What a waste of my thirty minutes

Last night, an hour before leaving work, I happened to overhear B-Money telling Raver, "Don't forget you have to be here at nine tomorrow morning!" as she was leaving the store. Nine? That seemed odd. The store doesn't even open until nine thirty. Why did she have to come in early? 

Now, he wasn't talking to me, and I knew I really shouldn't ask, but I was curious (mostly to know if she was being called in to have a meeting with the manager about her frequent tardiness, call ins, and customer complaints) so I asked her, "Why do you have to come in at nine?"

"We all have to come in at nine," she said. "For the store meeting."

What? 

I've been here for three years and I've never been to a store meeting. There's never been a store meeting. I turned to B-Money and I asked, "Um, do I have to come in at nine, too?"

And he said, "Oh yeah, you weren't here Wednesday. I forgot to tell you. Yeah, you have to come early, too."

Fuck. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Then I wouldn't have had to worry about getting up half an hour earlier and nobody could have blamed me for not showing up because it's not my fault I don't work Wednesdays and nobody bothered telling me about the meeting.

You can bet your bottom dollar that I will never make that mistake again. Curiosity killed the cat and all that. 

So I drag myself in here early, and the first twenty minutes of the meeting didn't even apply to me in any way, shape, or form. I do not steal other peoples' sales. I do not take the last of the ice and then leave the empty trays sitting on the counter. I don't leave dirty dishes full of nasty stuff sitting in the kitchen or on the counter tops. I'm not fifteen minutes late or later every day. (In fact, Jay Jay and I are consistently ten minutes early while everybody else is generally fifteen minutes late or later.) I don't eat or drink things in the kitchen that do no belong to me.  I do not leave food in the refrigerator for weeks at a time and I don't leave food sitting out to rot. 

Basically, I'm a clean person and a model employee.

However, at the very end, my manager said, "Chanel, if you could page calls directly to the department instead of all over the store, that would help cut the noise factor down." To which I replied, "That only works for Band Repair. Everybody else can't hear one phone."

And then Dizzy, who I'm still a little miffed with after his tantrum yesterday, said, "Yeah, don't page me nine times when I'm with a customer."

And I snapped, "I page twice, and if nobody picks up I take a message. The ONLY time I keep paging is when the customer refuses to hang up, or when I know you're just talking on your cell phone. If you want to take a break, fine. Go to the kitchen. But if you're on the floor, then you have to take your calls."

And then Manager said, "Yes, guys. Don't blow her off. If you want a break, you get two fifteen minute breaks every four hours. But don't ignore her pages because you don't want to take the calls."

Manger then continued with, "And Chanel, if you could just turn around and tell them when they're standing right behind you, that would help, too."

I smiled and said, "No, I can't do it that way."

"Why not?"

"Because when I tell them without announcing it over the entire store, they pretend they can't hear me and just keep doing whatever the hell they want."

He frowned. "You guys can't just blow her off like that."

"It's also really hard to get you guys to take your messages. If I try to give you one, you can't just tell me no, I don't want it. I don't want to answer the calls in the first place, but I've got to. I if I just decided to not do my job, where would that leave you guys? So just grow up and take your damn messages. If you're with a customer, come tell me like Raspy and Reverend."

Then we all moved on to Coffin, who calls thirty minutes after he's supposed to be at work and then shows up thirty minutes after he calls. Then when he gets here he clocks in before going to the back where he sits down in front of the TV and eats his lunch for an hour before actually getting his ass in gear. 

All in all, the meeting had very little to offer me except for some pretty good juice, a donut, and a kolache. I didn't learn anything new, nothing could improve anything I already do, and I sat down at my desk at nine thirty thinking I would never be curious again.

Now, I need some coffee or tea or something because I'm freaking tired.