The Joys of Retail (But Not Really)

As everyone who works (or has ever worked) retail can confirm, it's not a job that generally makes you like your fellow human beings more. Being the misanthrope that I am I honestly don't know what ever made me decide retail was even an option for me. Or well, I do know: there was nothing else and earning some money is better than none at all. So now I'm stuck in some store in a mall. It's a chain of stores that are pretty wellknown in Belgium and The Netherlands, and I worked at another location first - which wasn't in a mall, and had much nicer, less creepy, more respectful customers; oh the wonderful days.. The store in question is called Blokker, and I thought I should tell and show you this for obvious reasons:

Similar names, similar logos. I don't really know what to make of it, but anyhow, there you have it. We generally sell household stuff, gifts, tableware, that sort of thing. You could compare it with Target, I guess. Some of the stores also sell toys, but fortunately mine doesn't. Cause that would mean: kids. Not that our customers are any more civilized than kids.

Below are some of the general rules they tend to uphold at our store:

• Text and images on packagings are blatant lies, one has to open the packing at all times so as to verify the contents oneself. It is not necessary to put the contents back in place afterwards, but if so, a half-assed attempt is preferable.
• Shopping is much more fun when placing items one is not after all going to buy in any random location in the store, except the one it came from.
• Always ask the cashier where to find an item first. When given directions, go the other way entirely. When the item is not found, either: a) go back to the cashier and tell them their directions suck, or b) decide to search the store all by oneself, like an independent adult.
• Paying €0.05 for a plastic bag is insane. It is much more acceptable to buy random shit one is never going to use. Besides, the environment, what of it? Also, the cashiers are the ones who invented this toll. (*)
• One should always ask for info about the items one is buying when at the checkout, especially when there's a long line. Another favorite is to have the cashier ring up the stuff and then decide it is after all too expensive or useless.
• Credits cards are for losers. One should show off one's wads of money to the cashier and fellow customers, so as to gain respect!!!1!11!. Always pay with the highest bills too, cause the cashier is bound to have a million in change in the register.

(*) Honestly, if I ever have a customer yapping about those damn bags again, I'll punch them in the face.

1. We're not a fancy clothes store, so no, we don't hand out free bags.
2. It's been like this for years.
3. It's 5 fucking cents.
4. Stop giving me crap about the environment, my generation isn't the one who fucked it up.
5. This is a mall, so you probably already have bags, and if not you'll get some sooner or later.
6. Paying €0.40 to use a damn toilet is totally normal, but €0.05 for a bag would be too much.
7. We sell some of those nifty reusable bags that you can fold up and put in your handbag/pocket.

Also, the amount of people hanging around in malls is just something I don't get. Some of them are clearly there to shop cause they need stuff, and I'm totally okay with that. But others are literally there cause they seem to have nothing better to do, all strolling around and shit. "And let's go for a drink next." "Let's go have an icecream." Are they all unemployed or what. And if so, where do they get the money?

This blind consumerism is something I'll never get. I admit, I do from time to time buy stuff I don't really need. But at least I feel bad about it afterwards.

The LiveJournal Disaster

First posts suck. I'm basically sitting here staring at this blank space wondering what the hell it is I actually want to say. No lie, I've been feeling like this for most of 2011, if not even before. Paradoxically, I have a lot to say, probably too much. Which is why I don't know what to address first, and how, and in what order. Which, in its turn, describes my state of mind for the past couple of.. let's be honest and say years.

But in any case, a new blog. Yet another one, I can hear you (and the voice in the back of my head) thinking. Thing is, I have been on LiveJournal since 2004 and actively so since 2007. It's an amazing network, I have discovered loads of new music, books, movies, TV shows and - last but definitely not least - people through it and I'm eternally grateful for that. I like the way it's personal (also in the sense of, not public), expressive and interactive. I came to love it more than any other website, I even still pay for my account and extra userpics (can I say: I love me those 100x100 things like you wouldn't believe). 

Then why do I feel the need for another blog? Actually (A) I have felt the need for a more public and "professional" blog for a very long time. I gave it a few shots: other LJs, Wordpress, and of course the obvious platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr. But you can hardly call those blogs, right. Twitter doesn't allow actual sentences, and Tumblr is for pictures, not words, we all know that. And (B) LiveJournal has evolved from a lively and amazing community to an uncomfortable dead place in just a few months. People leave for Tumblr, people leave for Dreamwidth (which I considered as well, though in the end it's really the same platform as LJ, so not my objective at this point), people leave for god knows where. Reasons for this are probably all kinds of circumstances, but mostly (as I suspect) LiveJournal itself. Ever since it went to the Russians, one shitty thing has followed the other. It's not like they're to blame I suppose (especially not for the DDOS attacks) but there have been bad and unnecessary updates and lots and lots of annoying things happening in the past year, which has made me (and I bet many others with me) feel kind of "betrayed" and disconnected.

For the moment (hell, I just renewed my payments) I'm not leaving LiveJournal. For the moment it still feels like killing a child. But, since I feel the need to post and express myself on the internet, yet somehow feel uncomfortable soing so on LJ, I'm doing it here. As with everything I sign up for, it's quite possible this is the only post there's ever going to be on this page, and maybe I even delete my account altogether after a couple of days. Who knows. For now though, let's call this a fresh start, a new page.