Shopko Chronicles Vol. 1

    In high school I worked at Shopko.  Typically you would get hired by a company and have to train on the job and spend months and months working up some credibility.  Not so at Shopko.  What happened was me and my good friend Steve got hired on as MST.  That is what they call the crew that unloads trucks, stocks the store and brings furniture etc. out to customers.  It was the fall, leading into the Christmas season and me and Steve were super excited to be working together.  I showed up on my first day and started working with one of the other guys that works there.  After about 5 minutes of this I hear his name, along with four other names get called over the speaker.  He has been summoned to a meeting upstairs.  Weird.  Ok. I'll be down here not doing anything.

^Box Baler^

     Two hours go by and nobody returns from the upstairs meeting.  I am doing nothing.  Well not nothing.  I stared at the baler for about an hour.  The baler is a remarkable machine that takes 900 million flat boxes and ties them all together with thin wire in one epic cube, but you have to be 18 years old to operate it.  More on that later.  I wander around the back for a bit and kind of get my bearing as to the layout of my new home.  Not bad, the comforter and pillow section is rather nice.  Gotta keep that in mind for later.
     So, as it turns out I wasn't hired at Shopko to be the Holiday help.  I was hired to replace all of the MST night crew that was stealing Playstation 2's.  So to summarize, I got hired and started my first day at the bottom of the night ladder, and by the end of my first shift I was at the TOP of the night ladder.  You've made a huge mistake...
     Some time goes by and I become accustomed to my new job as king of the Shopko back room.  I did learn what it was my job actually required me to do.  I unloaded trucks with pallet jacks and manually carried boxes out of the truck and put them on a conveyor belt.  If a customer purchased a piece of furniture I would find the item in the back room and take it out to their car.  I would put things back on the shelves in the back room and I would bring the shopping carts that were left strewn about in the parking lot inside.  Before I begin the official retelling of events there is one more item of note.  About a month into this job a couple managers left Shopko and they hired new night managers.  Enter Jonathan and Dwaine.  J&D were probably about 30 years old.  Jonathan was shorter and rounder and Dwaine was very tall.  I am not sure about Jonathan's resume but according to Dwaine he was one class away from graduating from law school.  Then,  from what I have pieced together, Shopko offered him a night crew managerial position that he could not refuse.  Dwaine would always kind of stare into the distance when he would talk to me, I just assumed that since he was so tall he was noticing the dust on top of the book shelves or something.
     After about a month I got the feel for things and realized that I essentially had the easiest job on the planet.  My typical shift was 5-10 pm.  If you worked an 8 hour day you would get a 15 minute break every 2 hours and a 30 minute lunch.  Well nobody ever really clarified what that meant for my 5 hour shift so I just came up with my own plan.  I was studying Algebra in school so I knew the importance of rounding, so I applied that as well.  After 2 hours I would take a 30 minute break, then after 4 hours I would take a 45 minute lunch.  I had to clock out for the lunch but I had figured out that the time clock worked on +/- 7 minute intervals.  Meaning that you could clock out for lunch at 8:54 and clock back in at 9:36 and it was rounded to 30 minutes.  For those of you keeping track at home, over the course of a 5 hour shift I was spending 1 hour and 15 minutes of that shift on break.  Thanks math!
     You are probably thinking to yourself "Nick you went to work and only worked for 3 hours and 45 minutes, that is not very efficient."  Just wait though, I haven't even gotten into my high efficiency work ethic.  As I mentioned earlier, it was the job of the guys in the back room to bring the carts in from outside.  Well, it seems terribly inefficient for me to spend my valuable company time constantly going outside for 10 or 50 shopping carts.  How inefficient!  I know!  I quickly learned that the best time to get carts was at the end of my shift when I was supposed to be folding clothes or some shit out on the sales floor.  Honestly, if anybody has seen me fold clothes...they are better off before I fold them.      
     Anyway, so me and Steve head out one evening to get the carts to find that every single cart is outside. I can't tell you exactly how many that is, maybe 100 or 150.  This is a big moment for us.  EVERY CART that Shopko owns is out here.  First of all, we had to pat ourselves on the back for our high efficiency practices.  We can only assume that the last customer that walked into Shopko that evening just happened to grab the LAST cart out of the stall inside.  I never received a bonus at Shopko but looking back I feel like this was a lost opportunity to put up my superior work practices on display. Back to the situation at hand, we had to round up all these carts.  You might be thinking that it would take a lot of trips pushing in 20 carts a trip and I completely agree with you.  We did the smart thing and decided to make the longest cart train ever created.  No cart left behind.  I know what you are thinking "Nick that is a great idea!", I know it was a great idea.  I was there, but thanks for the positive reinforcement.
     Shopko has two entrances, one entrance opens up and has hundreds of straightaway space to push the cats forward.  The other entrance has a jewelry counter display about 40 ft. after the front doors.  I'm sure you can guess which entrance we used.  After about 30 minutes we had finally created our masterpiece!  Every cart had been added to the train, they were lined up 20 feet away from the front doors and ready to enter building!  As me and Steve began to push the 100 ft. line of carts into the jewelry entrance we realized we had made a huge mistake.  Our 16 year old muscles were no match for 150 shopping carts.  NOOOOOO!  Despair!  Then to the rescue came some kids that were driving through the parking lot.  They saw our predicament and respected our high efficiency work ethic and offered to help by pushing the carts with their car into the building.  Who are these genius kids?  Me and Steve step back and they lined the car up behind optimus carts and they hit the gas.  Personally, I would have used less gas but that is a personal preference I guess.
     The carts are now racing out of control into the building at or around the jewelry counter.  We feared the worst.  The friendly kids realized they had used too much gas, they also realized that the more gas they used at this point the faster they could flee the scene.  They fled.  Me and Steve are left standing on either side of this bullet train of carts.  It did not look good.  As it turned out my time at Shopko was not meant to end on this night.  The way jewelry counters are designed is that they are pieced together and occasionally have about a 2 ft. section that is not glass.  It was this section that optimus cart slammed into the counter, coming to an abrupt halt.
     As I clocked out after my 5 hour shift I realized that I really wanted to use that baler...

