Clerks--My Life

I've recently gotten a new job as a convenience store clerk. Now, you'd think this was a job a monkey could do, and you'd be a little bit right. Except there are some complicated things and some really dumb rules and some stressful moments that mean this job basically sucks. It doesn't suck as hard as some of my menial jobs I've taken since my world changed and the doctor I worked for passed away. But it does both suck and blow at the same time often enough.

Like for example the lovely customers who smell like B.O. and pot who wants to pay with all change. Sure, that's not a problem! Just empty your fucking wheel barrel on the counter and I'd love to spend an extra twenty minutes counting your fifty dollars in pennies!

I swear it never fails that we'll have 20 customers in line and then some jack off wants to pay with a bag of fucking pennies. Can't you take your ass to a Coinstar first? That's what those damn machines are for. I'm in the business of being speedy and I ain't got time for that bullshit.




Which speaking of bullshit, we've got your lottery fanatics who spend half their damn paychecks on lotto tickets. In my head, if you can drop $200 on lotto tickets, you're not poor enough to need to win the damn lottery!

If I see your ass spending that much money on gambling, I wanna slap you in the face with a rotten fish. Maybe give some of that money to the homeless or the poor? Instead of wasting it on lotto tickets when you so clearly have money to just set on fire and throw away.


Then you've got your underage drinkers and smokers. Trying to pass off pieces of paper as ID. Or claiming they lost it. Or just blatantly being twelve years old and trying to buy cigars and beer. I'm not a fool. I wasn't born yesterday. And this ID is not convincing me.

Yet they still try. I had someone photocopy a picture of themselves and then just type a birth date under it and say it was an ID card. No it's not! It's a piece of fucking paper you printed on your computer. It didn't even look remotely official. And then I have some kid trying to show me his fishing license as ID. Puhlese. I'm new at the job, I'm not a moron. But I guess people still gotta try and get their shit. They just won't be getting it from me.

My next favorite customer is the old person who doesn't understand how buying gas or anything even works. I have them just throw money at me and be like, "That's for gas!" and not tell me a pump number or anything else. Then I get the ones who don't understand you have to pay first to get gas and don't even want to give me their money for fear I'll abscond with it and run out of the store and leave, I guess. Because their $40 is enough for me to retire to the Bahamas on. Right.

I had a lady genuinely confused as to how to pay for gas when she didn't know how much it would take to fill it. I explained the concept of getting change, to no avail. She was utterly lost. Felt a bit bad for her since she said it had been awhile since she got gas. Like apparently since 1985 because you've had to pay first for quite a long time. But who knows her story? I let it slide and just found it amusing.

I was however not as amused by the old lady who scooped up all our "leave a penny" money and stole it and just rushed out the door. Sure, she left with maybe twenty cents, but still! That's not just money to scoop and run with! It's for customers who are short a penny or two, etc. That bitch thought it was trick or treat or something. And she wasn't poor, wearing a fur jacket and spending $30 on Star Wars candy toys for her grand kids.


But the old people... sometimes you gotta love 'em. But sometimes? No, you really don't. Some of them are mean old bastards. Like seriously mean. They call you names and yell at you. They

scowl and call you 'missy' and other names to where it sounds like they think I'm twelve years old and daddy let me run a cash register. One guy was so rude to me I wanted to stab him with a pair of scissors, but I refrained. Thankfully I'm not as crazy as people usually think I am. Which brings me to my next set of Americana I experience:

The crazy fuckers. The flat out crazy ass weirdos.

They are a plenty out there. I had some guy come in singing and dancing. Another guy told me about his walk about where he just wandered around and tried to figure his life out, before screaming at me for almost giving him the wrong cigarettes even though he asked for four different kinds before settling on one type. He was the idiot who couldn't make up his mind! And I don't know all the fancy names for cigarette types out there! I don't know what the hell a 72 short or 27 special blend is. For fucks sake, I didn't learn about cigarettes in school!


Or math. I mean, yeah, I learned some math, but mostly I sucked at it. So I also hate the people who don't give you the right money before you cash out and then get angry when you don't know how much change to give them. I can't math!! Sorry, but you have a window where you can give me the money, otherwise fuck it, you're getting 92 cents back instead of a dollar. Or whatever. But to be fair, that's more my problem than theirs. But please don't make me math. It hurts me.

Every time you make me math, a baby seal dies. You don't want that on your conscience do you? So for the love of all that's holy, just give me all the money you've got and THEN let me cash out. Once I hit enter, we're both in trouble because I'm too stupid to know what to give you. Embrace that. If I were smarter, I wouldn't be working at a convenience store. If I could math, I'd be a fucking engineer. Okay?




All in all, I kinda hate this job. But it's work. It pays the bills. But man, I miss actually having a career. I used to be somebody. Now I'm just a loser in an ugly shirt who can't math and needs to study cigarettes 101 in night school. Sometimes I really hate my life. *sigh*