"How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me."
--Captain Ahab
Well, I've found my White Whale. (Guess who?) How many writers can say that? Is it blasphemous to seek vengeance on a dumb animal, like Starbuck says? Don't care. I've been waiting my whole life for the right blasphemy. He'll do. He tasks me.
Okay, maybe you guys aren't heavily into Moby-Dick. That's probably a good thing. :-) But you wanna know what I heard the other day? Why I'm starting this now? I heard the General Manager of Our Superstore, #653, talking to his henchman, the Sales Manager. Our GM talks a lot; he talks all the time. We know this. He loves to talk to the people he thinks of as his underlings, his Inner Circle. He loves that giddy, conspiratorial little tone that he can adopt when he's talking to people who have enough to lose that they can't just ignore him. But at this particular moment it was twenty minutes past close, and Our Leaders were carefully organizing the Recovery of the Store. (Funny way to put it. Had the store been ill? Hmmm.) It happened that one of my colleagues (you know who you are!) somehow hadn't made it in to work that afternoon, which was not a particularly big deal--but this time it gave our GM his chance to talk like a Big Shot. And I know what he said. Here:
Well, [Truant Colleague Name] called off, so at least we can keep them another twenty minutes.
Or words to that effect. Yeah. Think about that. If you, the Management, suddenly have Payroll Hours unused, well, that means you have Absolute Power. There's no reason on earth that you would actually allow the staff to go home to their actual lives at the time that it says on the printed schedule, except that to keep them working indefinitely would cost the company more money. Or, more precisely, it would make some number on some spreadsheet slightly too high, and therefore eventually some equally despicable person would give Our GM a hard time about it. This is literally the only consideration. This is the world we live in.
Also, think about what it shows about just how bad this person is at what is supposedly his job, his excuse for existing. "Managing." "Leadership." The essence of "leadership" is getting people to do what you want them to do, but making them think that it's what they want to do. If everyone beneath you despises you desperately, you aren't a leader, you're incompetent. If you can't quite resist saying sneeringly contemptuous things about the people working for you, well, okay, that's human nature. But shouldn't you look around, first? Shouldn't you see who might be listening? Yeah, he probably should've, but didn't. Because he's not just smug; he's smug and stupid, just like most of the people who run the world. Stop for a second and think about who's been our president for eight years, and think about why our store's "leadership" seemed vaguely familiar. This is also the world we live in.
I don't like it. Do you?
We're the people who work for this company, the people who make it exist. This is not twentieth-century Marxist bullshit, this is the truth. We, you and I, are the people who make something as complicated and ridiculous as a Superstore possible, but our merely human concerns are simply not an issue. Our dignity, such as it is, is not an issue. Because, in theory, there are always more of us waiting to do our jobs if we don't want them. This is pretty much true. This is true everywhere and all the time, and in particular it's true in our industry, which more more and more people in our country depend on for a living. I don't like it. Do you?
I'm not saying we can necessarily change it, really. This is the nature of the world. But so is complaining about it. And this is a new and exciting way to complain about it, relatively speaking. There was no such thing as a "blog" in 1999, say. Anything could happen.
And if nothing else, we can seriously talk some serious shit about that guy. You know who I mean. Our GM. It's so perfect--the whole problem with trying to change the nature of The System, of any system, is that the people in charge are almost always decent people, people just trying to do their jobs, and nobody wants to actually hurt them. But if you're reading this, you know this guy. He's not a decent person. I don't feel any kind of ethical obligation to be Evenhanded and Fair. I've never known anyone who deserved this kind of treatment quite so much. I've never known anyone who was so much the perfect example of what was Wrong With Everything. We can get him. Who's with me?
Mission Statement:
We will point out and discuss the absurdity of the following things, in widening order:
1 Our Boss
2 Our Store
3 Our Company
4 Our Industry
5 Life In General
6 Existence Itself
Disclaimer:
This site is an act of satire and of protest. It is not incitement to criminal behavior. In reference to our leaders, I mean "get" and "hurt" in a strictly figurative sense. We are conspiring to poke fun at and undermine the authority of our masters, just like people have always done. Nothing violent or illegal will ever be suggested or condoned by the management of this site, except in a satirical or humorous way. If anybody can't tell the difference and one or more of us ends up sued or in jail, well, what the hell. I could make a pretty awesome courtroom speech.
Probably it says somewhere in the Employee Handbook that we aren't allowed to do this. But I haven't read that shit. Have you?
Other Disclaimer:
Obviously, management is not responsible for content of comments. I'll delete anything out-and-out offensive, but beyond that, we're all adults. If it's on the internet, it's on the internet, and we're all responsible for whatever we write or say.
Ground Rules:
Well, no names, obviously, not yet. Anybody paying any attention at all knows who I am. That's fine. I'm honestly in an enviable position; I could easily sacrifice this job if I had to. A lot of people don't have that luxury. Think Fight Club, and its famous first two rules. We know who we are. Nobody rat anybody out, nobody use anybody's real name. (Not even the Sales Manager, not at this point. We couldn't trust him with any of this, obviously, but I've known him too long; I've met his kids. I'm a human being. So is he, even if he's dealt with the devil.) We probably shouldn't even use the actual name of the company, just in case. Make yourself a cool alias, like me. (Mine's pretty transparent, anyway.) I don't need to say this. We're all grown-ups, even if they treat us like children. Don't mess up anybody's life who doesn't richly deserve it. Don't attack anybody personally here unless they're definitely the Enemy.
(And if you're reading this, you know who that is. )
Otherwise, please comment, as much as you can. I need stories. We all do. Tell everybody what he's doing, or has done to you. Tell us what's absurd, or revolting, or humiliating about your job. It doesn't even have to involve You-Know-Who. (Though you know as well as I do that if it's revolting or humiliating, he's probably involved.) Some of what we do is just gonna be tantrums and venting, I know, and that's fine--work is work, and To Complain is Human. But there are people like you who think, and have always thought, that "work" doesn't have to be what it's turned into--what you and I have seen it turn into before our eyes. You are not alone--you are the Loyal Opposition. And none of Them--the People in Charge, the People in Offices, the People Who've Never Worked For a Living--planned on anybody doing this. They all just think Retail is Retail. You sell stuff and you get money, and the people doing the work are interchangeable monkeys. (Our GM used to sell freakin' toys.) But that's not really true; it never has been. Bookstores have always attracted a certain sort of person, and we've got, shall we say, strong opinions. We don't suffer in silence, or suffer fools gladly. We know who we are. We'll see what we can do.
For starters, read this. We have to keep it funny, or what's the point?
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