In The Life Of A Server...or pharmacy tech

Once in a while I take some odd job for a friend.

I took a job for a local landscaper, and my job is to call people with completed jobs and arrange - and collect - payment.

How I do this was left entirely to my discretion, and in exchange I got a significant discount on work I wanted done.

Most people, even the past due people, were cool about things. I'd call, remind them of a balance due, and go pick up a check. One guy asked for a payment plan. I told him there were no payment plans on completed work, and he paid in full the next day.

Simple stuff.

Then a new job completed. Think a massive job with brick retaining wall, full landscape cleanup, and trees trimmed or removed.

He agreed to the price, signed the contract, then wanted to discuss price after the work was completed.

He was...aggressive.

I show up at his house (per his request) to discuss things. He wants a 30% discount.

Was the work not done properly?

No, the work was good.

Did something happen between the signing of the contract and now that the price is no longer acceptable?

No, everything was fine.

He just wants to negotiate a discount after the work is done.

"There will be no discount. This is the price you agreed to."

He then tells me he's paying nothing then.

"That's fine. We'll just put a lien on your house."

He asks what that means. It means you can't sell the house until you've addressed the lien.

"You can't do that! I'll sue you!"

Go ahead. The contract you signed says we can do that.

He gets a look on his face like he's suddenly staring into the sun.

"I can't pay that. It's too much."

"Well then you can't sell the house either."

He didn't like that much, and started yelling at me in his broken English heavily-accented bullshit so I left. I don't listen to people yelling at me in English, yelling at me when I can't understand what he's screeching about is even more pointless.

Told the owner about it, he said the lien was the right option, and he'd start the paperwork.

Two hours later we get a call. He's going to just pay what he agreed to, because he doesn't want to deal with a lien.

Made him come to the office to pay, which to his credit he did without further incident. I wanted to tell him the time to negotiate is before he agrees to a price, but decided against it.

Food tampering is a crime.

Which, coincidentally, is why you never read about me tampering with somebody's food.

Yesterday I told you about Adventures in GameStop.

Today I sold the PS4 for $100 from the wiggle room guy. Easy.

I was about to take the listing down when I saw I had another message.

Another lowballer, this time offering a whopping $30.

It was just after I sold it, but it still annoyed me.

"$30 and it's gone today!"

"Know what? That's fine. Meet me at Arby's?"

"I'm leaving [town 40 minutes away] now."

"Great, see you in 45 minutes then."

I went home, played some Tears of the Kingdom, and waited.

45 minutes later: "I'm here. Where are you?"

Then I marked it as sold and blocked him.

I can waste time too, moron.

As many of you know, I'm a long-time gamer. I still own an Atari.

Recently, Sony decided that PlayStation wouldn't support physical discs starting in 2028. That poses a problem for me, because I like buying secondhand and actually being able to play games when licensing expires (See: Deadpool PS4.)

So I made the decision to trade in my PS4, PS5, and all the games. There's nothing I had that can't be run on PC or Switch so nothing really lost.

I have a good game store near-ish to me, so I took it all there. They took everything but the PS4 (and accessories,) because they have too many as it is.

Fair enough.

I took it to another game store, and it was the same thing.

Then, stupidly, I went to Gamestop.

Of course it was single coverage because it always is. I asked the guy if they still did trades (it's been quite a long time since I've been in a GameStop) and he says "yes."

Great. Let me look around while you do your thing and we can talk what I get for the system.

I'm not thinking I'm walking out with $583 in store credit. It's a PS4, and not even the later edition one.

After waiting an hour for him to fumble with his pricing stuff (and dealing with people coming in for games and whatnot) he quoted me $18.

$18.

I declined the offer, obviously. Just as obviously, I didn't give him a hard time about it either. He doesn't set prices. And even if he did, I can just say no and leave. He apologized around a dozen times, which tells me GameStop employees might be among the most abused on the planet.

I looked over at the PS4 consoles they had for sale. $140.

