Land of the Brain Farts

Discount stores seem to encourage the stoopids. Every other day at the B.L., some nimrod needs to ask me if I work there, as if the black vest and name tag wasn't enough of a giveaway. And it's usually when I'm waist-deep in some sort of stocking endeavour that they feel the need to pester me. I can be slicing up boxes with my boxcutter or even on a flippin' ladder, stocking cans of Campbell's Chunky Soup for the fixed-income crowd, and silly suburbanites will still waddle over to me, dopey-eyed, and ask me, "Do you work here?"

But even more upsetting is the fact that even after I stare at them, unwilling to answer their question, they will stand there in silent, stoopid anticipation for an answer. They can see my name tag and the words BIG LOTS stitched across my vesticle, and will still require a confirmation.

Now, I ask you: how many stores do you go into where a random person off the street will wander in and proceed to stock a store in which they do not work? How many? I want to know. That way, maybe I won't get so upset with the noobs and their soggy vanilla brains.

Halbastram tells me that in order to get over it, I have to accept the fact that most consumers are stoopid and to answer them as such. But I still can't wrap my head around it. I can't imagine that our population continues to lose brain matter one episode of "Dancing With the Stars" at a time.

At first, I just thought it was hard to tell if I was working because I would usually wear black shirts to work, which, coincidentally, blended in with my black vest. But I discovered that even on the days that I wore a bright hot pink shirt with the black vest, the goof troops were still full of confusion.

It had even gotten to the point where I had to pin a note to my vest that informed shoppers that, yes, I do in fact work at Big Lots and, yes, I am in fact here to answer your asinine questions. But...that didn't work either. Oy vey.