A tale of a fateful rip

Sunday was fine (I slept ALL day). Monday was just awful, mostly because I was supposed to be off but got called in to work because three other people decided to call off. Tuesday was just awful, made worse by the fact that I contracted the flu. Wednesday was just the capstone of the entire lot.

Here's how the whole lot began. My boss at my other job is on vacation and another employee has been "transferred," so two people are now doing the work of four for the week. Yeah, tremendous fun. Anyway. I'm getting about four hours of sleep a night, then going in to work at Retail Village.

I manage to make it up Wednesday and get there by 7 a.m., but it's slow, so I ask the other person on duty if I'm needed or if I can take time to get some breakfast at McDonalds, take my medicine and try to get rid of this brutal headache. "Sure, we're not doing anything." God bless. Too bad he's leaving. And he's a redhead. :)

After I punch in, I'm trying to clean up the Service Desk (they're on us to "keep things clean" now) when I bend down to put some stuff on the buggy headed to claims. RRRRIIIIPPPPPP! "ohjesuscrap- didijustripmypants- infreakingwalmart- whatthehellamigoingtodo?"

One of the Service Desk girls looks over. "Did you just rip your pants?" Me: "Well, as a matter of fact ... " I ask how bad it was. Turns out it wasn't bad, but I know I couldn't go through the day, knowing how many times we have to bend over to get things off shelves, to get stuff out of the podium or get boxes and bags. So I ask to take a break and buy the cheapest pair of pants I can find out in the clothes, a $5 pair of track suit pants.

I tuck my button-down shirt into the track pants, put my vest back on and go back to work. This turns out to cause no end of grief. No fewer than four managers DEMAND to know why I'm wearing "sweatpants" to work, as it is against our dress code. Um, I've worn khakis and a button-down to work for the past three months, and I've got a dress shirt tucked into athletic pants. Does it really look like I CAME TO WORK THIS WAY ON PURPOSE? Jeez.

I have to repeatedly explain that I ripped my pants and had to buy something off the floor. That wasn't good enough for one fool though, who wanted me to clock out and go home and change. Um, it would take me 45 minutes to go home during lunch hour traffic, plus another 45 minutes back, not to mention the time it would take me to eat lunch. Get over me wearing a pair of frelling track pants!

All this and idiot customers too:

Two ladies of a certain age who got a can of string potato fries in the wrong basket and wanted to use a coupon. They started screaming at the poor cashier until I just suggest that one pay for it, use the coupon, and the other give her the money. "Oh, we never thought of that." The woman behind them was about to take a crowbar to the pair of them though.

Don't come back to the store with a $100 car stereo amplifier and claim "the wrong one was in the box. Those things have serial numbers and we know that you're trying to cheat by keeping the new one and returning the old one.

If the coupon doesn't match, we can figure it out. I'm not going to hold up a line over $2 off hair color. However, a 70-year-old woman with dark brown hair (she is obviously a loyal Clairol customer) threw a fit because she misunderstood that the cashier needed an override on the coupon. I have no clue why the coupon didn't take. But don't yell at the girl. It's not her fault. She's not making it not ring up on purpose you blue-haired baboon!

You'd think people with EBT (the new food stamps) would get a clue and get new cards when EVERY SINGLE TIME we have trouble and have to type the numbers in by hand.

In other news, the personnel director quit. Some manager was yellling at her about something stupid, so she said enough of the crap and walked out. So many of the managers are just complete tools.