The Randomist

Take a deep breath and prepare to be astounded by the amount of violent rage I keep bottled inside on a daily basis. I’m about to expose you to more of the horror that is my job at the lovely Store-Mart. I vaguely recall mentioning the fact that we no longer offer one hour film developing. Apparently it was no longer cost effective to keep chemicals that I would gladly drink in order to never again have to deal with these people. Hell is a merrier place. Some might think I’m exaggerating, but some have never had the joy of working in retail. One hour photo, getting back to it. When people want film developed, we have them package it up as usual and drop it in a box where it gets shipped to an out lab. It takes a week to come back. A few weeks ago, I had a woman call up and ask if her rush order had made it back to the store. CT: “My name is Cammy Trockett (Look how clever I am! You see what I did there?).” Me: “Okay. Was it film or digital?” CT: “It was pictures.” Me: “I ge...

When less than an hour into your shift you have to say “Is that baby DEAD?” you know it’s not going to be a good day. I have recently taken a job in the photo lab at a place we’ll refer to as “Store-Mart”. We no longer offer the one hour film development, but focus solely on digital prints. We do, however, still offer to develop your film at an out lab in Tennessee if you want to wait a week instead of driving across the street and paying an extra dollar to get them in an hour. We’ll be discussing this out lab shortly. Already irritated that I’d been shorted eight hours of work this past week, I start my shift in our tiny photo lab with four buggies full of shit. Where did this shit come from? Where does it go? I need to “PI” the “OS” so I can “bin” it? I DON’T UNDERSTAND! I’m sure that your personal phone conversations kept you busy all morning so that you couldn’t stock the overstock (OS!) that wouldn’t fit on the floor anyway. I’m sorry for the inconvenience of your job, es...

I should get an award for the creativity of my own self-inflicted injuries. I should also be given a medal of honor for the bravery I have shown by getting out of bed every day considering the luck I have. A quick look back through the years has left me astounded by the number of ways I’ve found to hurt myself or be hurt in ways that really shouldn’t happen. My first clear memory is from when I was two. Now, most people don’t remember much from their toddler days and many say that I’m making it up, but I’m sure the only reason I remember it is because it probably caused severe brain damage which I now blame for everything else. It was a cool and windy spring day. Two-year old me eyed the fold up pool chair from the front door. You know, the kind that seems to be woven from jelly bracelets and is long enough to accommodate an adult body. I wanted this chair. I wanted my tiny body on it and I wanted it bad. I scrambled out the door and wiggled my way into the perfect toddler su...

Dear Jenny, I know you’ve addressed the issue of getting stabby with co-workers, but what if it’s your boss? Alarming amounts of body hair where no woman should have any aside, this woman is a raging thunder cunt. She’s making me dislike ______ people in general. She’s literally making me racist. She’s managed to accomplish what being raised in the South could not. We have weapons at work. Bo staffs, nunchucks, and an honest to God “I will cut you bitch” sword. I’d honestly rather lather myself up in seal fat, dance provocatively in the ocean, and have my leg gnawed off by a shark than ever speak to her again. How do I control the urge to cut a bitch? Signed, Heather Heartless This was posted to the now defunct Ask the Bloggess portion of  The Bloggess just days before I was quit/fired. One would think that threats of violence and insults to ones furriness and heritage would warrant that, but rest assured dear readers, my ex-boss would never have seen that. That wou...

A stunning, and yet totally not surprising, streak of lazy (and alliteration) has taken me by storm... again... and left me with no motivation to blog.  The material is there (Shark bait, ooh haha!) but the will to write it has vanished.  This is where the concept of Guest Blogging comes in at.  I poke someone repeatedly with a stick while belting out the refrain from Oklahoma! until they give in and write things FOR me.  I lied. It pretty much went like this: Me:  You should do a guest blog for me. Effie Mae:  Okay. .... EM:  But you'll have to post it anonymously.  I don't want to get fired. Me:  Okay, I'll just call you Anonymous ___________  (Her actual name.) EM:  .... I don't think that's how it works... So I've decided to call her Effie Mae.  Her love of cast iron pans ("They're versatile.  You behave and you get cornbread, you don't and you get the skillet upside the head") and refusal to travel ...

There came a point in my life where I found myself lying in bed in the middle of the day, eating a danish, and crying over Cupcake Wars. That was last week. Two days ago I found myself lying in bed in the middle of the day again. No danish this time, Oprah instead of Food Network, and I’m crying because Paula Deen walks onto the stage with a plate full of cookies. I can’t say that I’m overly emotional about food, there was a back story to these events, and after all, I’m not a complete waste of space yet. The winner of the war between the cakes in cups induced tears not because of the sheer beauty of the cupcakes themselves, but because I really wanted that woman to win damn it and she did and it was beautiful and the charity director who was judging was crying and the woman was crying and I was crying. Oprah had a little boy that loved to cook in honor of his twin that died from a brain tumor at the age of nine and Paula Deen was his hero. It’s not an every day occurrence that ...

More happy work related topics. Please welcome our next guest: Mr. or Mrs. Oh boy am I clever. I hate this person. I want to kill them. At the very least, stab them in the eye with a pair of scissors. You’ve all been to a store at some point recently where they have to mark your money with what I like to call my “secret decoder pen”, or as the rest of the world calls them, counterfeit pens. They poke your money and if it stays yellow, or light brown, you’re good to go, if it turns black, you become Big Bertha’s Prison Bitch. Side note, these pens do not work. It told me, yes, the pen turned its head and said plain as day “Hey, it’s real, come on, believe me. Would I lie to you?” Yes, yes you would magic pen. So anyways, magical talking decoder pen told me that this rather odd looking fifty dollar bill was real. It said the same thing to my manager. The bank however, did not agree. But I digress. Boss man told me that I had to start marking EVERYTHING except one dollar bills...