Read Reid's Blog

December 28, 2004

What a long day. It started with waking up around 11 and heading to West County mall with my sister, where we got her added to our family plan with AT&T Wireless. Unfortunately, they needed a Visa card for payment, so I shelled out mine, and added more money to my already massive credit card bill for the next month. I’m not looking forward to paying that one. We then met my parents for lunch at Sansui, where I got some tempura and also ate a few pieces of sushi. My favorite is the spider roll, but it’s quite expensive, making it a tasteful but not too filling food. After that I headed home, then went to the bank and then Best Buy, where I picked up Half-Life 2 and some headphones for use at school with my Best Buy gift cards I got from work. I took a nap at home and then went to the Galleria.

After picking up some pants from Gap, and practically inhaling a Philly cheesesteak sandwich from Charley’s Steakary, it was time for work. I worked from 6-1am. Ridiculous. We closed the store at 9:30pm and spent the next 3.5 hours straightening the folding clothes. A lot of it was wasteful stuff where I had to fix other peoples’ mistakes. People put sensors in the wrong spot, hung clothes the wrong way or used the wrong hangers, and basically f’d up so much that it made closing take way longer then it should have. The people closing – Mike, Pam, Stacie, Maria, and I – we’ve all worked at Express for a long time, and we did complain how a lot of the stuff we did was just fix other peoples’ mistakes. What’s upsetting is that so many people who work at the store don’t do anything during their shift except walk back and forth like some tool and not fix or straighten anything in the store since they’re not closing. But, that really screws anyone who’s closing up and makes closing take way too long. Ahh stupid people. I guess I shouldn’t complain, considering it’s the nature of retail, but I’ve definitely felt like the store has gone downhill since the summer when I worked. Most of the new people who work at the store are pretty lazy and don’t really do much. It’s kind of sad, and I know that there are some fairly high up people planning to leave soon to move onto bigger and better things, and I really wonder if the store can be as successful without them. I guess these kinds of things do happen ‘behind the scenes’ and the customer won’t notice the difference, but it’s those small things – like being able to actually find clothes in all of the ‘hidden’ parts of the store or being able to do shipment quickly or really anything quickly and helping the presentation of the store drive sales that can make a store much more successful then some average store. But, since I’m only working at Express for one more day before heading back to school, it’s no biggie. But, I’m making a complaint about mediocrity. I feel like the managers at our store need to be more diligent about getting people to do stuff, because if this trend continues, I’ll be working at another store :-P….yeah right, who am I to kid, I love Express. Maybe that’s why I’m complaining.

So after a glorious 1am closing, I headed home and packed for Memphis. I’m actually not bringing that much stuff and I also cleaned my room a little bit. I have so many damn shopping bags in my room. I’ve gotten so much clothes – dammit…3 pairs of jeans, 4 long sleeve t-shirts, 2 belts, 2 button down shirts, but it feels like more. Maybe I’ll get more shirts on Friday during my last day of work :-P

Off to Memphis tomorrow! Throwed rolls and the Civil Rights Museum.