maybe it was all of the driving, but it was definitely some of the people. Thankfully, those people are no longer in my life, and for that reason I am thankful.

Wait, I enjoy Thanksgiving now. I need to rewrite this. Eh, maybe next year.

It’s the day that follows Thanksgiving that frightens me. Black Friday. Recently, every day is Black Friday to most stores. They’ve turned Black Friday into a month long celebration. But the day after Thanksgiving is still the technical Black Friday. Lots of people are off of work with nothing better to do than go visit the people who aren’t off of work at their place of work. That’s a ridiculous sentence, but it’s a ridiculous time.

I have never once welcomed a “Let me ask you a question” question in a business setting. I don’t even like the “let me” part of that sentence. Do I have a choice? I guess I’m supposed to leap away and shout “NO!” because that’s really the only way to stop it at that point. I think Penny answered it perfectly. Good job, Penny!

This is a follow up to the previous time the store was repainted, brought to you by a store that I could not be in without fainting. That’s really the first rule of running a business. Don’t make your customers faint.

It’s my opinion that those little yellow signs are more dangerous than whatever they’re warning you against. If I do slip on a wet floor it’s because I tripped on the sign, because some employees place those so that you have a whopping five inches of clearance to maneuver around them. Those employees should be shipped to Shame Island, but never are.

In all of the years I’ve been writing Todd he’s never had a romance, so of course this one has to be weird. Like Todd. The real purpose of this strip, of course, was to write the customer’s running commentary.

I’ve been complained to about myself by a customer who didn’t remember me. I was called a little twerp. I have to say that I found little to go on in terms of self improvement with that feedback. I just remember telling the customer that he (meaning me) was of average height. I don’t think she cared.

Now that we’re getting into the free-for-all part of the pre-Christmas season, it’s more important than ever to not trust the website when visiting the physical store. Asking the website what is in the store is like asking your Aunt Charlene what was in the store when she went there last Tuesday. Maybe she saw Bigfoot in the store, but Bigfoot will be mysteriously gone by the time you get there.

My compassion is with Todd, here. It takes me forever to learn new stuff. I’m stubborn, though, and if you give me a year or three I’ll figure it out.

When I worked at the library, we used a cash register that was so old that the inventor’s grandchildren were long dead. As a result, many of us would would accidentally charge a customer several million dollars for an overdue book. The library, ironically, was always the first place to get and use new technology, except when it came to cash registers.

Ok, this strip was solely for me. If a character winds up ranting about conspiracies involving condiments, make no mistake. I’m amusing myself. It’s the type of idiot whackadoo rant that I could’ve gone on with for several more panels, but I spared you all. Something else to be thankful for this holiday.

Honestly, though, ranting about a condiment conspiracy isn’t too far off from rants I’ve had to listen to these days from various people, but none of whom I will be spending Thanksgiving with. There’s thankfulness galore on that one.

Todd is me again, here. This is why I avoid small talk. Go deep or go home, that’s my motto. No “fine weather we’re having” from me, no sir. It’s all “my mother escaped an abusive religious upbringing” sort of chitchat over here. It makes an elevator ride interesting.

This upset some mothers. Let me just state that mothers are the best and by “worst job” I meant that there’s no amount of money in the world to thank a good mother. It’s just, you know, it wouldn’t have been funny if I phrased it that way.