Ok, so I just did my orientation for my shiny new cashier job at Wal-Mart. (Incidently, WM must have a lower standard for cashiers than Fleet Farm, because Fleet Farm doesn't think someone pulling an A in college level Calculus can run a freaking cash register.) Little Ms. Wal-Mart poster girl (look at me, I've been selling my soul here for 7 years now and I'm going to be your new associate trainer today) showed us around and strapped us in for the videos. BTW Has anyone around here been through that? Bigger load of propaganda than most elections, minus the attack ads.

And for all you who haven't seen the oh so informative video, union recruiters are just like those creepy old guys who used to get you in their car with candy, except with less morals. I swear they did just about everything short of begging on their hands and knees trying to convince not to join or start a union. Because they can actually lower your pay and benefits, and all they do is squander your dues. Not because they could cost Wal-Mart more money, definately not.

I'm sure it only gets better from here. Thank God I'm only staying for the summer. I expect to have more fun stories to share, provided anyone really cares.

You're overqualified. A manager at McDonald's isn't going to hire some dude with a BA in business, he might lose his job if the other guy does it better.

Nah, it's prolly that they don't care much. I think for some jobs, choosing who to hire becomes arbitrary at some point. When I was looking for one, I definitely got offers where I thought I wouldn't, and got rejected at the places that seemed easy.

In government places (at least some of them), you're actually required to pay part of the dues to the union anyways. Everyone gets the benefits if the union actually manages to get something done.

How good the union is...varies. My mom had some problems at work, the union lawyer flew up from florida to represent her, and did a remarkably competent job at it. But union corruption is far from unknown.

well, sadly enough things are looking not so bad. I think I set a record on their CBLs (computer based learning). they said average completion time was 8 hours, and I did it in about 5, maybe a bit less. sad thing is, I could have skipped right to the quizes on over half of them and probably cut that down to 2 hours or so.

and since I was so fast, I started training already today. watched an intense 3rd party buying attempt. some idiot tried to buy cigarettes with a two-year out of date license from the next state over, and then he said 4 different people in the span of 20 minutes, tops, try to buy the same cigarettes for him. the funny thing is, I was almost ready to believe they were buying them for themselves, except for the part where they kept going back to the same guy and swearing before the next one came. the original guy was standing not 5 feet away when the last guy tried. that guy was so inventive, he took a bottle of pop up with him, so we wouldn't suspect anything. I'm sure he got some within a half hour from a gas station or something, but you'd think he would have caught on quicker than that...

It sucks. I fell asleep on most of them... but I still have my job.

There was an interesting passage about company tests, memorandums, etc in a book I read once. Supposedly, you should start by going under company average and steadily increase as you get older, so you fit in with their expectations of your impulsiveness and such as a result of your age.

I'm telling you, the thinking that goes into quick scams and such is absolutely amazing. Sometimes. More often it's downright pathetic.