Highlights from My Summer Job

Still in training, then. I've surprised at least two of my former students who work there. I'm not sure which of us has been more embarassed. Anyway, here are some observations:

• One of the trainers is this middle-aged dude named Brad. He kind of looks like a taller, fatter version of George Costanza. He prefers to be called B-Rad, as if he were some sort of street fighting gangsta. Among his many annoying habits is a tendency to enter our training room unexpectedly and yell "Woo-hoo!" at ear-piercing volume. He also likes to sing novelty songs while walking in the hallway ("Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" seems to be his favorite) and he usually speaks to people using exaggerated accents, which I'm sure he thinks are hilarious. Meryl Streep, he ain't.
• On Pioneer Day, our trainer took us outside so we could watch the scheduled fireworks. Because of heavy thunderstorms in the area during the prior week, no fireworks were forthcoming, but we stood patiently in the parking lot for 35 minutes waiting for them. On the clock.
• One of the members of our 8-person trainee team had to leave unexpectedly early one night when she learned that her ex-husband had been convicted of murder in Las Vegas. Or at least that's what she told us. If she just wanted to get out of work early, she picked a real doozy of an excuse.
• Another member of our trainee team, an 18-year-old female, recently spent several minutes during classtime telling us about her apparently mandatory AA meetings. So much for anonymity, then. Not to mention sobriety (as she was happy to report how many tequila shots she had put away earlier in the week).
• As part of our training, we are regularly introducted to floor managers, those people we will supposedly be working under after the completion of our training. One such manager, who I'll call Otis, introduced himself to us while sporting a trucker hat (pitched at a rakish angle, natch) and a large, untucked blue shirt. He looked about 19 and at least 150 pounds overweight. He has had six months of managerial experience, all of which was gained at the local Arby's. The day he was introduced to us was his first day as a manager, and he was at a distinct loss for words when our trainer invited us to ask him questions about our upcoming positions. He mostly looked at the table in front of him.
• After Otis left the room, our trainer fell into a nearly 30 minute rant about how she had applied for the position Otis had obtained, how much more qualified she was for the job, and how disheartened she felt by the upper management's decision. Keep in mind that, for at least some of us, Otis could very well be our future boss, and that we had spent much of our first week in training learning how much the company values its employees, even the ones who get turned down for managerial positions.
• Last Friday, two of the trainees begged our trainer to let them take a few extra minutes on lunch break so they could go home and get their Wii. Our trainer had previously expressed some curiousity about the gaming system and wanted to see what it looked like. Not only did she grant the two trainees about 15 minutes of extra lunch time (an offer not extended to the rest of the class), but we spent the final hour of classtime (again, on the clock) playing Wii Bowling and Wii Boxing. When it was time to clock out for the night, the entire class was completely engaged in Bowling. I'm not even sure they noticed that I left.

After three weeks of training, I have yet to perform any task resembling the job I was presumably hired to do. Most of the training, when we do train, consists of tedious gif-animated computer lessons (which seem to consistently befuddle the 65-ish-year-old woman in our class) and search exercises on the company's database. Other than the time I spent collecting unemployment when I was a seasonal employee for the IRS, and when I was living off of student loans in Ohio, this is the easiest money I have ever made. I plan to take over the company in six months.