I Have To Put A Title Here

Might As Well Add A Subtitle

I’ve always been vague about the store my characters occupy because I felt that using a wacky name is distracting. However, a commenter on Instagram figured it out. Kerowyna identified it as the Never Identified Yet Strangely Familiar Big Box Store.

You caught me, Kerowyna. It all takes place there.

The truth is that my inspiration comes from many places where interacting with the public is a primary function of the job. Thankfully (at least for me), big box stores can contain just about any profession that requires public interaction. I might be hard pressed to find one with a neurologist, but give it time. Soon we’ll be grocery shopping while getting new car tires and shoes after opening a bank account and getting our motor skills test and medicine all in one handy place.

That place used to be called a mall, but in these monopoly mania days of corporate mergers, it’s Orange Julius that truly suffers.

I’m in awe of workers who can remain bright and cheerful in the face of a frothing customer. I’ve seen them in action and have vowed to myself that some day I, too, will posses the same kind of Zen that will carry me through hostile conversations.

It hasn’t happened, of course. In real life, I delivered April Bloom’s final line to the frothing customer. Security might have also been involved. Customer service can go quite smoothly with sharp security personnel standing by.

There’s security! Ok, it’s an actual cop. I’ve seen plenty of them called to stores as well.

I always miss the good stuff. There was one time at our downtown library when a cop chased a kid who wouldn’t stop bouncing his basketball off of the building. The cop slipped and fell, triggering some kind of “officer down” alert. Every cop in the world showed up and the kid with the basketball didn’t have a chance.

It was my day off.

Everything tends to go wrong at once. “Once” can be defined as an entire week. Or a whole month.

Customers are disgusting, and every time I need to go to the bathroom it’s closed for cleaning. I’m thankful, of course, that it’s cleaned as much as it is, because by the time I notice the bathroom is available it’s so filthy that it I wonder when the cleaning people are coming back.

The cleaning people, of course, aren’t paid enough. They do have good health insurance. That’s a necessity.

These were actual orders given to stocking staff members which made me instantly think of this scenario.

The same downtown library that had the basketball kid being chased by every cop in the world also had a policy of firing staff members who did not call or show up for six consecutive days. I always wondered if anyone ever showed up on that sixth day and kept their job. It would be extremely awkward, but rules are rules.

Berle’s the guy who gets away with everything because a genie gave him that superpower. I’ll helpfully point readers to that particular strip by saying it’s somewhere in the archives.

This was software that I had to use. It would helpfully fill in everyone’s schedule and then I would have to helpfully change all of the schedules. If you ever wonder why managers spend so much time in their office, it’s because corporate decided to be helpful.

BINGO games exist for every job, but I haven’t seen one for corporate speak. If I hear “let’s circle back around” or “moving forward” at this stage in my life, I tend to run away screaming. It’s confusing to the person talking, but they need to “be aware” that they have successfully driven me crazy.

And yes, “circle back around and focus on the back end” was said, but I think it was just us making fun of their catch phrases.