The Shift From Hell

Picture this, it is late afternoon last Saturday and you get called into work and hour early. This just happened to me. I thought it would be nice to get and extra hours pay, but little did I know this was the beginning of the shift from Hell.

I arrive at the store and BAM! I was hit by three things. 1. We had shipment to do (12 boxes). 2. We were very low on change. 3. The store was the most crowded it had ever been. Even more crowded then Christmas time.

Today was an off day. I had been up since 7 am and it had already been a busy day. Well I am one to never stress out over stupid stuff, but tonight was different. The customers were in full force this evening and I think their collective IQ was a 7. So many people came in looking for the new Lil Wayne and Plies CDs. These people had to be lazier then my Uncle Jim. They would come and ask me where the CDs were and I told them to turn around. Not one of them would do it, yet they asked me to show them where they were located. Frustrated I took them to the shelf RIGHT BEHIND THEM. They all said “Oh my, it was right in front of my face.” And in my head, I said “Duh, you dumb ass! I told you that!!!” Although that was still not when the actual craziness started.

It started with a call. A customer called in and asked when the next Rap CD would drop, I in turn told him we get at least one in on every Tuesday. He wanted me to go down the list for this week. I told him Three 6 Mafia and Missy Elliot was dropping this week. Then he wanted to know what was due out the following week, so I put him on hold and looked it up. I told him who was due to come out then I started to get frustrated when he asked what about the following week. I said “Sir we have a line out the door and I cannot tell you every single artist coming out, is there a specific artist you were looking for?” He said “Young Joc” and I told him when he would drop then he asked for Young Jeezy. I told him he wasn’t coming out time September then he rambled off a huge list of other artists. I told him he would have to come in and look at the schedule because I had a line of customers I had to take care of. He called me a name and slammed the phone down. I WAS PISSED!

So for about ten minutes I took care of the line along with Jess. We both hoped we did not get secret shopped because we never left the counter. Then the phone rang again. This time we got an even dumber customer on the line. He was looking for the artist Duvall, it was out of print. He could not comprehend why we had the CD nine years ago and why we do not have it now. Then he asked if we had the Commodores’ Greatest Hits. I told him yes we had two copies. He must have asked me seven times if I was sure that it was the Commodores’ Greatest Hits. I was getting so frustrated and I could barely hear him because he had “cotton in his mouth.” I then started to get rude with him and said “Yes, sir it IS the Commodores’ Greatest Hits I told you that seven times. What else can I do for you?” He said he wanted me to look up a song title and unfortunately our computers do not allow us to look up by song title. I told him that and yet again the dumb ass could not understand. I told him he had to come into the store and flip through the CDs to find that song. Then he said “No, I need you to look up this song, Jesse.” I said “NO, I-CAN-NOT-DO-THAT-I-AM-SORRY!” He said “I don’t understand why you can’t?” I in turn slammed the phone down. We had three, yes three more calls like that throughout the night.

Then at like eight o’clock, a group of parents ran in and pulled their kids out of the store and that huge group went running out. The alarm system went off and the entire group split! We have no idea what was stolen. Then right about closing time a customer came in and started fighting with Jess and I trying to get us to lower the price of a CD. WTF? We both told him we could not reduce the price just to fit your needs. (BTW he had a wad of $20 bills) He threw the CD at me and stormed out the store. As I finished casing it up the same customer came back in and started getting irate because he wanted the CD for $5 instead of $14. As Jess handled that situation, I had to deal with a potty-mouth father who would not stop dropping the F-bomb because he could not find the mouse Webkin. I had to ask him to leave the store.

Just as this crazy night was coming to an end, we heard a huge murmur outside the store. I excused myself from a customer to check out what was going on. I saw two crowds of about fifty kids each storm into each other. The security guards were trying to break it up then the one security guard yelled for everyone to close their gates IMMEDIATELY! The one guard said he saw a gun and we had to go on lock down ASAP.

Finally closing time came and the store was finally closed. I almost had a panic attack that night and I went to my dark place twice. You know it was bad if I had to go to my dark place. THANK GOD THE SHIFT IS NOW IN THE PAST!!! Hopefully I will never have another shift like that again.

The End.