The Convenience Store Jerk

Chapter 4


Day 30

Wendy was not a manager, but she played one every day by talking down to us; which quickly put her at number one.

It didn’t matter how big earrings she wore, they never made her head appear smaller and the tight black pants made her ass look even bigger; so I wasn’t sure what the point was for repeatedly wearing those either. She actually seemed like at one time she was a nice gal, but I’m guessing after working at convenience stores and truck stops for over 6 years as she bragged; had had a negative effect on her …given I was already suicidal after only four weeks.

Her ‘notes’ she would put in the ledger next to the registers every night though were “unacceptable” and “just plain rude” I complained and others soon agreed. I was shocked to hear she’d been doing this for almost a year and no one had busted her on it yet; so when I began openly calling her notes “absurd and a slap in the proverbial face”; my attitude toward her was contagious. Soon Tim had developed a serious dislike for her, Layne already had hated her, but he was gone and so too had Jackara who once even hit her, I heard.

Joanne became an ally in hating Wendy and before long even laid back Eric and Shawn were sick of her too. But when I egged Tim on to write:”You’re not a manager” in the book under her last note, he took it one further and added the word ‘bitch’ at the end in black permanent marker which bled thru several pages deeper, and as luck would have it sent her into the next hemisphere when she read it causing her to quit several minutes after doing so.

“Oh shit”! I said when Joanne told me what happened.

Thankfully Tim in all his juvenile wisdom was at least bright enough to destroy the ledger so no one could know exactly why she quit, but she did and all was rather quiet for a few days following it; so no real complaints from ‘the crew’; especially me as I’d now seen more people lose their jobs in a month than any I’d ever been on before…and began thinking I was a bad influence perhaps.

...

What eventually managed to push me closer to the edge wasn’t so much what others did or said, but that I was standing behind a convenience store counter of my own fruition to begin with. I mean shit, I’ve lived in NY, Miami, and LA, I’ve worked in Texas, Chicago, and Georgia; and now I stand before total dipshits selling them tobacco and beer and potato chips and gum.

“ %#@*”

I could have saved myself a world of misery to get to this place had I just settled for what was inevitable in my life anyway and walked the six blocks from my parents’ old house and taken a job at the frickin 7-11 I visited first when I about 8 years old.

Yes my mind began saying things to me and none of them were good.

...

While I’ve always been a fan of classic rock, thanks to this damned job an its’ incessant MUSAK I’ll no longer turn up Hendrix, Heart, or the Beatles songs ever again as long as I live, and when that $#@* Santana song comes on it’d be best not to be within gun range if I happened to be holding one.

Wayne to his credit changed it without permission for about a full week to a more hard alternative station, but the profanity drove a few older customers to complain. Though when they changed it back and that damned Santana song played again for the fifth time in a single shift, I made up for it ten-fold by some cursing of my own from across the counter...

“I hate this Mother %#@*& song”!

...

Until working there I’d only had limited exposure to the majority of folks who lived and worked in Bozeman, given I either slept all day or went hunting or fishing; and never really worked since I arrived. Now though I was front and center and began to realize there are all sorts here too; and its uniqueness quickly faded.

While I’d had this misconception it was all wealthy homeowners and college kids, my exposure to the dredges of the city left me thinking nowhere was immune.

There are just as many filthy red necks here as in the south. There’s crack heads, and dope fiends, and the infamous hippy “caregivers” who provide the necessary juicy buds to the thousands of local “patients”; whose only ailment is they like to smoke a lot of pot.

There’s as much a tattoo fad here as anywhere I’ve ever seen and young kids come in daily covered in the things beyond anything tasteful or even an extreme biker or gang banging convict might adorn themselves with.

They all smoke cigarettes and any assumption the countries’ population is slowing down or quitting tobacco is way off the mark as I sell thousands of dollars worth of it every shift and if we didn’t provide it I’m certain our customer base would drop by 90%. Young and old folks are hooked. A pack a day is standard and some get two, while others get a carton at about $50.00 a pop. The usual though is a pack of Camel Lights (or Blues as we now call them, since they’re not lighter of anything deadly), a case of Budweiser, and a can of Cope.

I suggested we just wrap up this package in some sort of pre-pay deal and start a local delivery service; where we leave it on folk’s doorstep every evening at 6 o’clock sharp; to avoid having to deal with them coming in every single day. I would have loved this service back when I drank a six pack a day...for the past 20 years.

This at least would save me carding 30 year old dudes and women no longer flattered by such things and instead highly insulted especially when they don’t have theirs on them and we can’t sell the items they need; pulling them away from their needy claws and placing them behind the register.

“The Sting”- It’s what we’ve all been lectured on and even had to watch a stupid video about. Apparently there’s a grant of some sort that each town has and is designed to set-up convenience store losers to fall even further when they’re fined for not carding folks who are clearly of legal age. “Under 26” were told; “if the guy or gal looks under 26 we should card them for smokes” Wendy, who thinks she’s a manager says daily to me, even though I blow her off and say “I don’t care”.