I'm all for a business turning a profit, but that's ridiculous.

Listed it on marketplace for $130 and had 2 hits already.

One was an idiot lowballer who thought $40 was a good offer. "$40 I can pick up right now."

"Not for $40 you won't."

I'd rather throw it away than give it away.

The other one was a guy who wanted to know how firm I was on pricing, he wants to tell his wife he "got a deal" on it.

I told him there's some wiggle room, but I'm not giving it away.

I expect I won't hear back.

Either way, GameStop sucks.

Every month I give my manager my availability for the following month, and he works around it. If he *really* needs help on a day I'm unavailable, I do what I can to work with him. Sometimes that's working a short shift. Sometimes that's moving my plans around.

And sometimes that's saying "no."

He's good about it when I want a day off, so it's a fair compromise. And since I'm part-time, we can both be a bit flexible.

I do not do that with the other 2 stores I work at. Why not? Because I'm there as a favor to them, if I'm not available because I want to take 4 naps and attempt to get ice cream poisoning, that's my business.

Today I get a text from the new manager of store #2.

He seems like a nice guy and all, and asks me if I can work tomorrow.

I cannot. I have plans. Those plans involve buying plants for my fish tank and gluing them to driftwood. It's exciting stuff.

I tell him I cannot work tomorrow.

He texts back. "You're not scheduled tomorrow, and it looks like you have the rest of the week off. We really need you here."

"I am unavailable tomorrow."

"I'm scheduling you for 8am." He no longer seems like a nice guy, he now seems like an asshole.

"Plan on finding coverage for my absence then, because I am unavailable."

"I don't think you understand, you're being scheduled so you're expected to be here."

"OK. I tried being nice. I don't think YOU understand. Read the handbook. I cannot be forced to work in a store other than my home store. So you can keep the attitude and the pushy nonsense to yourself. Keep it up and I'll tell you to lose my number and never work in your store again."

"Are you sure this is your answer?"

"Yes. Now I'd appreciate if you stopped bothering me about it."

I hear nothing for a couple hours, then my phone rings. It's my manager. Because I am forever too stupid to live, I answer it.

"Hey can you help out in [store #2] tomorrow?"

"No, I have plans. I told [new manager of store #2] that when he texted me and then tried to force it."

"OK. He asked if I'd call and talk to you about it and try to convince you, so that's what this is. I'm not going to push it."

"Appreciate that." I then told him about my fish tank plans (because he asked.)

Later today I found out the plants wouldn't be in anyway. Had he not pushed it, I'd have reconsidered.

Now it's going to be play with the dogs, do a bit of cleaning, and see if I can like Mario Kart World a bit more than I currently do.

My manager returned today.

Amanda couldn't corner him fast enough, telling him that she was his best tech and should be lead tech and why she was more qualified than anybody else there.

He was very confused.

He then discovered (because I told him) that I'd started a rumor about a lead tech position, and she thinks that somehow her strategy of being a boil on the ass of progress means that she should be in a leadership role.

The manager was both annoyed an impressed.

Annoyed that now he got to break the news to her that there is no such position.

Impressed that I pulled it off, got a bit of a laugh about it when I told him I did it because she can't keep her nose out of my business.

Then he told her there was no such position coming.

I don't know if she has the brain power to connect the dots, or to reflect on her behavior that lead to it, but it was funny to me.

There is no conversation in the pharmacy that Amanda doesn't want to be a part of. It could be work-related. It could be weekend plans. It could be talking about hemorrhoids. Doesn't matter.

Since she's decided that even my private conversation with my manager about my finger (healed as good as it gets, I guess) is her business, I could at least have some fun with it.

I decided to start a rumor that my company was going to add a lead tech position. It's a full-time position, with a $4/hr pay raise. In charge of techs, training, and with a say in hiring.

All I had to do was talk about this with coworkers where she could hear, and she's decided that she's the new lead tech.

