i'm a douche.

i met a woman the other day, randomly at the beverly center early one morning before it opened, who dresses up as chuckie the homicidal doll at universal studio's haunted house.  she therefore spends her entire work week scaring the shit out of small children by popping out of metal trash cans in dark hallways.  i was both extremely pleased and terribly upset when i learned this about her, because 1) it meant that really bizarre jobs can be and are held by relatively normal-looking people, which is always encouraging.  however, it also made me wonder why i don't know anything about how to find a cool, weird, interesting, "i-can't-believe-i'm-living-my-dream" kind of employment (which is not to say this woman's lifelong dream was to wear a chuckie head and exploit her own shortness, but you see what i mean).  i need an awesome job.  i need to be proud of what i tell people i do, be it because the job is prestigious or fashionable or just downright out of control.  and that is precisely why, my friends, i quit my job at borders today.  over the phone.  like a total jackass.

i'd never meant for it to end this way.  i started there thinking i'd be toiling at the helm of a literary mecca, helping people find the books they'd always wanted, changing lives, making a little money to support my college lifestyle and getting an awesome discount on books i wanted for myself.  however, sadly, it was not to be.  let the rant begin: i don't have much tolerance for being treated like an incompetent fool whenever a helpless, extravagantly self-indulgent customer demands i find which book they want based on their stunning description of it's "hard blue cover," which may or may not actually be blue.  i could smile and be pleasant, but inside it tore me apart when women with clacky, newly painted acrylic fingernails act like it's a personal affront to them and to common decency that we don't do free gift wrapping anymore.  i hated hearing people complain when i'd inform them that i couldn't allow them to combine their two 40% off coupons because selling books for nearly zero dollars makes no sense when you're trying to run a business.  but maybe that's just it.  i wasn't running the show.  i was helpless to change all the horribly tragic practices i witnessed and was a party to each and every day i went to work.

i'd wanted to see someone freak out on the clock, the way i'd heard in water-cooler rumors people often did when they reached their retail breaking points.  i'd wanted to live vicariously when someone shouted, "i am so OVER this shit," and stormed out of the castle, leaving behind their blaring earpiece and radio and reveling in the fact that they would never have to ask, "do you have a borders rewards card?" ever again.  i couldn't wait.  unfortunately, people aren't that creative, or shameless.  people just started disappearing, as if some terrible borders monster was making off with them at midnight at the ends of their grueling closing shifts.  we'd all hear snippets of what had happened when so and so left (he'd abandoned the rest of the hours remaining on his shift, she'd simply refused to come in again, etc.), but i wouldn't know exactly how the disappearing act goes until i did it myself.

just before noon today, i popped into the store to use the restroom (as, post-graduation, i've spent much time floating around westwood, alighting in parks to read books outside and drinking liters upon liters of water to keep from shriveling up in this disgusting summer heat wave).  then, just by chance, after checking on my flagging borders rewards sign-up percentage, i glanced at the weekly schedule to find i was pegged to start work later that afternoon.  this came as a surprise to me, mostly because i hadn't been around to check the schedule, having called out or found a replacement for my shifts for the past week and a half (for purely academic reasons, mind you - i needed to graduate, after all).  i also never work on fridays.  this, apparently, was the final straw.  the one, tiny straw that broke this camel's back.  after leaving the store, and consulting with l., i called my manager and told her i wouldn't be coming back. 

i'm a douche.