Alert Cashier Tammy worked at Target® on Black Friday. This is like volunteering to work at the Post Office April 15th. But Tammy's never been one to shy away from a challenge.

I received a de-briefing after the Big Day, and learned all about the shopping habits of the typical human typical Target® Guest. (They call us "Guests" a la Disney.) Probably the most surprising thing that I've learned so far is that it's very common for people to enter the check-out line and "give back" things. In other words, someone will enter a line with eight items and say, "I don't want this, and I don't want this." I find that extremely odd. If you didn't want it, great. Don't bring it to me to show me what you don't want. But this is popular and apparently everyone does it.

(As an aside, I confess that when I do decide that I don't want something in my cart I will actually go all the way back to where I found it and put it back. Or, I put it in someone else's cart when they aren't looking. But I never knew the cashiers would take it.)

The other great mystery that Tammy cleared up for me is, "What do the cashiers do when you leave the store?" This has always puzzled me, much like that light that turns on in the refrigerator when you open the door. It's like, they know that I have the door open.

Apparently, when you leave the store and there are no more people to check out, the cashiers will walk to the end of their aisles, kind of mill around, and eventually talk to one another. This actually happened to Tammy. She was standing there are the end of her aisle, milling around all innocent-like, waiting for a customer guest to serve, when the girl in the next aisle over said something to her.

"I'm not ticklish anymore."

Now, you're probably thinking that I made that up, or that I removed the part of the conversation before that part which actually put it in context. But nope, you would be wrong. This person apparently then went into some detail about their ticklishness, their inability to be tickled, and so on. Tammy was forced to clutch her chest and fall down with a scream like a heart-attack victim, thereby ending the conversation. (Fortunately, a guest came to check out at that exact moment.)

The writer in me sort of wishes that I had a job in retail. Sort of. But then, I'm not very ticklish either.

Posted by Carl at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, okay, not a whole lot but still it's pretty unusual.

WFTV.com reports here that snowflakes were spotted in Central Florida. Furthermore, the snowflakes were in the air at the time. Now this wasn't snowflakes like Northeast Snowflakes. We're talking about 1-2 flakes per cubic meter of air. (According to the National Weather Service, who employs dedicated and highly trained staff to measure this sort of thing.) Although snow shovels were not needed, some flakes were accused of hitting the ground before they melted. They were roundly mocked by the pavement upon contact, and withered quickly from embarrassment.

Whenever I hear about snow in Orlando I think of Disney World. This is due to two things: 1. Everything makes me think about Disney World and 2. During the Christmas Season Disney World pumps fake snow over Main Street. It's not quite the same as real snow, but you really don't want real snow falling while you're waiting in a line 200 people deep to ride Dumbo.

Cold weather in Orlando is pretty unusual too. The low was expected to drop into the 30s, although by this weekend the high will be back to 81. (30 degrees, incidentally, is the point at which native Floridians take the boards off the windows from hurricane season, break them up and set them on fire for warmth.)

I'm still banking on a brutal, snowy winter now that Alert Cashier Tammy is working Friday and Saturday nights. We'll see.

Posted by Carl at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Someone wrote me today asking why I was AWOL from the blog. Actually, I'm paraphrasing but AWOL does stand for "Absent Without Official Leave" which describes not blogging perfecting. I'm not sure whom/where to petition to get Official Leave, but I imagine it's some sort of giant blogging committee located in Hoboken.

In any event, I've been blogged-out having recently designed and constructed a global warming blog, with the help of dedicated, talented brainy types too numerous to mention. (But hat tip to MT genius James Spears) Global Warming is a fascinating subject. I can blog all I want to about Global Warming here because this is my own, private, not-connected-to-any-weather-company, no-one-reads blog. In fact, I can even say "Global Warming, Schmarming" and I don't have to get that cleared by anyone anywhere, particularly Official Types in Hoboken.

But Laura is doing an admirable job on a very difficult topic, so stop by and say hello. Bonus points for using my name, although if she replies and says "Who?" don't, you know, put much stock in that she's just kidding. Really.

The pain of working on another blog has faded, some, and I think I might be able to get back to writing. I'm going to watch the stats, though, and if all of you have found something better to do, like scour the web for downloadable pdf coloring pages of elk and deer and print them out and color them in, well then I may retire. The only possible caveat is the winter; if we get a mild winter that doesn't make much of a difference, but if we were to have a severe apocalyptic winter it would be nice to blog about all of that snow. Normally I would say we have a snowball's you know in you know of having an actual winter. But this winter is different, because Alert Future Cashier Tammy may have to drive every weekend to Target which means snow over the entire northeast each Friday and Saturday.

