Off a cliff.

Okay. We're back, I guess. Little choice in the matter, as always, but we may as well enjoy it.

Why'd it stop? Well, I always just say I'm lazy—it's always easier to not write things than to write things. But for as much giddy fun as it was to start, this blog in particular was a fragile thing, and it pretty much got derailed by events. That store, you know, it just kept going, in spite of all the disasters. Day after ridiculous freakin' day. But it was hard for me, your chronicler, to imagine that I was the Representative of any kind of Noble Resistance once most of you loyal Resisters out there had, you know, quit in disgust. (No hard feelings, of course—and one of you, I note, has now come back. Heh. God help you.) And none of y'all seemed too inclined to post comments, now did you? That was my original vision, you'll recall, although I recognize this kind of thing isn't for everybody. (Really, I was just humbled that I had "fans" at all.)

But after the Great Supervisor Massacre of the summer months, when the last of the old senior staff and the more promising new members had sprinted for the exits, it was sorta hard not to feel like it was all a bit pointless, or pathetic, even. Who was I, after all? Just some snarky malcontent guy who's too lazy and socially anxious to devote any energy to getting a better job. And I felt something like Survivor Guilt, I guess. The guilt of the collaborator. Because I'd been co-opted, after all. I'd let them give me more hours, and let them start to depend on my presence, and I'd let myself enjoy it, for whatever it was worth. Sales Manager and I had silently reached an understanding of sorts. He needed me to get things done, and I needed him to keep the situation tolerable. General Manager, of course, only showered me with more love, creepy and artificial as his approval always is. This was relaxing, though, which made me feel more guilty about pretending to be a Rebel. I was more than polite to The Man, after all. I'm a friendly guy, and not stupid; I'm the sort who's going to instinctively be decent to the boss, and then feel bad about it.

But of course that couldn't last forever. And, well, those of you who are still around know what happened. (Some of you may know more than me, and I'm quite curious to hear it.) Either our Special Friend had been reading some half-baked "management" book, or he was starting to feel some heat from above, regarding our personnel and morale situation. I did hear rumours that Former Merch Supervisor had done at least something to try to blow the whistle on him with the Higher Ups, but I never heard anything more about it. Word was maybe getting around, at least a little bit. Because this past week we were all asked, by means of a form in our mailboxes, to evaluate the man's performance. Seriously. Yeah, I laughed out loud, too. Is he mad? I thought. How could that possibly do him any good? But here he was, at least pretending to ask all us Regular Folks what he's doing right and wrong.

Naturally, my Satirist Instincts blazed back into life, and all sorts of delightfully sarcastic rants just started writing themselves. This was going to be awesome. I went so far as to copy some extra evaluation forms, in case I needed them.

Then, of course, I got cold feet, or at least got embarrassed. Maybe it was immature enough to mock the guy behind his back while still keeping him happy, and to anonymously and gratuitously insult him to his face, in writing, would just be childish. Better just to imagine it, as it almost always is in these cases.

Couldn't resist, though, finally. They made me do it. You all understand. I was walking into work today, when I passed New Ops Manager. She was telling someone, a bit uncomfortably, that she needed some people to turn in those feedback sheets. I've only got four so far, she said. And looked at me, where I'd stopped to listen, curious. I'd thought it was too late already. Did you fill out yours? she asked me, a bit hopeful. Uh, really? I said. You want me to? You sure? I knew I was being given another opportunity to have the courage of my convictions, so to speak, and my vicious streak was leaping at the chance.

Yeah! she said. Do it! So first I clocked in, because I wasn't gonna do it for free, and then I wrote what I could remember of what I'd been composing in my head. I don't know if Ops Manager understood what she was urging me to do, but I think she does now. She's a Team Player, but she's starting to understand the real situation. We'll see what she does with that.

I took the high road, as much as I possibly could stand. Nothing actually personally insulting or played just for laughs. But not really what you'd call constructive criticism, either. It ain't gonna go over well, if he really gets to see any part of it.

Here's what I can reconstruct from memory:

[If you've seen this form, you'll know it's basically blank, but divided into DO, DON'T, and CONTINUE, or something like that.]

DO
Manage the store. I.e. hire and support competent and knowledgeable staff and stay the heck out of their way. [Yes, I said "heck." This is business, people! I'm a professional! And Gov. Palin has made euphemistic swearing hip again, for gosh sakes!]

STOP
…saying things like "UPT" and "OSAT" This is absurd. Nothing we do has more than a tiny, marginal effect on sales. Trying to "drive" sales is like primitive tribespeople trying to "drive" precipitation by dancing in circles. I realize this renders much of what you do as a manager irrelevant. Deal with it. It's anybody's guess whether this industry even survives. Let's try to have some dignity.

Uh, yeah. And I put in on Ops Manager's desk before I could talk myself out of it. Then I got to the floor and thought furiously that there was so much stuff I could have said and forgot to say! So I went back into the office, got another form, and added the most important thing.

…and, it goes without saying, STOP making good supervisors quit in appalled disgust. It makes things very stressful for the rest of us. Thanks.

And I was done. Giddy, but a little shocked. Now what was gonna happen?

Oh, but they made me. They did. You all know. And usually I feel terrible after I do something like that. Satire, I can convince myself, is an actual art form—real aggression always just makes me feel sick and criminal. But this time I felt pretty peaceful, really. I hadn't just kept quiet, and I wasn't wrong about any of it. I hadn't been vulgar or over-the-top, not really. And I had nothing left to prove about my worth to the company, really—if anybody felt like confronting me about my Attitude, well, that would just be more entertainment.

Of course, there's the matter of my source of income. And the matter of the worst employment market in a good long time. We all know about this. It gave me a little chill to think that I was gambling an almost-full-time job on my self-righteousness, basically.

But, you know, Whatever, as the kids say. Because I wasn't lying about the Big Picture. The New York Times agrees: we are all So Screwed:

Retailers Report a Sales Collapse

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Published: November 6, 2008

Sales at the nation’s largest retailers fell off a cliff in October, casting fresh doubt on the survival of some chains and signaling that this will probably be the weakest Christmas shopping season in decades.

So, you know, Blaze of Glory it is, I guess. It's Armageddon For the Book People. Ragnarok! Gotterdammerung! Any other scary Heavy Metal Apocalypse terms you can think of! Rains of fire and blood and anemic sales figures and vanishing revenue streams!

Like I told the boss, let's do it with some dignity. And hopefully the new president puts us all to work building dams, or big statues of himself, or something. I'm flexible.