Confrontation with a Slave Driver:

I did some thing on a limb today. I saw a sign posted at the local GameStop: ‘Now Hiring’. Since I had felt an inexplicable erotic Urge to visit this little rental hut, I decided to be-Bold and talk to the available-looking young man at the cash register with the cutting sapphire eyes. He told me plainly and reasonably that the shop was all ways hiring, and he apologised for the absence of a resume on-hand. I indicated him not to worry about it. Then I asked him about what the work entailed. He replied, with a very non-plussed and bored expression, as though he were inviting me to share in a Common Mundanity: a lot of standing. Talking to people...

He said it as though I had re-quested a list and he could only produce two items.

I took him literally. I felt like this might finally be am improvement from the Old Fabric Store. So long as there was down-time, I might find this place to be an ideal haven for the completion of my novel. Yet I did not wish to presume, intending to be literal as possible. So I asked for clarification: Is there any thing to be done when there are no customers around? or (is All of my time going to belong to this arbitrary Corporation, and) am I to do other work around the store even in the absence of customers?

And at the question a funny expression past over my interlocutor’s face. It was one all too familiar to me: He was looking at me as though I were ‘crazy’.

And with a clipped voice he continued to list all of the items he had neglected hitherto, such as cleaning, organising, and the proverbial Et Cetera. And he said it with a clipped condescension, all most as though the simple Question Its Self had offended him.

SO I have concluded that GameStop must be the least efficient company in all the world, next to Joann Fabrics. What they seem both to have in common is that they are constantly in need of improvement, requiring more man-hours than they can even afford to pay their employees for. Never is Nirvana reached in retail, it would seem, and for the few hours that you are employed in their favour YOU ARE THEIR SLAVE. WAKE UP! [Dm.A.A.]