It's 9:55pm and I want to redo my basement

During the week and on Saturdays, Lowe's is open till the unforgivable time of 10pm. I often wonder why people will come to the store at such a late hour to make big and important purchases. It is also suspicious to come in so late and in your cart you have a roll of plastic wrap, a saw, a hatchet, and plenty of bleach.

"Will that be all for you today?"

"Well, until you start selling industrial strength bags with zippers, then yes."

If you want to commit a violent and deadly crime, your big box home improvement stores offer a one stop shop to fulfill your homicidal needs. On a side note, Lowe's sells lye. Tired of your pesky neighbors asking "what's that smell?" and "where's your husband?" Lowe's has the answers.

To get back on topic, one of the largest and most prominent irks are the customers who come into the store when we are near closing time. The parking lot is empty, except for employee cars that are exiled to the back of the lot, the cash registers are being emptied, and the lights are dimmed. These are blatant indicators that the store is shutting down for the evening and your attempts to pick out the perfect granite top for your kitchen can wait till tomorrow. People will dive through the cracked open door as if they were escaping a horde of zombies and their only salvation is on the other side of the slowly closing gate.

The other day I was scheduled to close and I have a very rigid closing schedule. I flat stack all the lumber to make it pretty for tomorrow's first customer to admire for three seconds before they decide that it's too magnificent of a job to allow anyone else the opportunity to enjoy it and promptly destroy my beautification efforts. I sweep the aisles, and mop the concrete aisle. These are all exercises in futility. In addition, the precious pallets of concrete that sit just outside the lumber entrance need brought in with a forklift. Company policy states that before the store opens and after it closes are the only times you can operate power equipment without a spotter. So, to complete that portion of my routine, I must bide my time and wait for 10pm to strike.

At 9:55pm, two men entered my department to buy a considerable amount of drywall, particle board, and everything else you can imagine would be needed to completely remodel a basement. I have to help these two grown adults lift objects onto carts. They are in their thirties I assumed, and sketchy looking I knew. The load up their supplies for a long night and make my night that much longer as well. I pace like a caged lion, eyeing its prey. My sights are set on the forklift which I will leap onto once they leave. But they don't leave. Everything's going wrong and I'm losing control. My routine is thrown into disarray because the one guy is basically illiterate.

He doesn't read his receipt, he examines it. Last I checked, the receipt does not print out in Sumerian cuneiform. Nor does it print out in Latin or Hieroglyphics. He asks question after question, "What does this mean?" Meanwhile, his friend goes outside to load up their stuff.

At this point it's 10:15, I wanted to get out of work by 10:30. Finally, the cashier manages to get rid of this guy and I open the gate to drive the forklift out. Outside, in the middle is a solitary bag of concrete that could not have just fallen off of a pallet. It all made sense in that moment. The 'illiterate' one was tying us up while his friend loaded who knows how many bags of concrete into their vehicle. By now they were high-fiving each other on a job well as they turned onto the highway and there was nothing I could do. The make things worse, the forklift ran out of fuel just as I lurched it outside, just to add insult to injury. I nearly blow myself up putting another tank of propane on the forklift. I was soundly beaten and out-smarted by these two con men. I hope their basement collapses on them at 3am.

In Memoriam

I recently went on vacation. A group of us blazed our way to Universal Studio's Halloween Horror Nights and from there went on a 7 day cruise through the Caribbean . It was a a much needed reprieve from the monotony of school, work, and no social life which resulted. I returned late Sunday, weary and overly tan. I could very well have taken Monday off from work but I needed the money, not the first time I did something foolish for the sake of a quick buck. I did the deal with the Devil and came to work Monday. This time I was just even more so tired but still very tan. Despite my body at the brink of exhaustion, I strode into work largely reinvigorated and ready to take the bull by the horns. However, a dark cloud lingered over the Lumber Department. The aisles were cold and abandoned, the overall state of the department was one of neglect and dilapidation. I found an associate who works at the Commercial Sales Desk, where I once worked as their beast of burden before my transfer three feet over to the Lumber Department. After a pleasant exchange and inquiry into my cruise, he dropped the bomb. It fell upon my as suddenly  and as violently as a nuclear detonation.

Jason: You sure missed a lot, they fired Pat

My Lowe's Life came to an abrupt end. I felt the high I was riding come crashing down with a fury. Pat  is (was) one of the associates I worked with in the department. He is a veteran like myself and he and I also have the same twisted and warped sense of humor that allows us to make it day by day in the world we unfortunately inhabit. We are good friends and it was horrible to hear of his passing from this (Lowe's) Life. His loss was far too great for me to handle, not only was he a good friend but an actually knowledgable and hard working associate. Him and I share the same opinions of the customers we encounter and deal with.

