I'm sure everyone has had their fair share of times when they felt that they need to relieve some steam or be forced to deteriorate, both physically and mentally, over it. So here I am to relieve some of the pressure without having to balls up to do it to someone who could change things.

I've been working at a relatively small Kroger store for the past eight months (A short time, I know) and have realized that this job is absolutely stealing away every bit of resolution and determination I had before I started. For the first month it was fine, I was learning how to do my job, enjoyed doing so, and was even finally getting on good grounds with my co-workers. However, the fecal matter seemed to hit the fan the moment I had my one month evalutation. Everything went well, getting satisfactory marks for everything until I was asked two questions. These were 'Do you believe that you are a team player' and 'What do you think is your biggest weakness here.' Or near enough. (I was never good at quoting verbatim.)

At the time I believed I should answer honestly and without hesitation. For the first question about being a team player I answered in a way that I think threw off the conducter. I told her that I couldn't answer without being heavily biased towards my own side and would find a better answer to her question by asking the people who I'm supposed to be part of a team with. My co-workers. After a moment of silence she told me she was putting me at unsatisfactory when it came to teamwork. I can understand her being disgruntled by a question that could've been been answered with a simple yes or no answer but seeing as how I was attempting to convey that the question was impossible to answer honestly from a non-biased view it seemed that the wrong approach was taken. This honestly didn't bother me as much as how the second question went.

The second question. Oh god that second question. I don't know why something so small irks me so badly but never-the-less it instantly made me boil. When I was asked what my biggest fault would be I answered sincerely. I told her that my bagging speed was not on par as to what I originally thought would it be at. I was instantly told that being at Kroger for a month should've given me time to be adept at bagging. Mind you, I never said that I believed I was slow at bagging nor did I imply that I didn't understand the concept of bagging groceries. (Such a thing shouldn't even be considered.) I simply told her that I didn't believe I was bagging as fast as I thought I would be and saw that as my biggest flaw currently. I was immediately put down as unsatisfactory. I should've seen it coming. That question was geared to turn whatever the person said against them. But even if I had said I'm perfect in any and all aspects and situations presented to me that would be a character flaw as well since perfection exists to be imperfect in ways that prevents the ability to learn from mistakes and thus improve. Perfection would mean one is only mediocre and will never become better. After the evaluation I was told I would receive another at the three month mark.

Over the next two months after the first evaluation I decided to hone my skills as a courtesy clerk. I wouldn't be deemed unsatisfactory in such a manner. Because of that incident I ended up bagging far faster than anyone else in the store without losing much accuracy even when I have to tear through a mountain of piled up groceries when a lane is being ignored by the current courtesy clerks. As the third month approached I began to look forward to my evaluation as I believed that I was ready to prove to the woman that I was far beyond what would be deemed as satisfactory to my previous flaw that was used against me.

The third month mark came and went without the evaluation. Curious, I asked her what had happened. An easy to make mistake by over looking something? No. She claimed to have never 'heard back' from the 'people' that the evaluation was sent to. When I pursued it for purposes unknown to me at the time, and even now, I would be given the same answer and eventually told me to stop asking. In the end I respectfully complied and continued to do my job. Around that time, the store I work for hired on several new courtesy clerks. To the point where hours were cut for everyone down to only sixteen a week.  I was thinking that this would be a good opportunity to make good work relationships with the new co-workers. Everything went as expected. However it didn't last long. Within a single month everyone new that been hired on (Mostly teenagers) they were all moved to several different departments a few being made checkers. Curious as to why I was left out of this sudden explosion of massive movement I asked.

This of course heralds the arrival of month four. The answer to my question was at best was around the bush. Perhaps I didn't show enough drive or ambition for them to consider me for training in different departments or simply were waiting for a better time. After the mass movement I found myself back in the same position, working with the same courtesy clerks who had been there anywhere from one to ten years. I honestly couldn't complain, I still enjoyed working there.