For clarity - and because I don't talk about other coworkers very much because they do things like their jobs - there are at least 3 techs that I would endorse for such a role before myself because they're good at what they do and I don't want responsibility.

I'd rather die of dengue fever digging sewage ditches in India than even consider the possibility of Amanda being in charge of anything more difficult than breathing in and out.

I started that rumor on Friday.

Today she hit me with "I'm going to be lead tech soon, so you may want to listen to what I'm saying now," after I told her I would not do the audit on the storage area that the pharmacist had asked her to do.

I asked her why she thought she would be the new lead tech. "Because [coworker infinitely more qualified] isn't interested and I am. And I'm going to start talking to [manager] about it as soon as he gets back from vacation. You shouldn't put in for it."

I wouldn't dream of it.

I'm notorious (at least with people who read this blog) for being a bastard sometimes.

Sometimes I'm nice though.

A month or two ago I had this elderly lady come through my line because everybody in 3 counties decided that 4pm was the time to get their meds. She comes up to me, gives me her name, standard stuff.

Until it comes time to pay. She forgot her wallet either in the car or at home or on the moon, I don't know I wasn't listening. It came to under $10, and I had quite the line - I wanted her to get the hell out of line.

So I swiped my personal card, and told her to get me next time she was in. Not a big deal. Then I could go back to getting this hellish line down and do something else.

Fast-forward around a week. She came back with the money, a very nice card detailing how she'd prayed for me (even though I'm not religious it's still a nice gesture at worst,) and a very spendable $10 bill.

Everybody wins here, right?

If you've followed me for any time whatsoever you know better.

We had a walk through from some higher-ups that wouldn't be caught dead shopping here and my manager showed them the card. It looks good that this happened in his store - to a guy that has no idea who I am. They want to give me some award or another. I decline. I don't want it. They want to put me in this stupid quarterly newsletter. I decline. I want nothing. Just leave me alone and we're good.

Fast-forward again to 2 weeks ago. Some random manager that I don't know wanted to talk to me about it, as the lady had written a very nice note to corporate about what I did. He wanted to put me in for an award. "I'd rather be hit by a truck and dragged." I thought this sent a pretty clear message that I wanted nothing to do with it. Turns out he was the store manager.

Two days ago, the award showed up. That same store manager came up and announced it to everybody what I'd done and handed it to me and clapped at me. If it wasn't so utterly stupid it would have been insulting. Right in front of him I tore it up and tossed it in the recycling. Then we had to have some conversation about it in the shot room. Went like this:

Store manager: Why did you do that?

Me: Because I was very clear that I didn't want recognition of any kind, but you couldn't respect that.

Store manager: But it's a good award to have, looks good for promotion opportunities!

Me: Yeah that and $5 will get me a large McDonald's coffee. I didn't want it, it's meaningless. Signed by a guy who couldn't pick me out of a lineup. I don't know how I could have been any clearer about it.

The store manager thought about things for a moment.

Store manager: Are you still unwilling to be in the newsletter?

Me: If you attempt to put me in that newsletter in any capacity I quit, this is my notice. I don't want to be in the propaganda. I don't want recognition. I want nothing. Unless you're giving me a raise - and I know you aren't - I want to be left alone. As it stands I will never do anything like this again.

Store manager: Well we don't want you to feel discouraged from going above and beyond for the customers.

Me: Then you should have respected my wishes.

At that point I left the shot room whether they were done with me or not, leaving my manager with the store manager.

After a while the manager came to talk to me.

Manager: I really wish you hadn't done that.

Me: I really wish they hadn't given me that stupid award.

He squinted at me a moment, considered life choices and maybe if he could fire me, then told me he'd make sure I wasn't in the newsletter. I think he knows I wasn't bluffing.

Today I go in and find that award on our GLP fridge, taped together. Amanda took it upon herself to put it back together for reasons I can't comprehend. I took a magic marker and defaced it to the point it can't be determined what it was, then tore it up again in tiny pieces.