And it’s not because of a vacation. It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s because I went back to work on Monday after a glorious 2 and a half week vacation away from the daily grind of counting items at Best Buy.
Yes, I count things. Items, ranging from video games to big screen LCD televisions to GPS systems. Not to brag, but my job is probably one of, if not the most important job Best Buy has going on in their company, but that’s only if the employee is doing their job correctly. I mean, people are corrupt, I’ve seen it happen at other stores and it’s sad. It’s not a hard job but it is stressful.
But you’re asking me, “But James, how can counting things be so hard? It’s there so you count it.” And I’d say, “Your logic is impeccable but people are dumb and because of that, they created my job, a SWAT member. Yes, it is a gay name and should be getting married in California, but he hasn’t found anyone that he loves yet.”
So I’ll do a little explaining as to what my job truly entails. I have to count a given department or two each day of the week, Monday to Friday. While I get the paperwork each morning that prints up from the corporate office (or from myself if I pick another section to count) I proceed to said department to start counting, writing down where I find each item so I can reference it at any given time and if anyone fucks up or screws around with the numbers, I’ll have the paperwork to prove I’m truthful and they should be led away in handcuffs.
Paperwork errors are annoying and cause the most shrink in any store. Shrink, if you don’t work in retail, is money/ stolen goods a store accumulates and every store has a budget that takes this into account. Being that our store is the only one in Brooklyn, New York, Best Buy knows that we deal with more theft than a store in Wisconsin. So we’re always trying to go under budget and it’s hard because people receive the wrong stuff in, or they sell a 50 inch television with the sku* of a 32 inch television. That one annoys me the most, but what I love is that I’m a regular Sam Spade every day and can track down and deduce who the true culprit is every time.
Why am I talking about my job and not some movie that I’ve just seen? Well, because I have a few movies I need to review and will be posting those here in a few days. Also been writing a few scripts, so right now writing about my job is actually keeping me calm because tomorrow is the MP3 player count and that one is always fucked in the ass with a scythe. Need to get up in 4 hours to get to work by 6 a.m. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that. I have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn in order to count said items. But hell, it’s getting me used to the daily grind of a movie set.
One day, James, one day.
*A sku is the 7 digit number you see on Best Buy’s tags that is basically their proverbial fingerprint. People always screw up or take advantage of those.