Archive for September, 2006

I have to stop cartooning so late at night…

Monday, September 4th, 2006

I made a minor balloon error on this weeks comic. Just spacing, but still. I would suggest a drinking game based on the amount of errors I make; however, since it’s a weekly comic, it would be a horribly slow game and probably would be mistaken for alcoholism.

In didn’t have a chance to post an example of employee stupidity last week, so here we go. When I was a retail manager at a store on Pier 39, I had an employee who was either stupid or just the most apathetic person I’ve ever met. We’ll call him George.

George was assigned the position of greeting, but he would just stand there chewing gum with his mouth open. He wouldn’t say anything to people coming in, just stand there.

After about an hour I was finished with something else and came to check on him, thus finding out what he was doing (or not doing).

I explained again what he was supposed to do, and he acknowledged to me that he understood his task.

I then retreated to another position and observed him do the exact same thing. This time I went over with a napkin and demanded his gum, which somehow I hadn’t noticed when talking to him before. I explained in more strenuous terms that he was to greet people when they came in, no matter what.

I again retreated to my observation spot and again he did nothing.  Frustrated, I told him to say a greeting to the room every 30 seconds — even if no one was there.

Once again, he did nothing. This time after we were off the floor, I asked him why he couldn’t perform something so simple. He just stared at me, chewing a new piece of gum.

Needless to say, he was let go.

Back then I was a lot less tolerant of that kind of sheit than I am now. San Francisco has softened me up a bit — I no longer throw big gulps at assholes in sports cars who corner too fast nearly running me over. (That was one mad guy in a Mercedes convertible, by the way. Oh well!) ;-P

Friggin, fraggin, frack!!

Monday, September 18th, 2006

I’m very frustrated after having stayed up pretty late to get a double sized comic out, ComicGenesis is having script issues, so my comic doesn’t update no matter what I do. Feh!

On the plus side Shadensmilen, my other webcomic, is updating fine. That and I have the very first viewer horror story!

Once, about half an hour before closing, a woman came in and bought four pairs of patriotic sequin glasses. I was working register; I finalized the sale, she walked out. Five minutes later, she walked back in, saying that I hadn’t given her a discount for the Fourth of July stuff despite the fact that there was a sale sign on them. I told her that this particular item wasn’t actually on sale (one of those things that the managers do that makes the customers hate on the register people but the register people can’t do anything about it). Next she told me that she ought to get the discount anyway, since the glasses that she had CHOSEN were clearly damaged.

They weren’t. All of the OTHER pairs were, but the four pairs that SHE had CHOSEN were perfectly fine.

Furthermore, each of these pairs of sequin glasses cost a grand total of sixty-four cents.

The discount she was asking for was a twenty-one cent discount on each pair. Less than a quarter. I shit you not. She made such a fuss that I had to all my manager in, and we had to fill out a return slip to get her her money back — EIGHTY FOUR CENTS.

This whole process took over an hour, and we closed late. This was an hour that she could have EASILY spent getting her OWN job in retail, EARNING 84 cents an hour instead of hassling me for it. Bitch.

Thank you special viewer, you know who you are :-) This morning has been pretty frustrating, but I’m sure it will work out.