Why so serious?

The other day at work I got my 90 day performance review for me to sign, showing that I received and read it through. It pretty much said what I knew it was going to say. Hard worker, very punctual, great guy but you really have to work on getting him to even talk to you. Y'know, stuff like that. One thing about this review caught my eye however.

It was my job title.

Now that's obvious. I wash dishes so that makes me a dishwasher, right? No. It makes me a Hydro-Ceramic Technician!

You have no idea how hilarious it was to see something so PC as to make dishwashing sound like a college program. Right after Mike handed the review to me I noticed it and busted out laughing. Turning around with a somewhat concerned look on his face he asked what was wrong.

"My job title. Hydro-ceramic technician? That's freaking awesome!"

Whatever concern Mike had was immediately replaced with a smile of his own. "You like that do ya?"

"Yeah I like it. Now when I don't talk to a hot chick I'll never meet in a bar I'll never go to, I can really impress her with my job title. And hell, eight years of graduate school and I'll be a hydro-ceramic technologist!"

So yeah, my newly found title made me really happy. Then yesterday came around with another performance review. I knew I had signed the other one but then I didn't turn it in. Maybe it got lost somewhere. No. It can never be that simple.

Turns out my real job title is Dish Room Attendant. Lame. Apparently Mike was being Mike and came up with hydro-ceramic technician and slapped that on my review (with much appreciation from me). What happened is there was a staff meeting and my review was brought up. They told Mike that he wasn't allowed to make such a unilateral change in job title and it'd have to be redone with the correct designation. Needless to say, neither of us was happy.

This whole thing smacked of something I would do. Taking something inherently boring and giving it a tweak to make it fun.

When I worked at Hastings we had what are called defective tags. If somebody returned an item that was damaged or missing a piece it would get a defective tag with basic details about why it's defective. Details like date returned/found, store number and a short description of the defect. We would also stick a defective tag on what remained stolen merchandise, i.e. the packaging.

So, when an item is slapped with a defective tag for whatever reason, it's put into a basket at the front counter and at the end of the day the basket is brought to the back room. Then it's the back room's job to sort out the defective items and get them sent back to the supplier or wherever for some reason I never really knew. I just worked there, I didn't know how everything worked.

Now you can imagine how monotonous it would get filling out defective tags for the myriad of CD and DVD cases, porno mag wrappers and whatever is left over after somebody steals a wallet, belt or other novelty items you find everyday. Eventually (and naturally) I got a little creative when it came to filling them out.

Simpsons S.4 missing disc 3? 'Man that sucks. There were some really awesome episodes on that disc and now it's gone!'
A defective DVD player? 'Well there's your problem. This brand sucks.'
A stolen Pink Floyd CD? 'I swear, Syd Barret must be rolling in his grave. You know who he is right? Right?'
A stolen wallet? 'Well, maybe they stole it because they didn't have a place to keep their money. You just watch, they'll come back and pay for it now.'
A stolen DVD? 'Stolen... what? I can't just put the reason, I have to be witty about it too? Go away, I'm tired.'
A stolen video game? 'Sucks to be him, he forgot the manual.'

Doing stuff like that made me smile and the people in the back room were happy to have something funny to read. Sometimes when they'd come up front to sign out for the day, we'd talk about my funnier tags and have a laugh.

It was fun while it lasted. Yeah, 'All good things...' y'know? Somebody from corporate was making their rounds through the stores and just happened to see one of my (decidedly humorous, and completely innocuous) defective tags. Hahaha, they were pissed. This was official Hastings business and to treat it with such disregard was unacceptable on so many levels. The guy wanted me fired immediately.

Now I knew that I was a valued employee. For example, I was the only one who didn't follow the dress code. When new employees would be trained, they'd be told not to wear what I was wearing: a t-shirt and pants. It even got to the point were other employees would complain and say "Well Kelly doesn't follow the dress code, so why do I have to?" I get it from my Grandpa. He's the reason ties aren't required at Boeing :)

Anyway... The manager and assistant manager flat out told him that they wouldn't fire me, but they would make sure it didn't happen again. I still remember the day I found out. Amanda, the assistant manager, came right up to me with a piece of paper I recognized as a 'you're in trouble' paper and asked...

"Defective tags?"
"Oh come on, they're so boring otherwise."
"You can't write stuff like that Kelly. Corporate saw it and wanted you fired immediately."
"Oh... can I go home then?"
"You're not fired. You're only written up and you can't be funny with defective tags anymore."
"Okay. That's fine too I guess."

After that I did what I could to avoid having to fill out a defective tag. It wasn't to avoid the temptation to write something silly, but if I absolutely couldn't be silly I didn't want to waste my time.

Sigh... I really do miss the good times at Hastings. Plenty of blogging material there :)