This week, I’ve been working like a Hebrew slave. I started the week off right at my store, selling 2 Blockbuster Online Pre-Pay Cards and 4 Blockbuster Rewards memberships. The following morning I sold another online, making me the seller of 3 out of the 4 for our goal for the week. My boss bought me lunch Tuesday as a reward. Then comes the fun.
Someone who started working at my old store two months ago in January as a manager quit last week because he got a better job somewhere else. He couldn’t give much notice, so they had to scramble to get coverage. One manager left for the next 3 months to join the Inventory Team for the district, and another’s grandmother died up in New Hampshire, and the store manager went on vacation without his cell phone, so that left them down to just the Assistant Manager. That means that my old Blockbuster has become an evil mutant store, being run mostly by my store’s staff. I picked up 3-4 shifts this week, meaning most days this week I’ve been opening my store and closing the other one – a 13-15 hour work day.
Today I talked to the Assistant Manager (ASM) at my old store who was left, and she said I might not have to come in this evening and close, because she might just leave the keys in the drop box and “let it all go down the toilet,” just to watch our District Leader (DL) crap his pants. He hasn’t been the best DL, and one day when I quit and a year has passed for that non-disclosure agreement, you can bet your pants I’ll be publishing–with names.
I think I need to start documenting somewhere (privately, off-line) all the things that happen and quotes from people that I hear, and use them in the book I’ll write. I’m tempted to publish anonymously and call the company by a pseudonym that’s still clear enough that people know who I’m talking about, and use (barely) fictional names for all the characters.
Of course, what would that mean for me, if I just waited, and published with names and dates and quotes? Would another company be as eager to hire me in the future? Would any significant change happen in Blockbuster? Probably not. But it might be enough to warn people away from working for them, and enough to convince other people to quit. If I had another source of income significant enough to support me, I think I’d have quit already. Maybe there’ll be another job for me soon.
I might one day find myself visiting old Blockbuster veterans in whatever they’re doing in the future, and some of the ones who stick it out, sharing war stories and complaining about the way things were, the way things are now. That’ll be the day.