Ode to a suicidal shop floor employee
I wasted 3 solid years of my life at one of Britain's finest retailers (rhymes with Besco) with such mind-numbing tedium that I seriously endangered my health on an almost daily basis.

To say I'm a bit competitive and a slightly narcisstic perfectionist is probably summarised by the fact I've unconsciously spellchecked this post 4 times and will search out this post every day for the next week to see how many replies I've got. My leap of desperation into an environment of move box, open box, fill shelf, go home quickly turned my acts of passing the time into a pedantic bloodsport. While playing against myself relieved the frustration, I soon needed a reckless idiot to occupy my time. Sounds like my love life.

We'll call this fellow idiot John, as that's what his mother did. John was to intelligence and self-respect as sumo wrestlers are to anorexia, and a fantastic little plaything at that.

As filling shelves occupied all of 20 minutes in my 9 hour shift, we soon began destroying our chances of repopulation with such hilarious sports as:

Coffee Grinder: Drink as much coffee as you could in a 15 minute period. First person to lag from tiredness loses. I was determined to average 1 per minute regularly and see my dynamic duo as responsible for the fact the coffee machine in the canteen was always knackered and I had to piss every 30 minutes. This kept us going for a few hours (which utterly flew by), along with fuelling us for:

Frozen Morning Glory: In as little clothing as possible, lock yourself in the industrial fridge with said partner. First one to bail out or die of hypothemia loses. We abandoned this game when the head of the company himself (Sir T. L) was on his once-a-year inspection of the store and was guided into a chiller armed with fish, a very cold author, and a smug skinhead bloke wearing only his boxers.

Thankfully he didn't come to the conclusion we were leeching his organisation's funds, but just giant dogging cockmunchers.

Which leads me onto the best game possible....

Super Mega Shelf Stacker Trolley Skittle Jamboree: 12 idiots. 11 trolleys. One large, abandoned forecourt. Idiots take it in turns to line up skittles in a bowling pin style (occupying inside them for added weight), and enjoy another idiot launching yet another trolley-bound idiot into a group of 10 idiots. Led to lots of bruises and a fractured wrist.

And that's how I continually managed to avoid not only my responsibilities, but also the mental deprivation which would have compelled me to stay on as a manager.
(FoxyBadger (try saying it backwards), Thu 8 Jan 2009, 12:54, 4 replies)

Heheh
Like :)
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 13:03, closed)

Perfectionist my arse!
"Enivornment" ?!
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 13:23, closed)

Curses!
Foiled again!
(FoxyBadger (try saying it backwards), Thu 8 Jan 2009, 13:42, closed)

Ha!
Been there (different supermarket, same sort of job). My main tactic was to go hide in the baby aisle and play with the toys...
Boss seemed to love it as I wasn't there to witness him nicking all the booze with his mates.
No wonder companies are going under everywhere...
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 8 Jan 2009, 23:32, closed)