Brain Vs Brain

6:48. Time to turn off the car and head into work. My hand doesn’t move. My hand and body in general always wait for a confirmation from both sides of the brain (the good side and the bad side) before any action is taken. The body wants 3 things to be full, warm and relaxed like we were an hour ago before that idiot alarm ruined our lives again! Bad Brain says we can put it drive, be back in bed in minutes and forget all about work today. Heck, we already had breakfast two more steps and we’re golden, my darlings. We need go in, we need money, Bad Brain and you need exercise, Body. I can feel Bad Brain frowning, but he concurs. Fine, Body responds by turning off the car. You’re in charge (for now), but if we have to unload any trucks this morning, I’m taking us all out.

6:51. Clock in and head to the back to pretend to look at important documents on the computer.

7:10. Arrive in my department. Good Brain tries its damnedest to pull the corners of my mouth up and look engaging while Bad Brain thinks this is a lame poser move. Lori walks by without comment; obviously she does not have a good brain problem.

“Hello”, he said lamely. Bad brain always adds “he said lamely” every time Good Brain says hello. Bad Brain likes to keep it real, but Good Brain cannot say “what up” without blushing. They often debate about how to greet people. Hello does seem lame, but what if we said it with flair like Mrs. Doubtfire or Squigy? Then people would think you thought you were too funny. We are funny, that is funny stuff. Worked for Robin Williams and that other guy (sort of). Shut up, brain, both brains say in unison.

It doesn’t matter because Lori ignores the greeting even though she stared me down as she passed. Weirdo. Who dresses like that? Leave her alone; people can dress however they want. Whatever, she looks like prom night at Monster High. Nice pink dog collar with spikes, nice pig tails on your wannabe Harley Quinn hair that almost matches your platform combat boots. And is that Batman airbrushed on her jeans? They say POW! and BOP! on the front and Batman across the back. That’s some homemade arts and crap! Yeah, but it also has the Gotham Skyline on the legs, very creative, shows talent. Bad Brain rolls nonexistent eyes. B.B. doesn’t like Lorri. On the 2nd day on my new morning shift she was supposed to train me and with much drama demanded to know why she was being punished by our boss. This could have been a joke and I was willing to treat it as such, but she then went to the meat department guy, Dale or Duke or Dick, and said “look who I have to deal with today. What did I do?” He smirks, looking down his nose at me which is impressive because he is a good 2 inches shorter. At least Lorri let me tag along. Old Duke or Dale just walked away when the boss told him to train me on the 1st day. He just walked away without saying a word. Good Brain agrees the guy’s name is totally Dick.

7:16. Anyhoo, everybody pretty much ignores me now. Which is fine but that also means I have to come up with my projects. I wander around the back room for a bit. Plug my store provided work phone into my self-provided charger which stopped working a week after I bought it (typical I bought it here). I would return it, but Customer Service does not live up to that name around here. Bad brain has fantasies of spray painting a big DIS between the 2 words.

7:27. No carts or printers available. I even checked the usual hiding places; behind the strawberries in the cooler, in an old box of receipts in the bakery, under a colander (I know) by the sink, nothing. If I try to help my “team mates” they look at me like I just asked for a kidney. The folks around here do not like to share anything, even work. They know if they look busy doing whatever something close to nothing they found they will not be forced to actual work. They beat us to it, bad brain thinks. Good brain smiles and nods and gets the hell out of their way.

7:33. There is a whole pallet of various soups, dips and potato salad that needs to go out in the deli cooler! Oh, glorious day! So much potato salad! Original, Deviled Egg, Mustard and Amish. Amish potato salad is mixed by candle light with a wooden spoon and does not have a mustache. It is the most pious of potato salads unlike that loud mouth braggart Original or that strutting Mustard and don’t even put it on the same self as the Deviled Egg. While Bad Brain entertains itself, I load the L-Cart I stole from dairy.

7:41. That only took 9 minutes! Am I in hell? No, Hell has friendlier customers.

7:45. I start to unload my wares onto shelves that aren’t big enough forcing me to get creative when finding room. They have redone the system at least a dozen times in the 5 years I’ve been here. The thing is all these ways of stocking and inventory would probably work if the workers (me included) were trained. But nobody really knows what’s going on. The powers that be try to fix the problem by updating with “idiot proof” new equipment and procedures instead of talking to us. So please, cherished customer don’t hate the employees for not knowing anything. We were never told. We are as lost as you. Bad Brain and Good Brain are on the same page on this one.

8:00. Still working the L-Cart when the GM walks by with a personal shopper cart. He does this to show he is a working man’s boss. That might be the case if didn’t just ordered whatever poor schmuck is closest to him to find the products that aren’t directly in front of his weasel face. I saw him at Great Clips once when I was getting my hair cut. They spun my chair around right when The Million Dollar Man strolled in like he owned the place. They ask if he had an appointment and he scoffed. They scoffed and told him to take a seat. He looked stunned; these hair-mongers have no idea who he is. He looked lost for a minute then he saw … me. He raises his eyebrows like I should offer him my seat, cutting short (puns are lame) my hair cut, and God help me Good Brain almost did it. But Bad Brain used it veto and Body smirked like a Bond villain as they turned my chair away from the Joseph Stalin of Grocery Stores.

9:00. Janice the supervisor walks in. She’s alright because she knows this place is not alright. But she is still the boss so there is the whole take it somewhat seriously thing going on. Good Brain feels for her because she told me the other day the rest of the “team members” here started an “I Hate Janice Club”. Bad brain thought that was hilarious! The 1st Rule of I Hate Janice Club is…

9:30. I’ve moved on the frozen pizzas and sandwiches part of my day. This takes a long time and some effort because I have to steal a printer from some foolish coworker that thought they could hide it under their vest when they went to break (a weak effort). I also need to bust out some labels before the charge dies on my store phone. I know I’m making all this seem very glamorous, but Good Brain does get a kick out of being able to do our job and Bad Brain loves the stealing part.

10:30. Printing off labels from a printer that only prints half the label half the time takes 2 times as long as it should. It also wastes lots of printer stickers. I have to walk by Janice to get more stickers and she asks, in a tone of voice that implies she already knows the answer,

“Have you ever heard of cold chain?”

Bad brain is raising his hand like a nerd in science class with responses like,

“What, is that your church group?” or

“Man, that band sucks.”

Good brain just says no. She then informs me that things out of the freezer need to put back into the freezer every 20 minutes and I am beyond twenty minutes. I nod and leave. I have a club meeting to attend.

1145. Cold chain completed and I’m scanning the rest of the boxes in the freezer. I think I’m doing this right. Who cares we are outta here in 6 minutes. Still it would be nice to show I’m not a completely incompetent jerk of a team member. I think the stickers are wrong but they finally scan (mostly) so I guess that’ll work. I’ve already put the printer back under the vest of that team member that has been on break for a long, long time. Maybe she escaped. Bad Brain is happy for her.

1151: Clocked out and headed to my other job (whole other story). Good Brain and Bad Brain realize that they need each other to get through the day. Without Good I would be fired 10 minutes in and without Bad I would be taken advantage of. Body still thinks of taking everybody out.