The Gremlin's Wings

I have been quiet lately. Considering I had nothing more intelligible to write other than, “OH DEAR GOD DO MY FEET HURT!” a hundred times, I think I did you all a favor in restraining myself. Nor did I do an April Fools joke, mostly because there’s been more humorous ones out on the Internet – I was actually pretty sad at how Google’s joke went this year. Really, just renaming your company to Topeka? In response to this silliness?

So what have I been up to?

Recently I got myself a part-time job. It is nothing major, except for the fact that it is different work than I am physically used to and I am slowly getting my body readjusted to a regular work schedule. It is at a department store called Zellers, which is less than a block away from me. For the unedumacated American population that may be reading this little blurb, Zellers is a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company, basically the oldest corporation in Canada and one that predates America by… what is it, a century? Anyway, I am a night shift stock boy.

It is an adjustment for me. My previous employment experience involved me sitting on a phone and yelling at people; moving things for five hours a night is quite a different sort of tired at the end of the day. My mind is active, but my body feels so sore by the end. I think I discovered muscles I never knew I had doing this work, and I may have lost a few pounds in a week just from the change of activity.

Now to get used to the blisters caused by the uncomfortable steel-toed boots! YAY!

I started last Thursday (March 25th). So far, I have learned a lot about stock, setting up displays and the unnecessary amount of packaging luggage comes in before it gets put out on display.

But the really funny thing: even away from a help desk atmosphere, people are just… people.

It does not matter where you are. You still see some policies you do not agree with, some you agree with, people who enforce them to the letter, people who do not even know what the word “policy” means, people who are universally liked, people who are universally hated, the crazys, the lazys, the overachievers… I am always amazed, every time I switch jobs, at how even in different fields there are still things that show we are not too different from each other.

I only wish that world politics could take that perspective. We would all be a lot better off.