Novelist Douglas Coupland defined a word which he made up, McJob, as "A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one." (Generation X 5). My employment at Blockbuster Video was just that, a McJob.
I started my McJob with pride. I "greet[ed] every customer sincerely, with a smile and eye contact." (Blockbuster Associate Handbook 6). My hair was "clean and well groomed. Extreme styles and colors are not permitted." (Ibid, 8). My "associate identification [was] worn at all times." (Ibid, 8). I became the only Customer Service Representative working at my store who was Direct TV Certified. I was, as many co-workers told me many times, the model Customer Service Representative.
But on the inside, through the skin, bone and marrow, I was a slave. I worked long hours getting paid what was barely above minimun wage, in order for John Antioco, Blockbuster�s CEO, to be able to sleep at night with feelings of "well at least I�m not paying those slaves minimum wage." I would frequently (by that I mean about twice a month) have to do a shift from midnight to about 4 A.M. where I would scan movies for four hours. They called this "inventory." I called it "a big pain in the you-know-what." There was a classic catch-22 with inventory, as well. Those who performed well during inventory were picked for it again. Those who did poorly were not chosen. The dilema was ludicrous: do I perform well and have to suffer even more? Or do I perform poorly and not have to suffer? Either way, I suffer.
I worked Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, New Year�s Eve, and New Year�s Day. I got time and a half for two of those days. The other three days, all I got were irrate customers.
But still, I kept slaving away, not realizing the greener pastures. Not noticing my own deterioration. Slowly, reaching a boiling point. Bottle up the emotions, I can�t let them see my thoughts.
And then there was the training issue. My store became a training store last November. That meant I would be responsible to not only perform my own tasks (checking out customers and running returns) but also to train those who are going to another store. Sounded like a promotion, but I didn�t see a dime. It was just more responsibility that I didn�t ask for.
Around this time, people who didn�t know what they were talking about, who also happened to be lucky winners in some sort of genetic lottery, either through nepotism or simply Republicanism, decided they would take away the store�s hours. Why? Well, in the business world, profits are all that matter. The motto of a Fortune 500 company: "We don�t care about the consumers. We don�t care about the employees. We care about one thing: accumulating lots and lots of money." So now, I was stuck under two forms of pressure, training people and not having any hours to do so. Of course, I was a model employee, so my hours remained well into the 30�s every week. It was the fact that I was only working with one other person, usually a trainee, that started to perturb me. But I didn�t worry, because of the American Dream: If I work hard, I will prosper.
Well I worked hard. The second part, prospering, didn�t work out as I planned. I had been with the company for eight months (which is a long time for a McJob, considering I was only seventeen. Heck, that�s about 6 dog years.) and I had received one twenty cent pay increase. But I kept slaving because things had to improve. For they had nowhere to go but up.
Well, things didn�t improve. They continued as they had throughout January and February, with one small stipulation: more responsibility.
Blockbuster decided, without consulting me, that every customer needed to hear about the Rewards program (a program that can save a customer a lot of money, provided that customer can devote about seven hours a day to watching movies). Naturally, hearing this ridiculous program irked customers even more than late fees, and I received the blunt end of it. "For the thousanth time, I�m not signing up for the effing program!"
In pushing the Rewards program, the Store Manager decided she would set up "quotas," a number of Rewards programs that needed to be sold on a given shift. Failure to result in meeting the quota could result in getting written up or, at least that�s what the sign said. Most employees had a quota of around 3 or 4. My first day�s quota was 10. I was so enraged by my quota that I forced 16 people to buy Rewards on my 10 quota shift. This must have impressed the store manager because she implemented that same inventory catch-22. The quota for my next shift was 15. My retaliation was to sell a whopping zero Rewards programs. My quota for the next shift was back down to 5.
And then, in March, something snapped. I had hit a wall. I realized I had been a slave to the company for ten months and I was not going to take it anymore. Of course, the reaction was not without a catalyst.
The Senior Assistant Manager, a man I will refer to as Joshua Krohn (to protect his true identity) had put in his two weeks notice. He was sick of his commute, sick of his shifts, sick of the management, sick of the district leader, who would occasionally stop by to "check on things," which would make even the hardest working, honest employee second guess his or her own actions, sick of his pitiful McJob. Joshua Krohn had had enough.
This outraged the store manager, who must have watched every minute of security tape in the last six months, or check every account in the computer system, to find that Joshua had rented movies without paying for his late fees. "Any associate having an outstanding balance on their rental account will not be eligable for free rentals until their balance is paid." (Blockbuster Associate Handbook, 18). Aside from the misuse of the word "their," this minor infraction also cost Joshua his job. He was fired a week and a half after putting in his two week notice. Apparently the company couldn�t bare to wait the extra three days to end his employment.
In Salem, during Colonial times, hysteria roared through the streets about the possibilities of witchcraft. As a measure to fight this crime, random people, accused of being witches, were executed publicly in order to prevent others from dealing in witchcraft. In the 1950�s, during the McCarthy Era, it happened again with Communism. In the year 2001, it happened yet another time, at the Blockbuster Video on Elliot and McClintock in Tempe, Arizona.
Joshua was fired as an example to other employees not to break company policy. Immediately after Joshua�s termination, a mandatory staff meeting was called in order to re-sign the company policies and procedures packet. "I�ve already fired one person because of this," barked the store manager. "Don�t make me do it again."
So I initiated free thought. I went home immediately after that meeting and wrote a paper which began, "Novelist Douglas Coupland defined a word which he made up�" I printed the paper and left it for the store manager, along with my two week notice, which will probably lead to my termination within a week and a half. But, at least I�m free from the oppression. At least I�m doing what I want. At least I�m not a toad.