Blockbuster Rant - Day 3

Facing and Straightening:
Another part of my job description was to handle the complex task of facing and straightening. Basically, and see if you can follow me on this because I know it’s complicated, I have to make sure the videos are in line with the cover box so the wall looks nice and clean. I know, it’s an intricate system. Years of development. Took me all summer to master the art of the wall straightening. If I did, in fact, attain the level of skill it takes to mash your hands together with boxes in between.

Then there was putting the returned rentals back on the shelf, or “running them.” (Facing, straightening, running… I know these are all technical terms, but try to follow the jargon.)
The qualification for this involves knowing your alphabet and…um… nope, that’s pretty much it.
Except Blockbuster doesn’t do everything exactly alphabetical when it comes to the wall. It’s like a six year old threw them up there in what he thought was the right order, complete with a jumble in the LMNOP area.

Each day we had to dive into the pile of boxes underneath the drop slot. You open the cabinet door and boxes just spill out onto the floor. Not a good sign when it means you have to open each and every one of them and see if there’s something inside. Kind of like the search for the golden ticket, without the satisfying run through the town afterwards.

And just so we’re not mistaken, the urge to build a fort out of them was there. It took all my willpower to not construct a fortified wall with DVD cases and run a pirate flag up a flag pole.

So I look in every single box to make sure they aren’t empty or they don’t include an AOL CD for 100 free internet hours. Don’t get me wrong, the free hours were nice, but it’s not what I was looking for. Oh, and AOL sucks.

Then I slam little yellow locks home into each one. Again, safe and secure. No one can crack the heavy security mechanism of the … magnet?
Ok, so Blockbuster isn’t exactly Fort Knox, but what did you expect from a place where two of the walls are made entirely of breakable glass? And the entrance is protected by a sensor that accomplishes nothing more than annoying everyone with high pitched beeps. And it’s guarded by a little old lady barely over 5 feet with one of those old people afros.
Don’t underestimate her though, I bet she has some hidden ninja moves, like that crane kick from Karate Kid.

Any way, as I was saying, I check ‘em all in and then I alphabetize. I know, it’s a lot of ordering by letter. Funny how people still can’t figure out where a movie is, isn’t it?

All of the locked and sorted cases go onto a cart. Surprisingly, the carts don’t have that usual one wheel that kind of wobbles out of control. In fact, they’re pretty heavy duty carts for pushing a bunch of movies around. They look like I could push ammo into battle on them. I even heard a rumor someone got killed by one of them in a runaway out-of-control situation, which Blockbuster quickly covered up. But I think that’s just a rumor… Or is it?

Putting the movies back on the shelves was always fun though because it's like a puzzle. You have to figure out where it goes in the crazy order everything is in. And sometimes customers just like to be SO FUNNY and move boxes around to make it that much harder. Those crazy kids and their zany hijinks.

Categories (drama, comedy, etc) are much easier though. You just walk down the row and put them up there. It gives you a chance to check out the selection for the 5 free rentals you get a week. Strange placement though, like Adaptation in the comedy section. Or Batman 3 and 4 under Action, when clearly a new section of “Unintentional Comedies” is necessary.

It wasn’t until I started into the “Family” section that I realized there were lots of movies entitled ____ Saves Christmas. Elmo Saves Christmas. Veggie Tales Saves Christmas. Ernest Saves Christmas. I didn’t realize Christmas was in such peril.
And if it was, my list of heroes would not include Ernest or any of the Sesame Street posse.

At the end of the day, before everything is closed up, the shelves all have to be straightened. Well, we like to get a jump on it early, so we’re not walking around an hour later nitpicking over box placement.
But it always seems that the late night crew manages to mess it all up. An hour’s worth of work can all be undone by a teenager who isn’t sure which movie he wants, so he picks up all the cover boxes and skims the summary. Of course, he never puts it back straight or even in the right place.
It’s like someone throwing a bunch of paperwork on your desk at 4:50. Or a group of 8 slipping in the door right before closing at a restaurant. You almost just want to tell the night owls off just so they won’t ravage the meticulous arrangement.
“It’s my wall. So don’t screw with it, buddy. This wall is third in line behind the Great Wall and that wall with all the Vietnam names, so don’t go messing it all up, pal. Or it’s over. Yeah, that’s right. I’ll cancel your membership. I won’t even think twice about it.”

During the final hour of my tenure at Blockbuster, I almost had my first explosion on a customer. The one thing standing between me and finally being done was one of the dumbest, fattest ladies I have ever had the displeasure of coming in contact with.
This female Jabba the Hutt decided it was a good idea to bring her two young kids into the store at midnight on a school night and let them run amuck.
It was like some evil Dr. Frankenstein took one of the usual late night crew who trashes the place and a customer who asks too many ridiculous questions, and they combined them, like the Planeteers.
But instead of getting a hero that saves the world from pollution, they created an ultra super stupid human being, capable of causing loss of IQ points just by speaking. (And she was about that size too, like they had fused two people together.)
And if that wasn’t enough, she popped out two evil spawns, running rampant through the aisles, mimicking the inane questioning and aptitude for chaos of their massive mother.
Needless to say, I wasn’t happy to see them.

One of the monsters picked up a coupon for Six Flags and said, “Hey! Free tickets to Astroworld!” and shoved it in his pocket. Brilliant. We just keep stacks and stacks of free tickets right by the door, just prime for the taking.

And then he picked up a Passion of the Christ presale card. “Ooh, 7 free rentals and the Passion.”
First of all, I’m surprised his devil hands didn’t melt at merely touching something about Jesus. And second, YOU HAVE TO BUY THAT.
After I mentioned it to the lady that looked like a human melting snowman, she didn’t understand either.
“Um… you have to purchase the card. See this price here at the top, that’s how much the movie, plus the free rentals costs.”
She still didn’t understand. Probably never will. My temper was strained and I had to go to my happy place to keep from drop kicking the kids and taking a titanium appendage to her head.
And when she finally left, I assessed the damage.
Apparently the two grown adults had done more damage than their two siblings.

It was at that point that I lost all faith in humanity.