I'm already pretty much lost to the unforgiving claws of mental illness, but I'd lose what's left if I didn't have a week's paid vacation heading my way next week.

I love my job. I love my store, I love my company, I love my personal influence on what happens and my ability to micro-manage where needed. I enjoy what I do.

But the people I work with are going to turn me into what I can only describe as "the woman that'd make Ted Bundy's dick ache for the living".


I do a lot of things on the private/back end of my store, but my main job is basically just to see to it that there's a place for everything (and everything is in its place). There used to be one other girl that was just as skilled and efficient as I am, but they dismissed her a few months ago after we gained a new supervisor (and our more intelligent, compassionate supervisor moved to a different store, where he now has to deal with an entire host of Russians/Ukranians that hardly speak any English, in fact his store had to hire a goddamn interpreter). We'll call the girl that was dismissed "Sandra".

Sandra had a long commute every morning, which, logically, could have been improved simply by getting up earlier, thus leaving her apartment (that she shared with a sleazeball, cheating boyfriend who didn't respect her) earlier and getting to work on time. Our team starts at 7:30 every morning. She'd be about 10 minutes late almost every day, which our old supervisor was understanding and tolerant of, having a multitude of vehicular issues on his hands at any given time himself.

When he (our old supervisor) left and we gained our new supervisor (who moved to our store from a brand new neighboring store) she fired two of our girls in less than a week of her employment with our store. We'll call the newie "Andrea".

One of those girls was fired for apparently doing her job too slowly (which was absolute bullshit - one of the senior supervisors just had an ongoing beef with that girl, and she saw her chance to get rid of her, taking it without hesitation).

Sandra was fired for being late on multiple occasions. Her dismissal was done in private - I didn't notice she was gone, because they'd done it at the end of the day when the whole team was hustling to get all the product on the salesfloor (my job is the finishing touch of the whole process). I thought she'd just gone to the bathroom or something, but then at about 4:30 that afternoon (just a few minutes after we wrapped up our day) she texted me, saying that they'd fired her.

I sat and cried for what must've been half an hour. I full-on sobbed.

Earlier that day, Sandra was tasked with training a new employee. We'll call her "Ling Ling". Sandra was feeling ill, so she asked me to take Ling Ling under my wing (heheheheh heheh heh), so I gave her the grand tour and showed her the basics of the job while Sandra coped with whatever it was she was going through.

Well, Andrea happened to notice that I was leading Ling Ling around, so she approached Sandra to ask her why she wasn't doing what was asked of her (even after I told Andrea that Sandra was feeling ill and couldn't deal with training right now).

Ling Ling had the sheer nerve to say (the next day) that Sandra was fired because she refused to train her. I looked Ling Ling dead in the eyes and said "it had nothing to do with you; get over your damn self". She didn't speak to me for the remainder of her employment with us. Which was less than a week. It was later revealed that Ling Ling left because the "team is too tough". Dumb bitch.


We were then given two trainee supervisors, one of which was our department manager for several weeks in the last stretch of his training. We loved him to death but he had a knack for hiring some terribly stupid individuals. We'll call him Clyde.

Clyde hired two girls to learn how to do my job (in hopes of giving me some assistance after being the only girl on the salesfloor for many weeks) and then he hired the most irritating piece of shit I've ever met in my entire life.

Our company prides itself in maintaining a diverse workforce, and hiring people through one of our beloved non-profit partners that works specifically to aid people with physical and mental disabilities. We already have one of their kids, who's a little bit "special" but otherwise charming and bright. Even that kid thinks that this idiot has something desperately wrong with him. When you get called an idiot by a legitimately special kid, you know you're screwed.

We'll call the idiot Derp. Thankfully, Derp is not my responsibility. I wasn't burdened with having to train him on my end, and hopefully I never will. Derp rides the same bus I do, which was perilous and horrifying for a week or two when he was still scheduled on the morning shift (thankfully they've cut him back quite a bit, so I no longer have to deal with him). Derp is a neckbeard who's obsessed with cycling; he's fat as hell, hair pulled back in a greasy ponytail, glasses caked with skin-flakes that were undoubtedly sweated away just by him getting up from a sitting position; he carries a wallet on a chain and wears tacky athletic shoes and cargo shorts everywhere he goes. And he never shuts the fuck up.

Derp also smells terrible and probably has some form of autism, which makes his irritating nature nothing of his fault, but none of us can stand the guy. He claims to have a fiancee, which makes all of us wonder what kind of idiotic land-whale would sleep with that tub of lard.


Less than a week after Derp's unpleasant interruption to our already deeply unpleasant atmosphere, both of the girls that Clyde hired to assist me had quit because the job was too difficult for them.

A couple weeks later, Clyde hired a woman who doesn't speak much English at all. We'll call her "Consuela". Consuela has a limited understanding of any of the terms on the tags attached to our clothing because there isn't a Spanish translation on the tags as there are on the actual department signs. Consuela's kind of in trouble, but she's still faster (despite being maybe in her early 40s, mother of several children with a muffin top for days) than the young lady they hired shortly after that. She's young, slim, full of life and ....moves like a goddamn snail.


When I come back from my vacation, my sweet little brother (we'll call him "Syd") will have moved departments for a seasonal project, and a close friend of mine will have her last day on Saturday as she embarks on a new journey through a downtown gig.

Syd's not coming back to our department, which breaks my heart, but it would hurt me even more if he had to do something he didn't want to do, as he's been doing, then relapse back into his drug/alcohol habits.

Later this month we'll lose yet another person.


This will be a difficult time until management finally learns how to hire people that aren't worthless sacks of shit.