MatthewValitalo.com

Ah, the new year quickly approaches. Old dreams are burned, making room for new goals and aspirations. This cool weather is so life-affirming and energizing; I don’t recall another time that I wanted to accomplish so much. I suppose I’m starting to put away childish things (mainly mindsets).

I’ve moved this site to DreamHost, and so far it’s pretty fantastic. I’m not even day three or so of my free trial, and I’m already sold on this new host. Unlimited domain hosting, bandwidth, diskspace, SQL databases, FTP/shell users (shell access! YES!) and a bunch of stuff for under ten bucks a month for two years. If you’re interested, I can create some promo codes to get you a discount on new accounts. Otherwise if you’ll say that matthewvalitalo AT gmail DOT com referred you, that would be awesome, ’cause I get monay. <3

This is awesome that I can host unlimited domains too. I also have wundersprockets.com hosted, but that’s just going to be a sandbox so I can play around with/teach myself some PHP. Oh, anyway, enough geeking out.

Firstly, I want to tell you how my Christmas Eve went. Oh, how I hate working holidays at a grocery store.

Generally, the customers I get are pretty cheerful, or at least act like human beings. Every once in a while, I’ll get customers who just seem to be having a bit of a bad day, and I’ll understand that that item didn’t ring up right, I’ll get it fixed for you. Then there was a woman in a tier of raging hatred all her own. She was pre-destined to hate every particle in the totality of all creation. She fought me every part of the way, from the time I said, “Hello!” and started ringing up her items until she left the store.

I was released for lunch break early that day. I should have said something, because I knew that when I returned to work, I’d be working for four and a half hours with no break (and quite literally. On holidays, you pretty much don’t stop ringing up customers). I’m probably at about 3 hours into this fray when she comes through. “Hello!” I say. She just intensely stares at the selection of candy near the register for those impulse buys. Okay, whatever. I start ringing up some organic butternut squash and one regular butternut squash. I start ringing up on the other items in her order, when she sharply asks, “Is that organic? I don’t want organic. The bin was just mixed with organic and regular, and I don’t want organic. You should tell them to separate them.”

I say, “Well, these two are organic and this one isn’t. Do you want me to take them off?”

“Yes. I don’t want organic. Take them off. Just ring up two more regular ones and I’ll go switch them out.”

I was going to say that they’re sold by their weight, not by item, but I just knew that would just summon a shitstorm. “Okay,” I say. I ring up the rest of her items and give her the total, and she pays. Just as the receipt is printing, she makes a comment about the total, saying that I “made a mistake”. I calmly reminded her that I rang up the regular butternut squash two more times, like she asked me to.

“Oh, okay.” she replies. Whew. Situation resolved. Good thing I won’t be seeing her again. Oh, crap, she’s leaving her receipt! Don’t just leave it on the counter after I give it to you! You need that! Cashier sense is tingling! …oh. Oh. Good, her boyfriend/husband took it. Disaster averted.

So I go along my way, ringing up just some really chipper and upbeat customers, and just some who want to get out as quickly as possible so they don’t make conversation. That’s be cool. I’m helping move the last bags of a really nice elderly woman’s bags into her cart, and as soon as I turn to get back to the scanner to ring up the next customer, the vast scape of the celestial bodies rumbled in agony as the noise reached my ears, “Where’s my receipt!?” “Ma’am, I gave you your receipt.” “No, you didn’t! I don’t have it!” “Ma’am, I definitely gave you your receipt. You need that to make sure you get your regular butternut squash.” The boyfriend/husband enters the scene, and offers, “It’s right here.” “Oh,” she says.

“Well, you rang this up wrong!” I was speechless. The shitstorm I was trying to prevent was brewing up anyway. Judgment Day is inevitable.

“You know that these are sold by weight, right?” she demands. “Ma’am, I just took off the organic ones and added two more regular ones so that you could go change them out, just like you asked me to.”

“Oh, well you’re supposed to know that these are sold by weight.” The boyfriend/husband probably feels pretty embarrassed at this point, so he’s trying to calm her down. I don’t remember what he was going to say, because she violently overlapped his voice with her own, “No! He’s supposed to learn that these are sold by weight!”

I say, “Well, they’re pretty close to the same size, I didn’t think it would matter if you were going to switch them out…” The boyfriend/husband says something else to calm her down, and I suppose that worked. I was pretty much done with her shenanigans. I needed to get back to the line of customers I have. I say in my moset cheery/friendly voice, “Have a nice day, ma’am!” and simply turn away, asking my next customer how he was doing as I was ringing up his beer. I saw a disgusted look from him that was directed to the woman, and I felt better because of that, even if he didn’t say hello back.

