2008 Woodie Awards
Bag This Summer Break
Matthew Coyne
Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Features
Some people spend their summers expanding their minds. They get internships or take classes. These over-achievers sharpen their minds over the summer months, gain credit towards their degrees, and, sometimes, if they are lucky, pad their GPA's. Others get full-time jobs and make money that they will inevitably waste on various Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights throughout the year. Still, others go abroad, immerse themselves and fully experience a new culture.
I did none of that. I went back to my job at a grocery store.
I had to go back to the grocery store because I simply did not put in enough effort to find a new job. It is either that, or I was deemed completely unemployable by the few potential employers I found. I like to opt for the less depressing of the two, and say it was because I was unmotivated.
Why the grocery store took me back in the first place boggles my mind. I am possibly the worst customer servant of all time. Over my two years at the store I had cultivated a rock-solid, near-impregnable apathy towards the customers who come into the store. It is an apathy I should not be proud of, but am. When someone complains about their avocados not ringing up on sale for 20 cents off, I am the last person to care. In fact, I know, and defy the customer not to find two dimes somewhere in the gargantuan Louis Vitton bag she insists on carrying around. I know, but hold back from pointing out, that 20 cents is not going to break the bank since I saw you drove that God-forsaken Yuppie Chariot formally known as a BMW 6 Series into the parking lot.
Instead, I simply, and as politely as I possibly can, point out that I need their store member card in order to get the sale, and they dive into their Louis Vitton bag like Michael Phelps into an Olympic swimming pool, or ask me to look up their card like a third grader who forgot their homework.
Occasionally this tedious process is broken up by the women who always ask for rain checks. This touches off a flurry of my coworkers running around the store making sure that there really are not any more eight-ounce containers of Fat-Free Cool Whip lying around in the back. My coworkers then report the details back to Customer Service with the same precision I would expect from the Iraqi Navy. This down-time gives the women time to awkwardly flirt with me. Generally they will tell me that I have beautiful eyes, or ask me if my hair is actually that curly. Occasionally I will get one who tells me that she can paint me, or one who tells me how beautiful Prague is this time of year and how I need to see it.
This process was repeated seemingly unendingly for five or six days out of the week, six hours at a time. It was towards the end of the summer that I came to a realization: My mind was most likely in the same state as it would be if I spent a comparable amount of time reading Perez Hilton or, say, scent testing caustic chemicals.
Hey, at least I know the numbers to ring up obscure fruits and vegetables, like starfruit (4782), pickling cucumbers (4433), and Belgian Endive (3142).
I did none of that. I went back to my job at a grocery store.
I had to go back to the grocery store because I simply did not put in enough effort to find a new job. It is either that, or I was deemed completely unemployable by the few potential employers I found. I like to opt for the less depressing of the two, and say it was because I was unmotivated.
Why the grocery store took me back in the first place boggles my mind. I am possibly the worst customer servant of all time. Over my two years at the store I had cultivated a rock-solid, near-impregnable apathy towards the customers who come into the store. It is an apathy I should not be proud of, but am. When someone complains about their avocados not ringing up on sale for 20 cents off, I am the last person to care. In fact, I know, and defy the customer not to find two dimes somewhere in the gargantuan Louis Vitton bag she insists on carrying around. I know, but hold back from pointing out, that 20 cents is not going to break the bank since I saw you drove that God-forsaken Yuppie Chariot formally known as a BMW 6 Series into the parking lot.
Instead, I simply, and as politely as I possibly can, point out that I need their store member card in order to get the sale, and they dive into their Louis Vitton bag like Michael Phelps into an Olympic swimming pool, or ask me to look up their card like a third grader who forgot their homework.
Occasionally this tedious process is broken up by the women who always ask for rain checks. This touches off a flurry of my coworkers running around the store making sure that there really are not any more eight-ounce containers of Fat-Free Cool Whip lying around in the back. My coworkers then report the details back to Customer Service with the same precision I would expect from the Iraqi Navy. This down-time gives the women time to awkwardly flirt with me. Generally they will tell me that I have beautiful eyes, or ask me if my hair is actually that curly. Occasionally I will get one who tells me that she can paint me, or one who tells me how beautiful Prague is this time of year and how I need to see it.
This process was repeated seemingly unendingly for five or six days out of the week, six hours at a time. It was towards the end of the summer that I came to a realization: My mind was most likely in the same state as it would be if I spent a comparable amount of time reading Perez Hilton or, say, scent testing caustic chemicals.
Hey, at least I know the numbers to ring up obscure fruits and vegetables, like starfruit (4782), pickling cucumbers (4433), and Belgian Endive (3142).