Month five and six passed without too much incident although I had started to lose my enthusiasm about working. From going to work every day with a full of resolution drive to do my job I started to become less and less interested in the daily tasks. While I would still do my job to its full detail and always tried to never let my lack of interest show I found myself caring less and less for the company. At times I thought about quitting and going after something else with more appeal but those thoughts were often shrugged off. I've never been the type to do things in a half arsed manner and any job at the time was a god send.

Month seven marked the rapture itself of my confidence and ability to keep the smile on my face and the teeth to my tongue. The management, who I was rather fond of, changed. The new manager is green. Even with me not having much life experience it was easy to tell. (Although he made it blatantly obvious by what he said to us.) However, he was not my level of hell that I had to contend with. In most aspects he was like the last manager and I get along with him well enough for the type of work relationship that's required between us. It is the co-manager who has my name written onto his forehead and apparently many of my co-workers' names. I laid under his radar for about a week or so but the inevitable eventually happened. Our Kroger store isn't the most well maintained one when it comes to the outside techno doo-dads such as the buzzer to herald the arrival of people at the back door. One night while doing my nightly trash duties I pushed the buzzer. Unknowingly I had set in motion one of the most painful events at Kroger that I've had. The buzzer stucked and the front end was ravaged by the sound of that painful sound for a full two minutes. All the while me sitting outside in the pouring rain with the same goofy grin I wear not even knowing what happened. Eventually they finally let me in. I should've known something was wrong the moment I saw one of the floor supervisor's look. Seeing him walk outside and inspect the button should've hinted what had happened but I was a bit more concerned about finishing the trash detail. Dumping my current load I went to the break room to purge it of the filth it had attained I was suddenly cornered by the co-manager. A short man. I suppose it'd be funny if someone walked in not knowing of the circumstances to see such a short guy cornering a relatively heavy set person who would look more suited for sumo combat. But I'll detail that in the next section since I think this one has grown too large.

The co-manager didn't ask me, didn't pull me aside privately, didn't so much as hint as what had happened. Infront of a few co-workers he suddenly assaulted me with accusations of purposely holding the buzzer down while I was outside, and with a relatively loud tone of voice too. (Yelling, I suppose although not quite.) I guess this didn't quite strike me as right for anyone to do. I was never the type to take such actions lightly when targetted at me. So , naturally, I responded to his tone of voice with an equally powerful one, telling him to address me with more respect than he currently was or I wouldn't listen to him. His title may be different than mine and his end of the year figure is higher than mine but I refuse to let that fact qualify any man or woman lead to any belief that they are superior to me as a human. I had to explain it to him like I would a child that I had not pressed the buzzer that long and if he had any sense to him he would realize the buzzer was still going off despite the fact that I was already in the break room. The rest of the incident is mostly a blurr in my memory but in the end I suppose I made him out to be a fool infront of people that he wanted to show his muscle too. Since then it seemed that he has slacked off of my other co-workers only to amplify the pressure upon my shoulders. In ways I'm glad that I was able to derail him that badly for the others but in return I find myself growing more and more irritated at his holier-than-thou attitude that I find myself hard to keep my mouth shut.

Since then, other than having to deal with the co-manager, I have had a fairly normal experience with my daily work with Kroger although my schedule took a massive turn and I now seem to work more evening shifts than anything else. Perhaps it's because the store would rather not have me constantly ruffling the co-manager's feathers constantly during the day. I have no clue.

I know this is a pretty big wall of text and most people won't bother with it, but it's helped me by simply talking about my experience with Kroger. Perhaps I try to look too much into every situation that pops up before me, perhaps it's me who has their feathers ruffled too easily, or perhaps I'm just a big cry baby that found a connection to the internet. Either way, I don't really care although I'd love to hear back to this. Whether it's taunting insults or just idle comments. Hell, maybe it'll be all spam. It'll be interesting at least.

Ciaossu~ n_n

-Anon E Moose