But that doesn’t end my day, oh no, things need to get much worse.

It’s about three minutes past the time I was scheduled to stop working, so I turn off my light, finish up my customers, and start cleaning my register. I wasn’t thinking too clearly by not having a proper break in about four and a half hours, so I forgot that one of the managers needs to tell me to turn off my light. So I’m cleaning up my register, and the front-end manager asks me who told me to turn my light off. “No one.” I say. Must’ve struck a nerve, because she goes, “Oh, you’re running the front now?” This takes whatever energy I had and just about halves it. “No… I just…” I couldn’t even come up with an excuse; there was nothing I could have said anyway.

I slink back to my register and prepare for another onslaught of customers as I turn my light back on. I take some heavy sighs, and remember that I started running low on single dollar bills and quarters. “Well, if that’s the case, I’ll need singles and quarters. Right away.” “Right away?” she had a look of disbelief. I pushed. “Right away. Stat.” She just stared, and the other manager she was talking with gave me a weak smile and said, “You can turn your light off.” I do so immediately. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I just want to go home and drink some sodas and watch TV or something. I almost leap for joy, I was so elated.

The other manager spots something, and addresses the front-end manager, “There are a few carry-backs here (for those not in the know, these are items that customers abandon in random places in the store or at the register when they no longer want them). Did you want him to do these?” My heart sank. I already knew the answer. “Yeah, he can do those.” I was livid. I was ready to just quit my shift then and there. I worked for four and a half hours with no proper break, and from the looks of it, I’ll be here for another half hour! I value my job though, so I keep my gob shut.

Only minutes after I start putting items back on the shelves am I called to the front. Okay, they were just pulling my leg. I’m going home.

I get to the front of the store and surprise! Humanity is dead, and some guy’s card was declined on a couple-hundred dollar order, so all those items are to go back too. Add another hour’s worth of work. One of the other cashiers asks me to help her out with these items. I’m fine with it, it’s not her fault. At least it’s valid this time, and not some manager’s head swelling up with power. Okay. We split up two carts full of items, dividing the store in half to help quicken the job. About ten minutes later, I’m called to my register. I’m going home for real this time. I wanted to help the other cashier with these takebacks, because this wasn’t about political nonsense trying to screw with me. She actually needed help. I just wanted to go home, though. So I compromised; I put back all of the cold items and left the rest. I went to my register, and the one manager was there to count my till. We go through it like normal, my till was pretty close to what it should have been, and I initial off and clock out.

My day is over? Wrong again, my friend. Almost, though.

I notice the gas tank in my mom’s car is about a quarter full, so I decide to give her a sort of a Christmas gift and top off the tank for her. I stop at a Marathon, they’re usually pretty cheap. I swipe my debit card and am ready to start pumping gas, but then the pump says I need to see the attendant. I go, and he says that the card was declined for some reason; I figured they froze it because of Christmas Eve and all. Whatever. I thank the attendant and just get back on the road again so I can get home. When I pull onto the road, I hear something hit the road, but there were no cars around. A half-second’s thought after seeing the tank cap hatch open reminded me that I forgot to put the gas cap back on. It’s in traffic now, crap! I pull to the side in a turning lane and put those emergency lights on that make both blinkers blink (can’t think of the name at the moment). Anyway, I get out of the car, screaming profanities at myself for being such an idiot. Traffic’s really coming now! I hear a distinct POP! as cars pass by. I shout more profanities, as that popping sound was the cap being destroyed. I managed to recover half of it when traffic thinned out. I looked at it. There was no way that thing was going back on the car. I sat it down in the passenger seat and just drove home, just saying one string of profanities after another.

Then I arrived home, and my night finished much, much better.

tldr; I worked for about 5.25 hours without a proper break after having a really bad customer, then my debit card was declined when I tried to get gas. I also forgot to put the gas tank cap back on and it was destroyed in traffic.

You know what? Much of 2009 was pretty much just drudgery and disappointment for me. The new year will be better. New opportunities will arise, more good times will be had. Who knows? Maybe I’ll move out in 2010. Maybe I’ll find someone who isn’t a nutter. Maybe I’ll become self-employed. Maybe I won’t have so much gas (what on Earth did I eat?). Maybe I’ll open up an account at a credit union and ditch my bank. Who knows? Bring on 2010!