Money Where My Mouth Is

In recent weeks they've been making work the electronics counter more and more. Nobody else wants to do it, few people in the store are passably capable of salesmanship, few people in the store even remotely have any idea how to answer questions about electronic products. So, for the three or four of us who can even remotely satisfy the preceding criteria, we are permanently banished to a life sentence in the Siberian wasteland of the electronics counter.

Repeatedly management tells me to learn about the product category so as to serve the guests better. Ok, I'm fine with that. Train me then. Provide me with all the information I need to successfully serve my guests in this position. What's that? You don't have any, you say? Hem and Haw? How in the hell do you expect me to perform a job satisfactorily if you don't give me what I need to perform it? What kind of b* s*t is that?

To top all that off, they brought someone in from the outside to fill the specialist position I had applied for, and when he started he knew even less about the department, if at all, than I did. Are they seriously trying to piss me off to get rid of me?

Be that as it may, since I am unable to go elsewhere as of yet, the onus is upon me to make the best of a crappy situation. At least I have work, even though I think the whole situation stinks. I've got to take the lemons and make lemonade. I am most definitely NOT doing this for the company, since they've made it clear they don't care about me. I am doing this completely for my own benefit, and if the company just happens to benefit from what I do, so be it.

That being said, I am now taking the time to educate myself about the Consumer Electronics category. I'm reading as much as I can online through the Internet, and I have subscribed to trade publications in the industry. On my own time, without any pay, I'm going to study this material and learn it well enough to serve my guests, who I genuinely do care about, even though the company wants to profit from my efforts without providing adequate tools, recognition, or compensation.

After I have completed that, when the time is right, I shall take my knowledge and experience elsewhere to someone who will appreciate it, or possibly even start a business of my own, where I can pay myself what I believe I am worth, and to hell with the college preppy stuffed shirts who run the store. I've been in retail since I was fifteen. I know enough technically to be a district manager for someone. I even know enough how to be an obnoxious, abrasive, Neanderthal jerk just like many DM's I have seen.

For now, I may be Joseph languishing in a cell, interpreting dreams for the Pharaoh's butler and baker, but I swear to high heaven there will be a day when I shall ride the Pharaoh's chariot and wear his signet. [Gen 41:40-43]