I have been a dispatcher for one year, four months, six days, 22 hours, and 21 minutes, and in that time, I have not once been asked to unpack a box of office supplies. This is because when I started this job, I annnounced, quite emphatically, that I would not unpack a box of office supplies ever again. I spent nearly seven thankless years working at CVS, where every week I had to unpack boxes of a random assortment of items, including office supplies. I did not spend six months waiting for a new job, not to mention the rigorous state testing it took to get the new job, only to have to unpack boxes of anything. I did not go to the Telecommunications Academy and lose an entire month of my life in the roasting-ass heat of August in Kentucky to unpack boxes. That part of my life was over. I would never have another papercut caused by a cardboard box. I broke free from that soul-sucking job, and I swore I would never go back.
Today, I unpacked a box of office supplies.
A piece of my soul died as I put away nine containers of creamer, five containers of sugar, Clorox Toilet Bowl cleaner, and Lysol spray. I blocked and faced them without even thinking as I put them away under the cabinet in our kitchen in the dispatch center. (For laypeople, "blocking and facing" is where you make a block with the product in its correct place on the shelf and make sure the label is facing front. I find myself doing this at Wal-Mart, Target, and my own bathroom.) I realized with sudden horror that even now, after all this time away from CVS, that I will never be free of things I learned there. I will never look at a store the same way. I no longer see just rows and rows of products. I see endcaps. I see SKUs. I see planograms, and I know why L'Oreal haircolor is on the top shelf. (Product placement is not random. Companies PAY to be at eye-level.) I am in a completely different field of work, but yet, I will never be free of the brainwashing.
That is what it is. It's brainwashing. CVS, and I'm sure other retail companies, spend endless hours training their employees on how to do even the most minute task. I had to learn how to vacuum properly. I am not making this up. I had to learn how drape sale papers over the child's seat of a bascart. (Yes, they are bascarts. They are not baskets. They are not carts. THEY ARE BASCARTS.) I haven't worked at CVS for over a year, and still I find myself saying "Well, at my CVS, we did..." That is the depth of the brainwashing. It is not my CVS anymore. It will never be my CVS ever again. I opened that box and saw all of the random items inside, and, for a moment, I was back at CVS on truck day, mentally running inventory and deciding what to put away first. I almost checked to make sure my sky blue polo shirt with its embroidered logo was properly tucked in according to the dress code.
This is not normal.
Will I never be free of that place? Do the things we do and learn stay with us forever, to the point that it becomes a part of our daily lives even when we don't want it to?
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
1 year ago
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I dunno. I do know that I spent a year working in the warehouse of a furniture store, unboxing, assembling, and hauling around furniture, and I still don't look at furniture the same way. Now I size it up based on weight, evaluate the quality, and look at how it's put together. I can also throw together a table and chair set in precisely no time flat. I haven't worked there in about four years. So I'm thinking that yeah, that sort of stuff sticks with you forever.
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