05/30/2007: "The BullsEye doesn't love me.. but that's okay, because I don't love it."

It's hard to get excited about going to Target. Not that I think one needs to be 'excited' about going to their workplace, but it couldn't hurt. The job is, all told, really not all that bad. Just requires common sense ("Hmm.. I have a really heavy box. Should I put it on this shelf 15 feet up, or maybe on the bottom shelf.") and manual labor. The weird thing is that I've always said that I never want to work a job that involves just doing work, or only using my hands, and yet here I am. I actually prefer it this way, too. The way I look at it is that if I'm going to be working some meaningless low-paying job, I don't want to give them more of myself than I absolutely have to. Hefting stuff in the backroom and on the sales floor is totally doable in that case, plus I'm free to let my thoughts roam on whatever else I want.

Now for some random stuff on 'The BullsEye'. Employees are not employees, but Team Members. Customers are Guests. My cool scanning gun-style thing that locates anything in the store (and the one I'm looking at when I'm avoiding customers.. 'Guests') is a PDT. Code Red is fire, Yellow is lost child, Green is accident/injury/incident. Channel 1 on the walkie talkies is for floor staff and 90% of the store, channel 2 is for backroom and for private conversations the 'Guests' shouldn't be hearing. This includes: someone finding bugs in one of the aisles, and a guy asking if a girl will have lunch with him again today, so they can arrange their breaks.

At Target, you don't 'own' a 'Guest'. This basically means that you're really not supposed to waste your time with one. If they ask me a question and I call someone in to help them, I just leave, no matter how long they might have to wait. They have so many 'guests' coming in at all times they the money they lose from your productivity is likely greater than the talcom powder this guy wants to buy.

Well, I'm dressed, so now to grab my equipment (box cutter, pen, marker.. and my iPod) and get on my way. I will be writing later...


Jason