Working at Fry's

This is a story I wrote up for my Intro To Fiction class. I was to talk about a job using all the senses. I decided that I wanted to incorporate as much humor as possible. At first, I was worried that the jokes would be too cheeky or something of that sort, but, upon reading it in class, I noticed a number of genuine laughs, especially from other previous or current corporate retail workers, ensuring me in my own talents.

As far as official employment goes, I have truly only had one job, which was working as a accessory salesman at Fry's Electronics, or, as I often call it, “The COSCO of Electronics.” Prior to that, I had only ever worked for my parents in a very unofficial capacity, so I didn't know what to expect, especially since I was going into corporate retail. Whatever I did expect, the experience was certainly many orders of magnitudes more strange, mostly due to the customers that I spent most of my work time attempting to help figure out why they had even come to our store in the first place.

I was easily hired due to my proficiencies in both electronics and bullshitting, the latter being one of the most important talents in the retail market. The man who interviewed me, Dan, the Assistant Store Manager, had something that was off about his face, but I couldn't tell what it was.. I think he may have had facial reconstructive surgery at one point. He was nice, however, in that cheeky, I'm-just-a-nice-boss-until-I-gain-more-by-screwing-you-over kind of way.

I trained under a woman by the name of Stephanie (we were all about first names). She frightened me, as she had the constant demeanor of an unlit stick of dynamite. She was also one of the largest people in the store and was not shy about using it to her advantage. I later found out that she dated the nicest guy in the store, Josh, who I worked with and spent most of my time talking to. They lived together and she drove the car. The training room was as sterile as a hospital waiting room, complete with that annoying, constant humming noise. Our training consisted of watching two movies; one was some sort of racist propaganda about why black people shouldn't smoke pot and the other was (and I wish I was joking here) a recycled driver's ed tape. There were a whole stack more, but Stephanie was apparently too busy to make us watch them, so she sent us out on the sale floor to, “shadow,” our euphemism for pretending to work.

Being a naive kid, I attempted to actually learn how to do my job. I began stalking Taras at the behest of my supervisor. Taras was, perhaps, the worst retail worker in history (of course, as is common in life, he was promoted mere days later), and proceeded to instruct me on important subjects such as how to get away with texting your girlfriend for an hour and avoiding customers who wanted help. After two hours of listening to him whine about how difficult his job was, I ditched him and spent the next few hours meeting the other workers and seeing the layout of our dimly lit, sales heavy corner of the store.

Over the next few weeks, I learned the functions of a accessory salesman: moving boxes, opening boxes, stacking boxes, properly putting boxes on shelves, cleaning up boxes, and other exciting, box-related activities. I smelled of corrugated cardboard by the end of the day and often felt like it. I quickly understood why all of the Fry's employees smoked, with the exception of Josh and I (Stephanie wouldn't let him and I'm allergic). I did enjoy the box crusher, though, which was, of course, a machine design, built, and operated for the sole purpose of flattening the multitudes of boxes we received computer equipment in. It bled grease and oil from every orifice and groaned, reminding me of some sort of complicated contraption I would read about in one of my steampunk novels.

My very favorite task was actually helping the costumers, something which I learned to restrict myself to doing as much as possible and was really the only person there who was at least decent at. In the first month, I received more commendations from customers than any other person in my department due my actual caring about connecting these people to the needed equipment, no matter if I steered them away from or too a more expensive item. The other 'associates' there were content to play with their boxes and, if, by some divine happening, they were roped by a costumer, they would do as little as possible to help them, often times sending them to the farthest aisle they could, or, if they were feeling particularly trollish, into different departments.

This is where the reality of the unspoken trust that customers held and retailers abused was first revealed to me; I once saw a worker tell someone that a piece of photographic equipment was in the movie section and that person, in infinite consumer loyalty, actually walked across the store to find it, striding right by the section that held a large sign signifying it's content to be that which the customer was seeking.

The main problem with being the retail altruist that I was was that I often found myself helping the sort of customers who either have non-electronic related issues or simply had no business being in our store. The most loathed group had to be the Mouth Breathers, a segment of the population who are almost always in their sixties, unkempt, and crazier than a Pink Floyd song. Of course, as their name gives away, these people all chose to inhale and exhale all air through their encrusted, decaying mouths. Combine this with a strange habit of standing uncomfortably close to the second half of a conversation and you have a recipe for a truly punchable person.

There are many zany stories I could write about, but none of them are really all that unique and would only make sense to other retail workers. Looking back, my employment at Fry's Electronics was actually very rewarding; I received a decent discount on purchases, I spent lots of time hanging out with fun people, and still have a stack of business cards and the like from customers of various walks of life offering me a job, including the leader of IT at Nike. And, aside from the few Mouth Breathers, Crazies, and other unbearable people, the customers were fun to interact with and really let you know their appreciation for your help, even the most minor of things. Sadly, I never accepted the tips, since I was only making eight dollars an hour, part-time.