Department Store Worker by Anthony J. Notte II

I work in a department store and I watch all the people and I get them their couches and I get their grills and I get them their lawn furniture and I listen to their complaints and their fat mouths when they want a fan from the back room because the one on the shelf has been handled by too many people and the box is dented.

Think about this: most times, people don’t wash their hands with soap after they go to the bathroom. If you can touch the door handle to get into the store, you can touch a roughed-up cardboard box.

I argue with them when they want this brand of boxers but we only have that brand. As if there was a real difference. As if they weren’t all made with the same fibers.

I get them their bikes off the rack because they’re too dumb to know to just take it themselves. People are so used to rules and prohibitions on self-action they can’t even get a bike off a rack.

Don’t do it, we’ll do it for you.

Don’t strain yourself, we’ll handle it.

Don’t ask me (the worker) for help, I’ll come to you and beg you to let me help you.

It’s a nice, neat existence.

So I work in a department store and I work the night shift. The reason there is a night shift is because the stores get so messy we (the workers) have to stay four to five hours after it closes to clean it all up. How do all the items get back to their spots the next day? We stay late and put them there so you (the consumer) can find them. You think: “I don’t want this candy bar (that you really didn’t want anyway put picked up because you thought “Well maybe”), I’ll put it here, in the electronics section.”

Then we put it back.

Picture thousands of guests (the name for consumers in the handbooks) doing this all day for fifteen hours. Then imagine twenty workers having to straighten it all out, six days a week.
Think about what the guy saying “Welcome to (insert store name here), how can I help you?” is really thinking next time you’re asked that question.

I (the worker) get the batteries and the crayons and the pencils and the air conditioners from the back room and I put them on the shelf. I deal with the backroom guys’ dirty looks when I ask them to drive a forklift (which is their only duty). I then bring you your nice colorful shit that you will use for a while then throw away. I feed your consumer insatiability. I watch you swipe away your savings with your debit or credit card day after day. I watch you cycle through these cards, card after card, because you have so many that you have no idea which ones have any value still left in them. I know what underwear you buy. I know when you buy a thong. I laugh at you silently when your fat ass buys a size six dress. I lie, for fun, to you when you ask my opinion about products. You look at me when the cash register breaks like I broke it purposely just to slow down your day, which is so much more interesting and important than mine. I look at your fifteen-year-old daughter’s ass when she walks and think about having sex with her and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This is my life. This is how it connects with yours.

You know why everything you buy says “made somewhere third world” on it? Because where goods are made is determined buy how docile and low paid the workers are. Business goes to the factories in the countries where workers have the least amount of rights, the longest hours, and the lowest wages. Low wages mean low production cost, low production cost means you can buy t-shirts for one hundred bucks in the mall and business owners can get fucking filthy rich off the difference. The textile industry went from Britain to New England to the American South to Japan to China, all because workers gained rights and higher pay so the businesses left and went somewhere where workers were lower than dirt.

This is our marvelous Industrial Revolution.

This is the birth of our spectacular modern world.

This is the nature of consumerism.

Welcome to it, how can I help you?