How may I help you?

It is with great joy that I announce my departure from the House of Wal.

It is with a far greater amount of sadness that I announce the likely end of regular posting to behindthecounter.com.

You, my faithful readers, deserve to know the rest of the story.

On October 20, 2007, in the year of our Lord, I walked out of the Wal-Mart a free woman. FREE AT LAST LORD, FREE AT LAST. I had spent 1,097 days in bondage to the Lords of Low Prices.

For most of the last year, I have struggled to come to terms with the fact that the only real reason I worked at Wal-Mart was to have material to post. The increasing popularity of Behind the Counter made it harder and harder for me to walk away from something that I had literally poured my heart and soul into over a period of three years.

This is how the argument went in my head. “My life is horrible. What’s good right now? My blog. What’s bad right now? Wal-Mart. What can I do to make my life better? Quit Wal-Mart. But if I quit Wal-Mart, I won’t have a blog.” Yeah. Vicious, please meet my friend Circle.

When I started my blog back in April of 2004, I was searching for myself, happiness and a purpose in life. Five months later, I happened to start working at Wal-Mart and Behind the Counter was born. Writing my blog gave me a purpose and a focus.

When I began writing, I never imagined that the things I put out there would attract such a diverse group of readers, fans and people who generally appreciate my work.

I started working at Wal-Mart for the sole purpose of being able to pay my bills. Over time, my real job began paying me enough so that – with prudent budgeting – I could survive without the House of Wal. I need to break the Starbucks addiction, but we’re working on that.

I cut back to just the weekends at Wal-Mart and tried to stockpile stories for an entire week of posting. One side effect of this was that I never had a day off from work. Ever. Monday-Friday at the office and Saturday-Sunday at Wal-Mart. It was a grinding schedule that I kept up for more than two years.

As Behind the Counter grew in popularity, I felt the pressure to pump out more content. Most weekends, I would come home after a 2-11 shift on Sundays and stay up writing until 5 a.m. – when I would go to sleep for three hours and then get up and get ready for work at my real job by 9 a.m.

Over the past year, I have battled depression, the likely beginnings of diabetes and come face-to-face with the fact that my life is a completely screwed-up mess of my own making.

In all that time, Behind the Counter – and constant stream of comments people leave – has been one of the only things that made me feel like getting out of bed in the morning.

Every time I checked my email, I hoped for a comment. Comments – be they good, bad, hateful or inane – were like little happiness grenades in the dark hours of my days.

If you, my readers, were making an effort to tell me how you felt about my work – I owed it to you to give you fresh content.

Even the haterade. You don’t exist on the Internet until you have haters. For every voice that speaks out, there are ten more that scream in silence.

I made mistakes – lots of them. If I had it to do over again, I would probably try to interact with my readers more. My paranoia over being discovered led early on to me instituting a “zero-contact” policy for all but the most extraordinary requests. In retrospect, I think that only made some people MORE curious about me – including some stalkers who analyzed every single post for clues.

I also wanted to sell merchandise. I had some T-shirt designs in the preliminary stages, but never got around to setting up a store on Zazzle. I really, really wanted to sell T-shirts where someone tries to return a baby.

Over the past year, my responsibilities at my real job have grown enormously. Some weeks, I spent up to 80+ hours at both jobs. Something was going to have to give.

I have always made no bones of the fact that I personally feel that Wal-Mart is not the best steward of its workers. The company as a whole needs to be broken down to its component pieces and completely rebuilt.

The current attitude of the bean-counters in Bentonville – who are issuing directives for the store-level employees without ever having been inside a store – are incredibly damaging to employee morale. So too is the absolute refusal to acknowledge the fact that stores cannot deliver even a minimal level of customer service if confined to the insanely low limits of the Bentonville directives for staffing.

In the time period from March until I left in October, I got a 2-11 p.m. shift nearly every Saturday and a 2-11 p.m. nearly every Sunday. I can count on one hand the number of shifts that were not 2-11. For that entire time, I was the only person scheduled at the Service Desk after the morning people went home at 4 p.m.

Psychologically, I knew that I could handle it. Wal-Martians don’t scare me. I am smarter, better and a thousand times meaner. However, it is immensely draining to go through weekend after weekend after weekend of the same crap, facing down the ghetto trash, the white trash and the dregs of society that only crawl out from under their rocks after dark. Nearly every Sunday, I had to plead for someone to give me my lunch; if I got a second break I sent a silent prayer up to the heavens and Kali’s waiting arms.

Wal-Mart literally does not care about its employees. They will mouth pretty words, but they are as empty as Paris Hilton’s head. The final straw came sometime in early summer. I had a rare 10-7 shift on Sunday and was actually looking forward to getting home in time to do laundry and sleep before going to work on Monday. When did I leave? 10 p.m. TWELVE HOURS AT THE HOUSE OF WAL.