This of course infuriates her and she made a note about it (about 48 hours before she quit). Instead I’d developed my own tactic to avoid having to card everyone, by simply verbally threatening young folks across the counter from time to time I thought might be stinging me if they’re “secret shoppers”, as they’re sometimes called. I’d often add:”I don’t need this stupid job”; even though I kinda did. I’m not sure if it worked, but I was never stung while I was there which is remarkable since Eric was stung twice in one weekend and Layne had been stung without carding three times last Spring.

Worse than all of the above though belongs to the handful of folks who come in daily, often times multiple visits per day, and buy their poor malnourished kids ice cream and candy with their EBT food-stamp card and then whip out wads of cash for beer and cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets; which they scratch right in front of me on the counter and hand back when they have ‘a winner’ and make me serve them up another, and another, and…

“You sorry mother #%@*!”

Then there are the old ladies or retirees who I almost hated as much. If I saw a grey hair coming toward the register I quickly threw out my ‘next register’ sign and took my break as I know it’s gonna take 15 minutes to do a simple transaction. The old farts always pay in nickels dimes and pennies, or worse they’ll have coupons and then wanna pay with a check and get back $10.00 cash; which always screwed up my register later as I’m not very bright and ring the shit up wrong every damned time.

Meanwhile the line forming behind them of angry cash carrying dudes who just want their beer and Skoal Pouches, is increasingly eyeballing me while I stand their pointing at the hag in front of me who at the last minute as I’m handing her back her change says:”..Oh wait I have 9 cents, can you give me back..”

“No now beat it”. I tell them, never letting them finish.

Then there’s the tobacco we carry specifically for one or two customers and no one else ever buys, but to provide a good local service to those few addicted to this brand and no other; we have “the Virginia Slims Purple pack” and the stupid bitch has to point me in the right direction every other day when she comes in, or the gal who gets a carton of Salem Lights then writes a check for them and wants 10 bucks back so she can buy four scratch offs.

“mother %$#@*”!

Or the old dude who buys “Camel shorts soft pack” and is the only guy in Montana I’m told by the vendor - who smokes them so we have to carry them; which of course when we’re out he blows a $#@% gasket right there in line and I just stand there mocking him saying:”...Are you suuure you don’t wanna try some of these new Marlboro Smooths, we have on sale” waving them slowly in his old face.

We carry only two flavors of Winston’s and two Parliament, both regular and lights, but Marlboro comes in no less than 30 kinds to kill oneself and not only flavors, but different sizes which I still don’t get but think is more to simply give those addicted the ability to piss off convenience store clerks who eventually quit because they get infuriated when they hand a bitch 72’s instead of 27’s, or American Spirit Blues or Yellows for ‘mediums’;...when every smoker knows “it’s the light green pack”.

...

By the fourth week on the job I’d finally learned how to cash-out while being within a buck or two of the figure the register said'. This momentous occasion was cause for some celebration on my part; as I was convinced, and I think the rest of the crew was too, that this day might never happen.
On at least one occasion out of the past 30 I even came up with zero; though have no idea how that happened.

“Being under is of course really bad” I was told and if I continued to do so I was also reminded I’d “be written up or fired”. That I could understand as it meant I clearly was an idiot, or else I was stealing and not bright enough to hide it; as I suspected others were doing.

The first two weeks I tried it I was consistently under by roughly $30.00 and while most of these were simple errors and discrepancies and the money was there, but just recorded wrong; on at least 3 occasions I was clearly off by 20 bucks and it wasn’t in my drawer or safe.

“Shit”

I began to think Tim or Layne might be taking advantage of my stupidity and grabbing a few bucks figuring it would simply be ignored as ‘a new guy in-training’ type error. I only thought this because I would likely do the same if the opportunity presented itself. Unsure whether it was them or me, I began keeping about 20 bucks worth of my own money in ones and fives in my pocket ‘just in case’; and mentally told myself it was job-insurance for being a dumbass all my life when it came to simple math.

Two days after I thought I’d had it mastered, I came up “$82.00 over”...and while I thought that was good, apparently it’s not.

...


When I get truly depressed I play the Lotto. I know there’s simply no way on earth I’ll ever win Powerball, but purchasing a ticket on several occasions, has been the only thing keeping me from ending it all; …that ‘possibility’ that the ticket in my pocket might be the Jackpot. It’d be my luck I’d die and they find out this afterward of course, so I always wake up and go see if I’m right or not. And of course I’m instead greeted with the words: ‘Not a Winner’; which is a lovely way to start any day.

It really became bad though when I was working the evening shifts as the drawing was near and the deadline was 8PM folks would come in scrambling to play just in time before the machine said ‘no’. It was amazing how much some idiots would spend and while a few played a single ticket or two, the majority played over $20.00 and some even around $60.00 twice a week.

The one thing I was a sucker for was that odd ticket Tim or I had accidentally printed out when someone asked for something different, and we’d place this one right on the machine in the hopes of selling it later to correct our error, but it always bugged me to see it up there and after a few minutes I’d reach over and sell it to myself.

It never worked of course, but gave me hope I’d make it thru the end of each shift without killing Tim or Wendy or Eric or...

...


Moe