December 5th, 2009...

Today is my old best friend's birthday. She's 20. She was my first best friend when I was younger. Rachael lived down the street from me ever since I moved to Wisconsin from Chicago. I have countless memories of her up until we reached our freshman year of high school. I went to Central and she went to Logan. Her parents got divorced so she moved away and my dad went crazy so I moved away. Anyway, since middle school we hadn't really talked but she came up this year to visit me here in St. Cloud. She's definitely invited to my wedding, that's all I have to say about it.

Work was endless today but I think I made some people smile with my obviously fake demeanor. Clearly, they don't know me very well. I said this following line to at least over 200 people today though, here we go.

"HI! How are you doing? GOOD! Did you find everything okay? *don't say anything because saying "good" too many times makes it too obvious that I don't really care* Do you have our Shopko rewards card?!

the dialogue changes with their following responses; these are the normal answers.

"Yes I do actually! Just let me find it in here... *five minutes then passes of them struggling to find their stupid rewards card that won't save them any money anyway* I reply after this, "Well, I can actually look up your number in the computer if you don't want to look for your card!" (they give me their number and I finish the transaction) "OH I FOUND IT! HERE YA GO!"

or.

"No" I then occasionally pursue this response with the good Shopko push, "Oh! Well it's a free savings card that saves you money on several purchases and gives you 10 percent off on your birthday! Are you interested in starting one today?" While I'm doing this my smile is too big and they then realize that I could care less. They then decide it's okay to be an asshole in this situation and reply, "NO I don't have one and I don't want one. I have enough damn cards."

OR my favorite...

"Yeah but it won't do anything. What does it actually do anyway? Do I ever save money? I then reply, "Well, you can look in the ad and find what you can save on with the card by *holds up ad* these symbols. You also save 10 percent on your birthday!" This is completely true, but we usually have no rewards card sales on anything that any normal human being would need. If I could say what it really does, I would say this...

"The card actually does nothing, it's just something we ask to waste your life and ours. Shopko just takes your information so we can send you countless e-mails and send you our ads in the mail to piss you off. And you save 10 percent on your birthday."




I love my job.