Me: What happened?

Jason: They fired him and Kim a few days ago. They didn't have all the gates up when they were operating the reach truck and Brian saw them and wrote them up.

It's a company policy that when a piece of power equipment is in use, the aisle it is in needs blocked off and a spotter has to be present to ensure customers don't wander blindly into the aisle. The aisle blockers which are basically yellow accordions on wheels with a sign reading, "DO NOT ENTER." This phrase is powerless to the inept and uncaring. Customers will move the sign and enter despite all indications that the aisle is closed. I've chased many a customer out of blocked off aisle. Brian, one of the blue-vested assistant managers saw their incomplete barriers and wrote them up. The two were promptly fired despite the stone-walled intervention and inquiry of our manager, Justin. Justin informed me he feels there is more to the story, a seedy underbelly that higher powers will stop at nothing to keep from the light of truth. In addition to this, Tim, our most competent employee experienced a life altering epiphany while I was gone.

Tim is an advent biker and software programmer, an unlikely combination. He worked part-time and was perhaps our most valuable employee. He was efficient, skilled, and knowledgable. His riding partner dropped dead while he was riding his bike in a park. Tim saw this loss and interpreted it as "Life is too short for me to be spending the rest of my days telling people where the concrete aisle is." Coupled with the unjust firing of a comrade, he made a life choice and quit. In the span of a week, we lost three people. Every loss stings as our manpower is now down to thread bare. I was angry and confused, yet it was all already done, nothing else could come of it. So, I went to where we have an "office" which is just a space where junk is stored behind the Commercial Sales desk and pinned up a paper, which reads:

In Memoriam

2013

Tarrell

Patrick

Kimberly

Timothy

"Tis better to have loved and lost; than never to have loved at all"

-Tennyson

Tarrell was another casualty inflicted a few months ago, a lively and sly associate who was very energetic and fun. He too fell prey to the machinations of management. 

How Does a Snap-On Gutter Work?

Figure A.

Does this picture confuse you? That's okay, it's just a diagram that over complicates a simple home improvement task. The other day as I walked the beat in the lumber department, I receive a page overhead saying a customer is in need of assistance with the gutters, which are part of my department. Dread swept over me like the Winter's chill. What could they need? I have no clue about any of that stuff! No training was given to me nor do I have practical experience with gutters. Despite me fear, I pressed on and found the lost soul in question. I braced myself for the worst as I greeted him and asked what he needed.

Customer: How do these snap-on gutters work?

Me:...They snap on, sir

Customer: Can you show me?

At this point my brain has imploded from the stupidity and I ask him to repeat himself.

Customer: Can you show me how these work?

Naturally, I say okay and walk over the a gutter and easily snap it on. There is a pause and the customer leans forward to examine my magic. Even a millisecond of contemplation is too long for something so simple. He eyes me and says thank you. An hour passes and when I go to Customer Service to gather the returns that are for my department, a single and lonely snap-on gutter sat in the cart. I suppose the customer didn't write down what I did or it was just beyond his comprehension. Somewhere, right now, a man is standing in his yard and crying as leaves clog up his gutters. He'll collapse to his knees in his grass and curse the Heavens and plead for a reprieve and an answer on how to sto this horrible plague upon his house.

The Customer is Always Right

It's a saying that's as old as the concept of the store. A customer walks in, wants this and wants it that way and the customer gets said good or service to their liking. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? No, in all actuality it doesn't. When need goods and services, however, I am not bossy, rude, or demeaning towards the employee I am dealing with. I understand that as a customer sales associate, that I am required to bend and bow to the wants and desires of our customer base but sometime's it's too much. I work in the Lumber Department and there we stock items such as...you guessed it, lumber. As well as that, we sell shingles, concrete, siding, and general building materials you would need for whatever you need. Contractors who know what they want and they want you to let them be are my favorite customers. If they need help, they'll ask. However, it's the well-off customers, the ones who watched an episode of "Yard Crashers" and suddenly think they can build an entire deck on their own that cause the most angst. They make outrageous demands upon us, unrealistic delivery dates for their bulk items.
"I want to build a deck, what do I need?" Is a common question. I do not get paid to map out and devise their project for them, I'm not your project manager. Regardless, half the time you won't take my advice anyways because you watched "Yard Crashers." In addition, if let's say a pack of shingles is torn, that is, just the packaging and the shingles are all accounted for and undamaged, they will demand an absurd amount taken off of the price. I say no, but what do I know? The customer will usually be unsatisfied with my answer and want to speak to a manager. This request I always oblige because it gets the customer away from me and into the arms of someone else who has to now deal with them. The managers will always give the customer what they want, always. It doesn't matter how extreme or odd, the managers will cave in quicker than a mine.