…or: That Time Monday Tried to Rearrange My Face.
I have held more than my share of jobs over the last decade, working as everything from a clerk in a law office to a nanny in a private home, but it seems that my best (and most harrowing) stories come from my long stint in customer service.
Back in the early days of my college career I got a job with a local grocery store chain. (I won’t say which one…but it’s headquartered in Florida, is know for rather touching commercials, and it’s predominant color scheme is green.) And between carefully scheduled college classes and the very flexible nature of a grocery store front end schedule I was usually able to avoid Monday all together.
Now what you have to understand is that Monday and I have never been ‘buddies.’ I, like a vast majority of the sentient population of this planet, think that Monday is a rotten way to spend 1/7th of your life. Mondays were always for pop quizzes, gigantic presentations, term paper deadlines, and job performance reviews. I just don’t trust Monday…if Monday were a person he would have beady eyes, a bad comb over and a case of BO that would make your nose literally rip itself off your face to keep from smelling him. Monday would be a sleazy used car salesman…or a greasy loan shark…or a CREEPY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR!!!
So, with all this in mind, I had politely explained to the Assistant Manager at the LGS that I would really rather not work on Mondays. No, I didn’t have classes on Mondays and no, there was nothing in my religious beliefs that prevented it…it was just that Monday and I had a history and I would prefer to sidestep any potential problems. She patted me reassuringly on the arm, rolled her eyes like I really should be committed, and agreed to my request. (I also explained my ‘Thursday the 12th’ thing and she was okay with that too.)
But Monday, it seems, was not willing to let go of me that easily.
You can imagine my dismay when I noticed, after months of peaceful routine, that I was scheduled to work on a Monday. I ran to my manager to demand a schedule change and was told that unfortunately, what with pesky thoughtless co-workers who wanted to take some vacation, there was simply no way around it. I told her to have an ambulance on stand by. She laughed. I turned green.
My Monday came. I awoke with a feeling of dread which a long shower and filling breakfast could not shake. I climbed reluctantly into my car to make the thirty minute drive to work and cold fear came over me. I kept my hands planted firmly at ’10 and 2,’ stayed well under the speed limit, and refused to turn on the radio. I was taking no chances. I arrived at work, clocked in, and walked to my position behind the customer service desk.
The customer service desk was a long counter running across the front of a narrow alcove just behind the line of check out lanes. There were two registers, two scanner pads set into a brushed steel work top, two bagging cubbies, a Ticketmaster computer, a Western Union computer, and a Lottery machine. There was a swinging gate at the far end of the counter so that cashiers and baggers could have access to the eight foot long ‘cigarette wall’ and two telephones. There was also a seventeen inch security monitor on a metal bracket/arm affixed to the wall which ran a live feed from the security cameras placed around the customer service desk. This monitor was very similar to a regular television except that it was encased in a box made of sheet steel…making it MUCH heavier than a regular television.
The morning began its slow crawl as customers trickled in to get last minute doughnuts and orange juice. The female Assistant Manager was on duty that morning, as well my favorite office co-worker, Teresa. Both had given me a gentle ribbing about my fear of Mondays and the atmosphere around the office had been light and friendly. The Assistant Manager went to do some paperwork in the back office and Teresa came out the front end to join me. With our opening duties finished we really had nothing to do but wait on a customer to need assistance so we were leaning against the short run of blank wall behind the counter.
Then we heard a strange creaking noise.
And before we realized what was happening, before we could process where the sound was coming from or what it might mean, before we could even inhale…the bracket supporting the seventeen inch security monitor swung away from the wall and fell forward…bring the monitor with it.
And I was standing directly beneath it.
The monitor stopped within mere centimeters of my nose and just hung there, the central hinge on the metal bracket apparently just tight enough to keep if from slamming all the way into my skull.
Teresa screamed. The Assistant Manager came running. The cashiers, baggers, and customers came running. And I just stood there, frozen in shock, watching the pixilated images flash across the screen as the security camera feed cycled.
“So…we’ll see you on Wednesday, Kristine.”
“Yeah…”
I had been at work less than an hour.
I could have died.
I was never again scheduled to work on a Monday for the duration of my employment with the LGS.
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