Early Ones

Masked Days Of Joy

I envy a child’s perception of time. For them, a few years seems like forever. An eight year old looks at a thirteen year old and sees a vast amount of time between them instead of just five years. Five years is forever to an eight year old. To me it’s nothing. Lucky, lucky eight year old.

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.