I've worked about a week at Food City now. I'm pretty sure I hate it. I'm not going to quit or anything...but I hate it. It seems like most of the people I normally work with are either pretty old, or in high school. And nobody is very interesting. I overheard a guy whom I was bagging with today tell the cashier that he liked Chimaira. I told him I did too, and asked him who else he liked in hopes of starting a cool conversation about metal. But, as I'd feared, his responded that he also "really liked Korn, Slipknot, and Mudvayne". I almost feel like the sort of asshole elitists I don't like writing this but...I don't know, I was hoping his taste went a little deeper. Its just that those three bands belong to a group of music that either serves as a gateway to heavier, dare I say "better" music, or means that the person pretty much doesn't dig much deeper than the radio or MTV. I did offer to burn him a CD sometime with a lot of other bands that he might like. The situation reminded me of a conversation Erin and I had in the car one day when I was telling her how hard it was for me to have a meaningful conversation with most people. She basically accredited it to the fact that I was more, for lack of a better term, "hardcore" about the things I take interest in than the average person. And she's probably right. When I was talking to the guy at work (I feel bad I cant remember his name right now), I brought up a bunch of bands and it kind of seemed like his eyes glassed over. He mentioned that he just downloaded everything, and I told him I used bittorrent and mainly did too right now because I've been broke, and out of curiosity asked him what program he used. He was telling me how he used some version of limewire or something, and kind of halfway through mentioned offhand that he "knew it's not like the best, or most advanced program or anything." It was at this point I realized had somehow made him uncomfortable, or he thought I thought I was better than him, or whatever, which was totally not my intention. I achieved similar results on Sunday night trying to talk about NASCAR with some woman cashiers. They were talking with some customer who used to work for Dupont and was wearing a really nice Jeff Gordon jacket. The guy was talking about how many years Dupont had been his sponsor and a woman I worked with remarked that she didn't think he had won in awhile and if he didn't start doing better they might leave him. I interjected that not only was the Dupont/Jeff Gordon deal the current longest running sponsor/driver deal in NASCAR, but Jeff Gordon has a lifetime contract with Hendrick Motorsports that states as long as he drives Dupont will sponsor him. Everyone just kind of looked at me and one woman said, "Ohhhh...okay."
On weekday morning at work, most of the baggers are old men. Most of them are really nice, and seem pretty smart and able. And old. Like 60-70 old. I've wondered why each of them work there. Whether they've botched their retirement, perhaps they don't draw enough money, maybe they just enjoy working with the public, or somewhere in general, or more likely they're going to have to work for the rest of their foreseeable life simply because they need to pay the bills and that's the only way they can. I'd never ask, obviously. It makes me kind of sad when I think about it at times. I mean, of all places to work when you're 65 years old...a bagger at Food City? Its the sort of job you usually think about as the beginning of your career path...not the end. One of the old guy's name is Will. Everyone hates Will. He wanders around aimlessly some of the time, and probably checks the lot a little too often (in reality he's checking the drink machines or the parking lot for change, I think). But overall he's a pretty nice, if not quiet man. He offers to take just about everyone's groceries out for them, and talks to a lot of the kids. The majority of the other people who work on the front end of the store are pretty immature and I've heard different people claim everything from he walks around with his hands in his pockets all day because he's playing with himself to they think he's an old dirty pervert because he's always talking to kids and patting their heads and stuff. At one point today after bagging an elderly couple's order they needed assistance taking their groceries to their car because the woman was in a wheelchair and the husband had to push her out. So I started out with the buggy and Will came up and offered to take it out. Honestly I didn't really feel like going out anyway so I said okay and pushed it to him. Michelle, the girl working the register behind me, yelled really hateful at him that he needed to let me take it because I bagged the whole order. I mean, its hard to convey here how hateful her tone of voice was when she talked to him. He said something like, "yeah, he can take it" or something is his old man voice. I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and took the cart on out. When I came back Michelle was standing with the other 2 old man baggers and just spewing all kinds of mean stuff about him. She told me he always tried to do that because he wants to get tips from people and if he tried to do that again to tell him to go the hell away and to do some work, or something like that. I didn't get tipped when I went out. I was under the impression we weren't supposed accept money from people (I might be wrong). I told her I didn't really want to be mean to him, and that if he wanted to take the cart out that bad then he must need the (potential) money more than I do, and that he could take my carts out if he wanted to. From working with him some today I really just think he's an old guy who is old-fashioned, wants to give old-fashioned type service (though most people seem to want to take their own stuff out), and who likes kids. Maybe I don't know him well enough, but right now it makes me mad that everyone gives him such a hard time. Hell, he probably fought in World War II.
I'm off the next 2 days. I get my first check on Thursday which is cool. One positive is that my job is easy. So-easy-monkey-could-do-it easy. Now that I think about it, that's probably not a positive at all. No, it isnt. Maybe if I was making more money it would be.
I'm going to a (Xbox)LAN party Friday night. I'm pretty freakin' excited. There should be a lot of people there. I need a ride though. I was going to try and catch Wes online before Friday and see if maybe I could get a ride with him since he lives nearby. I have to work 12-4 Friday which is early enough to not be a problem, apparently. I hear we will be playing primarily Halo 2 and Unreal Championship 2. If it pans out well and we have another soon, I'd like to try to have enough money to rent 4 copies of TOCA 3. Large-scale multiplayer racing is awesome.
