Today's Real Post

--or--
Bile, Puss, and Radio-Active Waste
--or--
Wowed by the Wonders of Work
--or--
All Service Jobs Should Come With a Cyanide Pill

I went to work happy today, which is a rare thing when I leave the apartment at five in the morning. I was smiling. I drove with all the windows rolled down. Good songs played on the radio and I sang with them, screaming over the sound of wind rushing into the car. GIESW was there, she opened, so I was happy to see her again. OWGAWE was there too, but she was a little sour, which made me smile. I was moving to the music that only I could hear. Nothing could take me down, until 6:43AM came around, that it.

At that time, OWGAWE came to me and asked if The Manager had me told me about the survey I had to fill out. I hadn't heard of any survey. Was it for everyone? Nope, she said. Why me? She wouldn't say.

She had me sit at the back desk, handed me a form, which was mostly blank lines and told me what everything was about.

"You know about our last snapshot, right?" she asked. I nodded. Our last snapshot (the secret shopper bullshit so many companies use) was 43.7% and ***. The stars are okay, but the percentage sucks, especially since last quarter we had three five star snapshots and one of them was 100% (the others were in the 90s). "[The Manager]," OWGAWE continued, "is having everyone who was working at the time of the snapshot fill one of these out." She waved another form around. "You were on the shift," she looked at the snapshot paper, "but you weren't the register person or the barista, but you could have been the other bar person or the stocker or the missing fifth person. What you need to do is fill this out and sign it." She pointed to the paper in front of me. "And when your done," she said, "put it in [The Manager's] box."

OWGAWE did a quick turn and left. I looked at the form. It had four places that I needed to fill out. The first said:

"What did the barista do correctly on the:
Snapshot_____________"

The second said:

"What did the barista do incorrectly on the:
Snapshot_____________"

The third said:

"What could have been done to get a better:
Snapshot_____________"

The fourth said:

"Why is this important do these things for the:
Snapshot_____________"

The snapshot happened over a month ago. My work day is a blur by the next morning, how can I be expected to remember what happened at work a month ago?

On the first two, I copied what the secret shopper put on the snapshot. What else could I do?

The third was how people can correct the problems the secret shopper had.

The forth was answered with bullshit 'Bucks propaganda about 3rd places and special experiences and other things I don't really believe in.

Then came a paragraph telling me this paper was considered a conversation and a verbal warning. Does this seem wrong only to me? I wasn't involved in the poor score, why is it my warning? And who did I have a conversation with? I just filled out a fucking form. Then the next line said that if I'm involved in another snapshot like this one a more severe form of punishment will be involved, "up to and including termination."

Whoa! I thought. Something isn't right here. I don't deserve any threat like this. I'm a hard worker, not one of those fuck-ups. I always show up for work on time, not like [OWGAWE].

I noticed that I had signed the paper.

I knew then that I was a moron.

I rifled through the crap on the back desk until I found white-out. I took my signature off the paper and slid it into my manager's box. If she wants me to sign and date it, I decided, I'll have to speak directly with her.

I've also decided that I want a copy of the paper I wrote, a copy of the snapshot, and a copy of that weeks schedule. If the store is gonna fuck with me in this way, I'm gonna try and fuck with them back.

I don't deserve this kind of bullshit.

Too bad the places I interviewed at didn't want me. Not even the fucking movie theater.

*sigh*