eXquisitism

.because the world is an exquisite place.

It's the typical sob story, poor college student complains about how she (or he) hates their job. But I'm starting to think more & more that I may actually have a reason for it. You see, I have this manager...let us call him..uh..Tom (not to be confused with MySpace Tom..but I didn't wanna use the same, typical "Bob" routine). Alright, so back to "Tom". Recently, I was working the front register on a saturday night. For those of you who DONT work at hell on earth (you lucky, lucky fools), lemme fill you in, saturday nights is when us employees get the superb task of pasting sale price stickers from the ad for the following day. All of the stickers have to be out by close that night, while also facing (organizing all the items in the aisles and pushing them forward, etc.). I had quite a bunch of price stickers, but I hung all of them up, plus finished facing, plus took out all the garbages..and it was only 9pm..we still had an hour till we close. In comes in my friend, lets call her..Amber. Amber is from Uganda. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to stock cigarettes while talking to Amber. After about 10 minutes, I get a phone call from the breakroom, its Tom.


"You can finish your conversation later, it looks bad to me and to the customers to have you talking by the front register. It doesn't look good. Especially because she's standing by the ATM machine."
"Well, I'm all done with everything, so it isn't like I have anything to do, I'm working while talking."
"Then you can go, since you stayed an extra hour yesterday."
"...well, I don't have anything to do. I could vacuum."
"Ok, do that."

By the time I hung up, I was PISSED. Ok, the ATM machine is by the front register, but not only was Amber's BACK facing it, she was reading a magazine and talking to me, by my register! Amber understood that I was being yelled at, so she told me she was gonna walk around, do some shopping. So she went to the cosmetics to check out some stuff, as my manager comes up to me & gives me another explanation that talking is wrong. About 30 minutes later, my manager comes up to me again.

"Is she you ride home or something?"
"Um, no."
"Oh. Ok, because she has been in the store for going on a hour."
"Ok. Is that a problem? She's shopping."
"Ok, I was just checking."

Now, this absolutely CANNOT be all in my head. Once again, I am going to repeat something, Amber is from Uganda, meaning she's black. I don't know if this has anything to do with racism, but it sure as hell looked like that from my point of view. We live in a primarily white town..primarily meaning 99.999999999%, so Tom told me before that although security should still be monitored, it isn't as bad as down in the "populated", urban areas. So all of a sudden, a black girl walks into the store & it's a huge deal that she's somewhere in the PROXIMITY of an ATM machine?! Amber is one of my best friends, so I was LIVID when he told me this. When we get random white chicks coming in & shopping for a while, walking around the store, there is absolutely NO issue with Tom, even if they're my white girl-friends! So this is a complete slap in the face to me.

Being a cashier, I get absolutely no respect. The pay is basically minimum wage, while doing the work of 5 people. During high traffic hours, I am in charge of checking everyone out promptly, while doing busy work like putting the candy away. But as soon as I step from behind the counter into the aisle (where, by the way, I CANNOT even see the front register), I have to run back up to the register because there is a huge line of angry customers complaining that they have to wait for me. All the while, my manager is sitting in the office, usually on the phone, calling me up to the register! Then, my manager tells me that I have to quickly get to the register so customers wont have to wait. It's ridiculous!

I am getting barely any pay, no benefits, and I have to kiss butt to angry customers who tell me that I'm slow & don't do my job (which to them, is me standing by the register!). Just last night, I bought a pack of cigarettes and some lighters & put the bag by the front register, my manager runs up and says,

"Whats in the bag, why is it up front? If it's yours, you have to leave it in the office."

 So he took it to put in the office. At the end of the night, when I was in the office counting down the register, my manager proceeds to go through my bag, then he asks,

"Since when do you smoke?"

 and starts to examine my lighters. Not only is it none of his business, but he saw me purchase the items and put the bag by the front register before he ran up to me to repremand me. I feel like he is constantly breathing down my neck, and treating me as if I'm a convict and not an employee. If you want respect in the workplace, DO NOT WORK HERE.

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