Another Day...

I'd say I have had worse days. And I wouldn't really be lying about it. But considering how short this one was; it could have been much worse. That however, doesn't change much.

Overnight there was a storm that raged through the area [errrrr Illinois side of the river, as hardly any of Iowa seemed to have problems]. It knocked down a lot of brush and trees, and some trailers, and brought some wind driven rain. Anyway, most of the Illinois side of the river has no power. Including Menards. But they opened the store anyhow. 6:30 am, and people were screaming about it. But even after we ran out of chainsaws, gas cans, gasoline generators, and all types of lanterns [and most flashlights and D cell batteries], we stayed open. Don't ask me why. I had to ask myself. With two registers open, run off of a generator we opened up, we stayed open until 7pm. All the while letting idiots in the store in the dark, to purchase twizzlers, door knobs, wall paper, plungers, and hornet/wasp spray. All the essentials of a power outage, right? I bit my lip for most of it. But I did draw the line at special orders and people who flat out told me "we just want to look." They, I escorted out. Of course they were pissy. But after getting home, I found out stores were closed all over; most roads are shut down to get there, and the stores that were open limited sales. Best Buy wouldn't allow customers into the store at all--- and would only sell essential items [batteries, back up power supplies, and anything else Best Buy thinks are essentials].

We let all the clowns in. And chased them around in the dark with flashlights. People looking at tile. People purchasing toilets. Old people playing with grab bars. All of them. For what? No breaks. No leaving. No running water or bathrooms [not due to the city, but due to our ridiculous set up that requires an electric pressure booster to split water to the sprinkler systems]. What a wonderful day to be alive in a Menards. Probably the best part of it all though, is how extensive, yet localized the damage is. Again, 5 miles away, across the Mississippi River, really was unaffected... sporadic power outages... but nothing major. The way the clientèle talked today; the world stopped spinning. Just goes to show you how lovely the general public is. I think we did more than most stores did today, effort-wise; but I'm sure the bottom line doesn't show it, but I just can't get past how ungrateful the people were today. Again, its not like this was a war zone, or a hurricane. It rained. Trees blew over. Power went out. Even at Menards.

What gets me the most is how incompetent most of the employees are. Most of them acted as if they had never been in a power outage. True, none of them probably worked through one, but they could have tried a bit harder to make it work. Most bitched about how hot it was. Or how they were crippled without a computer. Some complained that it wasn't possible to figure out pricing for people. Its all very d0-able. Most really just thought it was a game. Many laughed about my rigged up flashlight around my neck; but quit laughing when they were elbow deep in fittings in the dark finding parts for people. No one seemed to understand why I carried a parts catalog and carbon invoices in my pocket all day, but not after I didn't have to wander around to find items, or transcribe skus to people at the registers. Further more, certain departments were crippled because they rely too heavily on the computers to obtain inventory and pricing. Most of mine is memorized; sure its not exact, but I know how deep I am on product, the pricing within a few pennies to a quarter, and I know my skus by memory---they always have laughed at me for that. To me, I made it work better than anyone else, and seemed as little bothered by it as anyone. Store managers were sweating and freaking out, departments were shut down. But my only obstacle were the the people themselves. Not the ones needing things.... but the ones just stomping around.

And the employees who were worthless.... No one seemed to understand the importance of bringing food and water to work. Mine was cold, in a cooler with ice, in the back of the jeep. I thought one girl was going to cry when she realized the power tools were dead and she couldn't scrap a printer for parts. I had the manual versions on my hip. And I could tell her the parts she needed by number and description [thanks in part to my previous lives!] In short, I hope a real disaster never happens around here. These are the people that die of starvation at the grocery store. These were the people that couldn't really rig a day of sales together at the store known for being the king of "rigging" things.