Saturday, September 17, 2011

Christian's Mall Job Hunt

I worked at Vons for a whopping 4 months before I got in a fight with the union and got taken of the schedule. I'm still not sure if I was ever officially fired or not. But that's a story for another time, point is I'm job hunting.

Now, as anyone who was unlucky enough to be born to parents who aren't multibillionaires with severe retardation who are more than content to let us do cocaine off hookers' asses between bouts of dropping a couple grand betting on the horse races and buying lavish 35,000 room mansions with indoor casinos, hookah lounges, and Pokemon battle arenas on their dime, this means a grueling few weeks with the most idiotic, brain-dead, heartless, soulless, uninteresting people you will ever meet. I speak of course of your potential future managers and coworkers. I'm shocked by the level of functioning some of these people seem to possess, lacking skills that would seem to be required for surviving past age 3, much less into adulthood. In honor of my day job hunting at the North County Fair (which is the mall in Escondido, to those of you who have no idea WTF I'm talking about), I feel like sharing my list of the questions that need to be asked, and the proper response, just in case, god forbid, YOU become the employee people ask for information regarding hiring.

This soundtrack is an hour and a half of people saying "Can I help you with anything?"


1) "Are you hiring?"
I know, difficult to fathom. Even a simple question such as this, which merits a simple "Yes", "No", "Yes, but..." or "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE!" seems to confuse the ever living shit out of all but the most battle-hardened worker ants. The standard response seems to be staring at you, slightly off center just enough to avoid eye contact, drool a little bit, then slowly utter "Umm... I don't... ummm... let me ask my manager." Asking their manager. Fine, this guy has proven he's the cream of the crop since he's in charge, right? He couldn't possibly give you a runaround without giving you a simple answer, there's no way the evil faceless suits in Corporateland would allow such insolence from one they entrust with the wellbeing of one of their many, many money teats. Apparently not. This man is at the very least bold enough to make eye contact and didn't drool on himself, but he differs very little in his response. Something has these people absolutely terrified to say YES or NO, as though those words are the names of the dark wizards who killed their brethern and led a reign of death and misery, only to be stopped while trying to kill a baby. I'm sorely tempted to dropkick one of these assholes in the chest, just to see if I can get any sort of response at all other than doubletalking
uncertainty.

At least be honest about it and warn us with this t-shirt


2) "May I have an application?"
Eventually you get sick of asking if they're hiring and just take a more direct approach and simply ask for the application. Sadly, even this simple exchange of a damn piece of paper is complicated by the brainless peons that are the retail world's entire employee pool. (I do understand I fit into this pool. I stand by it.) I understand the world as we know it is going digital. Hell, I don't remember life without a cell phone. I don't remember life without my precious, lifegiving god, Internets the All-Father. But apparently there was a time, back in the era of the Flintstones and Turok when there was no internet or phones or Cuisinarts or metronomes or techno music or flying laser death turkeys or talking cars with British accents or Daleks. I respect that, though I can't imagine life in such a festering craphole as anything but a tortuous experience. However, life does not to be complicated by the addition of online applications. Simply give me the goddamn URL that leads to the application. That's it. Don't tell me to go to the website (which has a different name than the company, by the way), look in the right column, select 'Careers' from the 5th dropdown box, navigate 10 minutes of links and questions, only to THEN begin the application, which consists of normal information and loads of stupidass questions about whether I'd steal from my employer or set shit on fire or let al Qaeda use the stockroom as a base of operations. Even if I were going to do any of those things, and if you hire me after making jump through all these hoops I goddamn well might, do you really think I'm gonna tell you that? Really? Like a thief will admit, IN ADVANCE, that he's gonna rob someone? You know who does that? Cocky assholes who are lifelong thieves and make millions of dollars, like Danny Ocean or Lupin the Third, not Joe Asshole who's applying at the freakin Nordstrom for a 9 dollar an hour job. That guy's not telling you SHIT.

 
Anyone else remember Lupin...? No? Just me?


3) "Do you have any openings in [department name]?"
This one is for the bigger stores like Target, Nordstrom, or Wal-mart. Don't ask this question. Just don't, nobody will ever give you a straight answer you wanna hear, they'll all say the same exact thing: "We're always accepting applications." Fuck that response, I hope it dies of cancer that's on fire with shards of broken glass growing out of it. 

Keep at it!
Though each store I try to apply at grates on my very soul and causes me to die just a little each more, I must trudge on. Why? Money, bitches. No matter how much stupid crap these people can dole out, I require money for sustenance and, more importantly, for my unhealthy addiction to Magic cards and exploding toys. Perseverance is key. Just remember, the next place will be just as stupid as the last one, no less and no more. Unless of course you apply at like a Hot Topic or Hollister, in which case there is no helping you, I'm sorry.

God, I need a job already. CHRISTIAN NEEDS A NEW WHITE DECK AND AMMONIA NITRATE!

I had no part in this, I assure you.

"You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic."
-Doris Egan, "House, M.D.", House vs. God

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