Muffiny Miscellany

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2009/04/24: 40-Hours of Work: Week 1

Created: Sat 25 Apr 2009 01:06:11 EDT

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I was hired (temp) by Wal-Mart as part of a remodeling they're going to be doing, though the remodeling hasn't actually begun yet. I'm on second shift (2-11 PM). This was my first actual full 40-hour week, and this is how it went.

• Monday: I was given the task of zoning the pet department. This consisted of arranging everything so stuff looked nice and orderly, even if it wasn't. I was also tasked with checking the barcodes of each individual item, and make sure everything was grouped together properly. This was easy and time-consuming.¹ They kicked out all us second-shifters at around 10:15.
• Tuesday: I had nothing particular to do, so I spent two-hour intervals between breaks doing nothing in particular, mostly humming Touhou tunes. I learned the true meaning of boredom in these hours. They kicked out all us second-shifters at around 10:15.
• Wednesday: I had nothing particular to do, so I spent two-hour intervals between breaks doing nothing in particular, mostly humming Touhou tunes. I started going "I hate X" in an imitation of Francis from Left 4 Dead, where X is the subject of whatever commercial was running on the ceiling-TVs dotted around the store, i.e. "I hate Dogzilla Toys" (which have obnoxiously repetitive delivery), or "I hate Net10", or "I hate human interest stories",² or "I hate eco-friendly commercials!" (verbatim quote: "If all 200 million Wal-Mart customers switched from regular 40-watt bulbs to CFL light bulbs, it would be like taking nine million cars off the road for a year!" Never mind you couldn't get two hundred million people to call the sky blue.) They kicked out all us second-shifters at around 10:15.
• Thursday: I got an internet connection installed in my home. I now have no compelling reason to go to bed before 3 AM, nor get up before noon. At work, I actually had something to do ... for about 45 minutes. The rest of the day, I had nothing particular to do, so I spent two-hour intervals between breaks doing nothing in particular, mostly humming Touhou tunes. I got the idea for a Left 4 Dead campaign in which it is slowly revealed that the Infection is actually being caused by the commercials on the TVs dotted around Wal-Mart, as part of a corporate plot to turn people into loyal customers. Well ... they succeeded in affecting peoples' brains. There was a meeting among us second-shifters around 10:15, and then they kicked us out at 10:30.
• Friday: I mostly had nothing in particular to do, but I kept getting distracted from my boredom by Stuff To Do. They kicked out all us second-shifters at around 10:15.

So, yeah. On Monday, the remodeling really begins. I'll go and sleep with a trauma that will leave you sleepless *cough* I'll most likely be able to handle things much better now that we'll have something specific to do. Mind you, the first-shift people might get too much done and leave us without much to do, but I will gladly take out my frustrations about that sort of thing on the third-shifters in small, non-job-threatening ways ... ;)

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