Speaking of Target, Alert Applicant Tammy passed her drug test with flying colors. Orientation starts tomorrow, wherein she learn things like "How to take down an irate Christmas Shopper with only your bare hands and a DVD of Santa Clause 2 which coincidentally is on sale for $12.99 this week only."

Finally, I close with a Global Warming story that may not be featured on any weather blogs that you frequent. Via Drudge I see that the U.N. has created a booklet called "Tore and the Town on Thin Ice" which you can find as a PDF here. My favorite two-page spread would have to be this:

Personally, I'm looking forward to future titles in the series, such as "Tore and the Town of Skin Cancer Zombies Living Under the Ginormous Ozone Hole" and "Tore and the Meteorologist Who Lived Next Door with a Snow Blower." Scary stuff.

Posted by Carl at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Alert Reader and Concert Goer Tammy, who may or may not be my wife, found herself at Target today working one of their Employment Application Computer Kiosks. I spent twenty minutes trying to turn that into a witty acronym, but the closest I could come to something semi-intelligent was CAKE and at that point I just gave up. Tammy was applying for a part-time position for the holidays, because everyone knows that the best time to work in retail is during the holidays. I, of course, am a wonderfully empathetic and supportive husband and when approached about the idea said, "You want to do WHAT?"

Okay, I made that up. I mean, the part about what I said not being a wonderfully empathetic and supportive husband. I encouraged her to check it out because I figured it would be a great source of blogging material. Shoppers - a group to which I sadly belong - are already thoroughly brain-damaged. Mix in the stress of the holiday season and you have the makings of great drama, if not outright comedy.

(Full disclaimer: In addition to Target being a great source of blogging material the thought did cross my mind that having an inside plant during the holiday season might make obtaining rare, sold-out LEGO sets actually possible.)

Tammy reports that the Target CAKE was slightly easier than the SATs. It took about as long, though, as I sat in the Target Cafe waiting like any empathetic and supportive husband would. My empathetic and supportive brain was thinking things like, "Do I have time to buy, accessorize and eat a hot dog without being caught, even though dinner is in an hour?" and "Should I go check the LEGO aisle?" and "How long am I reasonably expected to be supportive and empathetic?"

The Target CAKE is a brilliant idea though. They use a computer, essentially, to screen candidates. There were all sorts of interesting, difficult and employee-screening questions. At one point, and I am not making this up, the person operating the CAKE next to Tammy leaned over and asked "What number is November?" Tammy, in the midst of the following question on her own application:

was too distracted to reply properly, and so said "11."

Now, you might be thinking "But, that's right!" Ha! You have a lot to learn about the cold hard work world. This person sitting next to Tammy was applying at the same company as Tammy. (Target - please try to keep up.) Therefore, she was a competitor. And as any male (such as myself) knows, the objective is to crush all competitors. So the appropriate answer in this case was one of the following:

1. "6"
2. "14"
3. "Pi"

In all seriousness, you have to wonder about a question like that. This person was somewhere between 17-21, we estimate, and by then you should probably be able to convert months into numbers. At another point, this person also asked about references. "Is that me?" Tammy, again entirely too helpful, replied that references were "friends." The appropriate, competition-crushing answer would have been one of the following:

1. "6"
2. "Yes."
3. "Just put down 'No drug test please.'"

After the CAKE episode Tammy was actually ushered into a small employee-culling room for a mini-interview. She was asked all sorts of interview questions like "Why do you want to work here instead of Wal-Mart?" and "If you find a cart full of bags with "Target Money, Large Bills" written on the side what would you do?" which she handled beautifully. I say that because I know her, not because I butted into the interview or anything. That's usually bad form, when the husband just crashes the interview. I was busy being supportive, empathetic and hungry in the cafe, watching weenies roll over and over endlessly in the little weenie-roasting machine.

After the mini-interview Tammy met me in the cafe, where I was busy stuffing an accessorized hot dog into my mouth and trying to look nonchalant. It turns out that not only did the mini-interview go beautifully but she earned a trip to round two for the maxi-interview and then the complementary drug test after that. She's still not sure about taking a job, should they offer one, but for now I'm just paying her for the material.

I've also coached her on how to "help" people applying to the same job as she, in case that should ever come up again.

Posted by Carl at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)