Monday, September 08, 2014

Monday Morning Stories With Mookie - Episode 127

The Time Mookie Worked Third Shift Stocking Shelves - The Fifth and Final Part

Yep, you read that right my friends - the final part. This past Saturday, yours truly turned in his name tag and called it a day at his part-time third shift gig. Okay, well I didn't turn in my name tag - because I figured "screw them." Due to the various things going on in the Mookie household, the necessity to continue the PT job has lessened, and here lately the hours (or lack thereof) I was able to put in bordered on being more of a hassle than not. So after discussing the matter with my better half, I put in my notice a good month ago and that was the end of it.

I was actually surprised to find myself being more sad than I thought I would be when I put in my notice. Part of me thought I'd be high-fiving everyone and saying "That's it for me bitches!" However that wasn't the case. I chalk it up to just being used to doing something for the last 2 1/2 years, and now I won't be. I felt the same way about college when it was over.

I can say that I will honestly never forget that job though. Working overnights does weird things to a person, and at times I could actually feel it sucking out my soul. On any given night I would go through a whole range of emotions: Going from moments where I would tell myself that "this isn't so bad," to moments where the idea of "going all Robin Williams" seemed like a more pleasant option than stocking shelves. It was just mentally brutal sometimes.  Every morning on the way home I would just remind myself of why I was doing it, and that it wouldn't be forever. It was some consolation, but not much.

About 4 months ago, the store I worked decided to change the overnight process and go from the 10pm to 6:30am schedule to a 4am-11am schedule. I have to say that while the job still sucked, the hopeless feelings did subside a bit - so that wasn't all bad.  It still sucked getting up at 3am to make it to work at 4 though. One major downside to going to the 4am work schedule meant that we would have to deal with customers when the store opened at 8am.  I did not look forward to this, and a lot of my co-workers didn't like the idea either. So much so that many either transferred to other stores, or quit all together.  Like I said in a previous episode, most overnight people work that shift because they don't do well with regular people. I actually found that dealing with customers was a LOT better than my days back in college when I worked at Walmart, and didn't dread talking to them as much as I thought I would. I still avoided them if I could though, because that's just how I roll.

But let us get back to the reason for this story to begin with: The stories about stupid people that work third shift!  As I have said before, there are a lot actually nice decent people that work overnight and they aren't all stupid. However the ones that are stupid make up for it for everyone else who isn't.
Even though I have seen a lot of new people come and go since the last story about working third shift, I oddly don't have any stories about them. However I do have stories about two of the previous characters I have discussed, so we'll finish up with them.

The first person I am going to discuss is "Sally*." Sally is the one who "retired" to get her 401K, but then got hired on a few months later because she couldn't afford to stay retired. The rumor was that she had gambled away her retirement funds, but this was never conformed or denied. One thing everyone knows about Sally is that she is old and opinionated. If she doesn't like someone or something, she will tell someone about it whether they want to hear it or not. As luck would have it, Sally didn't like a lot of people - so she was always bitching.
  • She didn't like one guy because he always changed the radio station of the radio they played over the P.A. to "devil music." 
  • She didn't like this one particular girl because she had a nasty birthmark on her face and thought she was lazy. Even though everyone knew the girl's name, Sally would still refer to her as "That girl with the thing on her face." 
  • She once referred to an Asian kid who worked there as a "chinaman" when talking about him.
  • She always had to read the paper that was laying the break room everyday, and got upset when someone had the part that had the obituaries in it. She had to read the obits. I think she was looking for her own name.
  • And Finally, one night she upset the deaf guy "Ben*" and he allegedly gave her the finger. One night he also did the gesture where you make a bent arm fist and move it in an upward-motion while the other hand lands in the bend of the arm - which is the same as "the finger" and means "f*ck you" in most cultures. From here on, they had a mutual hatred for each other until the day I left. So much so that when Ben came into the break room and sat down, he would sit and glare at Sally from across the room. 
This entertained me because I also hate the guy - which is why he is the next person we will discuss in this story.

For whatever reason, Ben is a DICK to everyone. Nobody likes him or has nice things to say about him. I'm not sure if he is just naturally upset at being deaf and feels the world owes him something, or if because he's deaf - he's unaware of the way things work in the world. Personally I think he may have something else going on, like an autism-spectrum thing or something. Or maybe he's just a great big f*cking jackass, I don't know. He is VERY chauvinistic with every female that interacts with him, which alone makes you want to hate the guy. If a woman ever tries to help him with something, he goes out of his way to undo what they did and do it himself. I mainly hate him because he is lazy and doesn't go out of his way to help others. One night during a truck unload, I was crazy-busy moving boxes that had backed up for my area, while he stood there and did nothing as he didn't have a whole lot coming his way. Most people would jump around and help everyone out, but Ben wouldn't. Finally, I noticed him come around the line and I thought he was going to help me, only to watch him walk past my area and go down to the receiving desk and get a bottle of water for himself. To make it even better, he didn't get one for anyone else. For the first time in my 2+ years working there, I went OFF at one of the team leads about him. "What the f*ck is this guy doing? This f*cking guy...." It didn't do much good because everyone was more amazed and humored about the fact that  I got mad at this guy, because they had never seen me get mad at anything. As time went on, I could not believe that he never got fired over his poor work ethic and confrontational behavior. I know the managers hated him too, but I think because he was "disabled" they had to be careful. However I still think they could have let him go when he gave Sally the finger.

On my last day I hoped I wouldn't have to deal with Ben, but of course he was there. When I got to work at 4am, I rang the bell at the door to be let in by the manager, but he wasn't sitting there for whatever reason to buzz me in. However, guess who was standing there by the time clock - and was oblivious to what was going on? Ben.  So I stood there ringing the bell a few times, but no one came over to open the door. As I was standing there waiting, one of my co-workers coming to work joined me at the door waiting to be let in. He said "Why can't that guy let us in?" and I said "Because he's deaf and can't f*cking hear the bell." Just then, Ben turned around and saw us standing at the door. He looked right at us and it was very apparent he saw us there because we had full eye-contact. Did he come over to let us in?? NO. Instead of coming over to let us in, the dick turned back around to face the other way and stared at the time clock. I looked at my co-worker, shook my head and said "I hate this f*cking guy."

So again - while I hated most of my time working third shift, I do have to thank my third shift job and the people I had to work with and endure for 2 1/2 years. It is because of them that I was able to help my family get from one point in the past where things weren't looking too good - to the present where things are looking very positive and optimistic.

So to everyone I worked with, I say thank you.
Except for Ben - I f*cking hate that guy. 

(*) - Named changed to protect the guilty/innocent. Especially Ben, because he's an asshole.

Miss a previous episode?  Click HERE to catch up!

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