I have had several long talks with the very few people in my life that I trusted with the secret of Behind the Counter. (Thank you all, you know who you are!) Every time they asked me “Why are you still working there?” – the only answer I could give was that I needed material for my blog. Finally, that answer just wasn’t good enough anymore.

I had to make a terrible choice – between my sanity and my blog. To be fair, it took me nearly a year to finally decide to walk away from Behind the Counter. I don’t believe that my writing should make me unhappy – and going to the House of Wal each weekend simply made me miserable.

At the end of the day, I wrote about entitled idiots trying to scam the system and generally acting like they need a beating with whips made of scorpions. I saw a niche in the blog ecosystem and I filled it – maybe not especially well or with great style and verve – but I filled it.

My next project is going to be “21 Minutes” – which is linked in the top right-hand column. (I thought seriously about concentrating on my Howler Monkeys project, but at the end of the day, I don’t think it has real legs. I mean, how much complaining about children can I do?)

What is “21 Minutes?” Well, the premise is that I’m going to go somewhere each day and describe the action for 21 minutes. The same snark, the same fashion critique, the same howler monkeys, the same WOACAs, the same witty wordplay. We may even do a post at the Wal-Mart from time to time. I hope you like it. If not, that’s fine too. This is something I’m doing for myself – and it doesn’t make me hurt inside.

Right now, I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve had a few weekends to spend reconnecting with my friends, rebuilding my social life and trying to figure out what exactly it is that I’m going to do with the rest of my life.

For the record, I want to personally thank each and every reader of Behind the Counter over the past three years. Thank you for reading. Thank you for leaving comments. Thank you for subscribing via RSS. Thank you sending me your emails. Thank you for clicking on the advertisements. Thank you for putting links on your own personal Web pages and blogrolls. And to the two people who purchased me gifts off my Amazon Wish List – I LOVE YOU!

At the end of the day, all I did was write. Thank you all for appreciating it.

Yes. You all still have questions. No. I’m still not going to tell you my name or the location of my store. I’m not stupid. Anything else you want to know, please leave it in the comments.

Worst morning evar

It was the worst morning ever. Here's why:

*spilled a bottle of pool chemicals on my shoes and new pants
*had to run the Service Desk by myself for three hours on a Sunday
*MoneyGram computer died
*a woman returned rotten peaches
*a man returned rotten meat
* I did not get a break for three hours

.... and I haven't even had lunch yet.
--
Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

BTC at the drive-thru

I'm a bit of the night-owl. I know most of the late-shift drive-thru people for on my side of town, plus I've got intimate knowledge of what's open when, where and the quickest way back to my bedsit. I've got no pity for idiot teenagers who think they're "special unique snowflakes" - seriously. Get off the phone, quit texting and get a clue. All this leads up to an episode of monumental stupidity and teen howler monkey petulance witnessed at a Wendy's last week.

The dining room is CLOSED. Even though the sign says the dining room is open until midnight and it is only 10:45 p.m., the DOOR IS LOCKED. People are cleaning up inside. My friends and I, we walked up, read the hours, tried the handle, realized it was closed, saw there were no customers eating inside, turned around and went through the drive-thru. No big honking deal.

Not so for bratty teenager with serious entitlement issues and the gum-smacking girlfriend. *important detail*

The car ahead of us has *issues* with their order. I can see this woman with about eight howler monkeys (the factory must have shipped extra this month, I seem to have been surrounded) in her LandCruiser banging on the second drive-thru window and then arguing with the girl. Then there's another bout with the manager wearing a headset. Then some money being exchanged.

So we sit in line for like forever. And get a ringside seat for major fun.

A convertible BMW (must be daddy's, on loan for the summer) screeches around the cars lined up at the drive-thru and two upper-crust tupes get out. Seriously, we heard rubber burn.

They park in a puddle and Princessa grimaces as she gets her delicate toes wet. She's wearing a white skirt and a pinkish baby-doll crop top and for good measure has a sweater tied around her waist. A sweater. In the middle of July. She looks like she hasn't eaten in months.

Boy Genius has the generic upper middle class uniform of long khaki shorts, sandals and an A&F t-shirt. They both have posture that would send any finishing school teacher rolling in her grave.

They tramp up to the door. I'm positively glowing with anticipation.

They yank the door handle. Obviously, being locked, it doesn't open. Boy Genius and Princessa read the hours and yank the door again. It still doesn't open.

They put their hands and faces on the glass and look inside. Then look back at the hours and yank the door again. Shocker. Still won't open. Princessa looks bored with the whole thing and leans up against the railing by the door. She's posing for a fashion shoot. Give me more "I don't care. Good. Now more 'bored and stupid.' Bueno. Que bellisima." She's got the disinterested model thing down stone cold.