Shit Finder: There's an app for that

     I am a dog butler.  Day in and day out I see to the needs of my trusty best friend Phil.  I realized this the other morning while standing on my lawn in a robe with dog poop in my hand.  But that's getting ahead of myself, let me rewind a bit.  You are probably thinking, nope, I got the message Nick.  You pick up dog poop and you have equated that to meaning you are a dog butler.  Trust me on this.

     It all started a few nights ago, Annie was exhausted and went to bed an hour or so before me.  I started getting ready for bed and Phil knew what was going on so he went upstairs a few minutes before me.  I entered the bedroom and was trying to be quiet.  It was dark and I couldn't see anything but I managed to make it to my side of the bed.  As I put my hands out I felt a furry retriever, on my side of the bed, head on my pillow.  Great.  No big deal, I just need to quietly get Phil off of the bed.  I'm the boss around here, I may not have pants on at the moment but I have been known to wear pants.  I quietly whisper "Phil, get off the bed", no movement.  "Off the damn bed!"  No movement.  I am convinced that my whispering clued Phil in on what was happening.  He knew that I couldn't make noise or I would wake Annie, "your move dad".  I decide that I am going to quietly pick Phil up and remove him from the bed.  I move in for the pickup and Phil, oh so quietly begins chewing on my arms!  No matter how I come at him he always beats me to it and defends against my advances.  I can't see shit and at this point I am tangled in a mess of dog fur, trying to pick Phil up, while slowly being bitten to death, silently.  After about 30 seconds of this I finally wrestle the retriever to the ground.  Victory is mine!!  Take that retriever, I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.  

    

     I wake up early the next morning to go to work, early enough that it is dark outside when I take my trusty retriever outside.  Usually he only has to pee and all is fine, but something has messed up his schedule so more often than not he has been pooping for me as well.  Since I am not accustomed to this early morning phenomenon I have been caught out in my front yard ill prepared for this event.  Luckily the poop bags are just inside the house.  So Phil finishes up his business and we head inside, I take off the leash and he gets this crazy look in his eye.  "What's that dad?  You want to see how fast I can run?"  You see, Phil LOVES to do sprints after pooping.  I can relate with him, I mean who doesn't want to do a few laps around the living room after a successful bowel movement?  The problem is that it is early and I don't want him to wake Annie up.  It is very difficult to convince a dog that feels the need to gallop, to not gallop.  It's like he loses his mind and has gone to a land filled with rivers and meadows to frolic through and the only cure is to see how many times he can run from garage door to front door.  Through slow movements I manage to embrace the race retriever and he takes up his post next to the couch.  Crisis averted.

    

      Meanwhile, poop is outside.  I grab a dog bag and head on out.  Nothing out of the ordinary here, just a dog owner picking up feces.  Except it is dark, and I can't find the poop.  I know the general area, so I have it narrowed down to about a 10x10 square.  At this point I am standing in my front yard, in the dark, staring at the ground.  I take a few careful steps but cannot manage to find the magical gift that my dog has deposited into the yard.  I know I'm on the right track though because I occasionally feel the breeze and get a whiff of dog poop.  I don't exactly have the best sniffer, so I figure I am pretty close to the poop in question.  I'm barefoot though, so it's sketchy.  I can't just go recklessly wandering through this minefield.  

     It's at this point that decisions have to be made.  I know what to do.  I pull out my trusty phone and open the FLASHLIGHT app!  Who's a genius?  This guy.  So just to get you up to speed if for some reason you started reading this blog in the middle(why would anybody do that?).  I am in my front yard, barefoot, crouched over using the light on my phone, scanning for dog poop.  It was mid scan that I suddenly heard a noise.  Which of course was four women going on there morning walk.  OH NO!  I'm comfortable being the guy that uses a light to find poop in the dark, but I'm not necessarily comfortable with people KNOWING that I am the guy that uses a light to find poop in his yard.  I jolt up and turn off my phone light.  Then as if this is perfectly natural, I pretend to be doing something important on my phone as they walk by.  Nothing to see here ladies, just a dude texting barefoot in his front yard in the dark.

     The ladies passed me by and I continued with my feces scavenger hunt.  After a few more moments I found it!  Victory is mine!!  Nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment that you get when finally finding that chameleon poop and you wrap your hand around it.  I was filled with so much pride, until I realized that I could never in good conscience tell anybody about the event that had just transpired.  If only I had a blog for just this kind of self ridicule.