7-Eleven

Well, I survived my first day at work at 7-Eleven, again. Chiy is pretty nice, and an alright dude as far as I'm concerned. However, he is one cheap sonofabitch. He wants us to re-use the little plastic gloves for handling hot dogs and taquitos. As in, use one pair all day. And when the hot dogs turn to beef jerky on the roller grill? Why, there's nothing wrong with them. Sell them fuckers! It's an added bonus... beef jerky flavored hot dogs! And the paper towels. We aren't allowed to use paper towels, period. I don't really get that part, but that's basically the case. Third shift are the only ones who are allowed to use paper towels, because they have to clean the 'vision', as Chiy calls the windows. There's a special place where they keep the paper towels, in the back room above the place where wine is stored. Don't touch those towels! They're for third shift!

Oh. And it's perfectly ok to let a pot of coffee sit for hours and hours and hours. I'm guessing the reason for this is so that the decaf will transform into dark mountain with extra caffeine. After all, why throw out perfectly good coffee that improves with age? Chiy saw me dumping a pot that was 3/4 empty and had to pull me aside and give me the 'waste not, want not' talk.

And about the garbage. Chiy saw me emptying the garbage behind the counter near the sink, which was only 3/4 full. He commended me on my initiative, but made it clear that the garbage should only be emptied when it's about to overflow. Saves money on trash bags, you see. Oh, and blue paper towels are to be used ONLY as refills for the paper towel dispensers at the gas tanks, and for no other reason under any circumstance.

Now, about the hot food. As much as I hate to, I have to ask each and every customer, up until 7:00, if they would like two slices of pizza for $2.00. I forgot to do this a couple of times, and Chiy noticed. He walked up to me with a big smile, patted me on the back, and said, "I'll give you a couple of weeks to get the hang of it." The smile did not reach his eyes. I took this to mean, "I'm paying you the big bucks so you will increase my profits, so you better not fuck up! You have two weeks to get your shit together!"

I worked with Brittney today. I remembered everything pretty well, but I still had to ask her to help me every once in a while. It was weird... when I worked at 7-Eleven before, I was the one training her and answering her questions. It was weird having to ask her how to ring up a money order, and where the banana key was, and how to scan a lottery ticket. Still, she was a point of familiarity for me in this imminently familiar yet strangely unknown environment.

For example... I have a new code now, but I kept punching in my old 4 digit code into the register to log on. I did that several times out of sheer habit. I remember when Ryan and I used to race to see who could log in the fastest. I was pretty damn fast back then... it will take me a while to get that fast again with the new code. Also, there used to be a trash can right next to the sink. It's moved a little to the left now, and I found myself trying to throw stuff where the trash can used to be, again, out of sheer habit. The coffee trough was exactly the same though... I made coffee like a pro and didn't flood the coffee trough once. I saw a lot of old familiar customers who were surprised to see me and welcomed me back like we were old friends. The mailman was the most vocal and enthusiastic about my presence there. Made me feel kind of good that a lot of the old regulars recognized me.

So, my responsibilities as the Ass. Manager of 2nd shift are to keep the cooler stocked, mop the floor every two hours or so, keep the coffee trough wiped down, plus-sell pizza to every single customer, and make Chiy lots and lots and lots and lots of money. In a couple of weeks, if I pass the initial muster, Chiy will let me start ordering stuff again. Joy.

So here I am again at Shmevin Eleven. It's actually a little sad being there now, what with all of the good old memories from before... hot dog bun fights, AHHHHHH Terry, payrolling cigarettes for Flower Lady, working with Leah... but life goes on and I'll probably make new memories over the next year or so that I'll be nostalgic about all over again.