Boy Genius pounds the glass. Then runs around to the other side - thinking that maybe the door there will be open. It must not be, because he comes right back. He yanks on the door again, pounds the glass some more and we can see him yelling and pointing at the sign with the hours.

Princessa is still lolling vapidly on the railing. She obviously doesn't care. She'll eat like one fry (no salt) and have a diet water with diet lemon, thanks very much.

But Boy Genius obviously wants a Baconator and a Frosty, because he slams both palms on the door again and decides to try to yank the door open one more time. NEWSFLASH - Still not open.

Princessa starts walking back to the car. He yells at her.

SHE TAKES THE GUM OUT OF HER MOUTH, GIVES IT TO HIM, AND HE STICKS IT IN THE LOCK.

Ewww. Just eww.

*If you see children misbehaving, slap them across the face that they might learn to behave in public. --Book 2, The Gospel of the Howler Monkey

Running game at other places

I've said before that I like to watch retail interactions at other stores. I witnessed one of the all-time great customer interactions today at a Sports Authority.

Anyway. I'm waiting in line at the cash register at Sports Authority. This woman has a huge pile of stuff - including a pink Nike gym bag.

The woman hands over all her stuff and holds up the gym bag for the cashier to scan. The cashier asks her to open it. Uh-huh. Just like the suitcases at Wal-Mart.

The woman opens the bag, revealing a wad of plastic wrap. The girl asks to see the bag. The woman is strangely resistant. The cashier insists.

The woman finally makes a **sigh** noise and forks the bag over.

What was in the bag? Six more folded up and flattened down versions of the same bag, carefully packed into the bottom of the original bag and covered with extra packing material to make it look like the bag's lumpiness was just extra packing stuff - NOT stolen merchandise.

The cashier was just like "Oh, I wonder why they decided to put the extra bags in here. Let me give you a new one." The woman was visibly NOT pleased but had no room to maneuver.

And I've got to say, Sports Authority trains their cashiers far better than the Wal-Mart. They have the money pens and check every bill that's a $20 and larger.

Of course, if Wal-Mart started checking every $20 and up, it would just make the lines even longer!

Later, as I was leaving, I saw the woman and three of her "companions" changing clothes in the parking lot. Old men should really not be digging around in their underpants in public places at 2 p.m. Really. Just really not.

Open boxes

I'm always deeply analytical whenever I go into any other store now, particularly another Wal-Mart, especially any of the other ones in town, because most of the other ones have competent management and ours is so ghetto and poorly staffed.

One night this week I went out hunting for a wireless router for my computer. Yes, I know, don't buy electronics at Wal-Mart. I'd say I handle a minium of four Linksys or Belkin returns any given day (although most of these are customer stupidity rather than defective workmanship). But really, I do get 10% off, and whatever I buy is going to be cheaper than Best Buy or Circuit City to start with anyway. And if I need to return it ... no hassle.

Anyway. I go to the "good" Wal-Mart, the one I send people to all the way across town and that involves an interstate and a toll road. When I go in, it's like heaven. There are plenty of cashiers and the door-greeter actually looks at me. I even see a cashier straightening out the candy bars and magazines while waiting on a customer to get to her register. I wonder why they don't send some of these girls over to our store?

I go to Electronics and try to find where the computer accessories are. I find what I needed and just had to sigh. There were probably four different types of wireless routers on the shelf. Only two or three out of the 15 or so for sale are in pristine condition. It's just depressing. Most of the boxes look like they've been through a war.

And here's my main complaint. If you're a consumer and you see six boxes of anything on the shelf but four of them are opened and two are in the shrink wrap, which one are you going to choose? If it's Wal-Mart, you better get one of the ones in the shrink wrap! Then there was stuff that was stocked wrong, such as wireless cards put in the router spots. (Another reason we take a lot of stuff back)

So I had to get down on my hands and knees in the middle of the aisle and start digging around on the bottom shelf and find a box still in the shrink wrap. The two brats that I think were shoplifting got quite a view of my rear. I guess I was bringing the sexy back!

One of the only types of routers they still had that was in the shrink wrap was $119. I wasn't too happy about that, but no way was I taking my chances with any of the open boxes. Plus they were sold out of $69 router. But I'm not sure I'd take my chances with that anyway.

So a word of advice. If there's one in pristine condition, take it. If it looks used, it probably is - ask for a discount and you'll usually get 10 percent. If you absolutely have to have it, make someone check it.

And when I went to pay, I swiped my discount card but it didn't go through because the cashier's debit reader was acting up. I handed my discount card to the girl on the register but she looked at me like I was crazy. I had to tell her what to do - "Hit TRANS DISC, swipe it through the top, hit total again, then run my credit card. Now give me the paper to sign."

Some things never change.