Why My New Store is Awful

Okay I know I kept promising y'all an update, but the new job has been slowly destroying my soul and my will to live and frankly I haven't been able to muster up any energy to think about it let alone write a blog about it.

Until today!

I know a lot of you have been wondering "How's Forkie doing? Has she become a latte-sipping hipster fulfilling her endless aspirations?" for like the first week and then you immediately forgot about me as soon as you decided to resume your lives. I know it. I'm not offended. Just disappointed that you don't spend every waking second thinking about me. But fear not, I'm here to tell you all about it. Or at least my job. Which sucks.

So here I am at a place I'm going to refer to as "OOG." Here at OOG we have nothing short of interesting things going on: crack heads, blood in the parking lot, tiny stockrooms, crack heads, bad checks, 1,000 boards of freight every week, crack heads, meth heads, heroine heads, dick heads, douchebags, angry old women, crack heads, angry old men who call employees communists, crack heads, religious solicitors, crack solicitors, and finally, the worst thing of all: Ducks fans. *shudder*

OOG is located in probably the seediest part of the United States. On the train ride from my apartment, I look out the window to see the beautiful landscape of grand buildings and gorgeous trees slowly start to decay into graffiti-covered rail cars and derelict strip malls. Finally arriving at my work, you're surrounded by the city's finest establishments of adult video shops, liquor stores, Planned Parenthood (complete with protesters), dive bars and Popeye's Chicken.

Claustrophobes beware! This store is tiny and full of STUFF! You'll constantly feel like you're getting crushed by the massive amounts of STUFF and when you try to escape from feeling trapped by all the STUFF you'll just run into more STUFF and start hyperventilating until you finally succumb to the ridiculous amount of STUFF that does actually fall on you and crush you because there's also no safety culture here. (3 accident-free days and counting!)

As you walk through the apparel department, you'll notice nothing out of the ordinary at first...until you hear a strange beeping not unlike a chime you hear upon entering a small department store. (We can all hear it: beee-boooom!) You look around and think "wtf is that?" and then you see YOURSELF on TV! This store has so much theft it has little monitors that record your thieving ass as you "just look" at the cosmetics or "just try one shirt on" in the fitting room. So watch out. Or next time one of our three LPs will be here and they'll...probably do nothing because they'll be busy arresting a crack head.

Now that you've gotten thoroughly intimidated with the sales floor, come back to the apparel stockroom. Where are you going? Oh, you think our stockroom is in the apparel department. Silly. Follow me and I'll take you there. Yes, I know we're going into the home department. Yes, this is the employee hallway (Hi, everybody!) and right here is the stockroom! Let me just get my key out and...unlock this door and...OH MY GOD A WALL OF FREIGHT! Suck it in, we're going inside!

...No we're not. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I don't even think light can penetrate this stockroom.

For your visual pleasure, I'll provide a map of the store.

Now that you have this image, here's where our stockroom is!

That's right. Right down the employee hallway...in the middle of the home department...smaller than the break room. Oh and no upstairs either.

No. Upstairs.

So how do we get all that freight in there?

How does one pack a suitcase? How does a squirrel pack nuts in his mouth? How does a woman give birth to a baby...but in reverse?

We find a way to fit all that shit in there. And if that means blocking every walkway and stacking in front of all the things you need to do daily tasks...then so be it! Ad boxes? You don't need to get to those. I need these blue toes of Under Armour that will get worked two months later and then immediately stolen to go right there. Hangers? You can manage without those because these men's coats need this space more than you do. Fire extinguisher? Nah. Ever heard of stop-drop-and-roll?

Yeah I'm not kidding.

So now you're thinking...if there's no room for normal freight, what happens when new freight shows up?

The fine folks in Home have no choice but to do this.

Yes, it usually is about 12 boards. And YES, they do this during store hours! Fantastic.

And that's as close as those boards get to entering the stockroom. We have to break down the freight on the sales floor and carry each piece into the stockroom where it is then shoved, stacked, thrown, pretty much anything to get it in there.

There you have it! The nightmare that is my life every day. Next time you complain that your store is awful and there's no room in your stockroom and you can't get anything done...just pause for a moment and think of the starving children in Africa who would love to have your job.

And also think of me. And STOP BEING SO DRAMATIC!!