During this post in what I'm about to say, I will attempt to do as best a job as I can to divorce my exceptionally volatile emotions from the actual events, so as to just stick to the facts.
So I kinda screwed up, just now. I'm human. It happens.
So I walked out and walked off the job at Walmart Neighborhood Market within the last few hours. I'm back home, now.
So, I come in, a half hour early off the bus, like I always do, since the bus only runs once an hour during the evenings at my store.
I went to the breakroom, and sat down, heated up my dinner and made a fresh pot of coffee. The overnight hourly manager comes in, and just passes along a message from the daytime salaried assistant, to make sure to get the registers clean, because they weren't last night. And I'm like, "OK, you know the absolute train wreck I was left to deal with last night, right?" and he's like yeah. Tuesday night was an absolute catastrophe.
The morning shift front-end supervisor for Wednesday morning had called in the night before, so the Tuesday night supervisor that was scheduled to get off at 11pm actually turned back around and covered the Wednesday morning shift. But in doing so, he left - without permission to do so - at 10pm, an hour early. Almost the entire front-end, every register still had money that needed to be changed out, which was supposed to be done on the evening shift before he left. No returned merchandise had been ran back, so there where 3 shopping carts heaping full and falling over that were left for me alone to deal with, along with the damaged merchandise behind customer service that had to be ran back to the backroom claims area.
And the one cash register the Tuesday evening supervisor did shut down, he actually wasn't supposed to. He shut down the Customer Service Desk. True enough, Service Desk closes at 9pm for pretty much most everything (returns, refunds, Money Gram, money orders, etc.). But since it's also the only register in the whole building that is authorized to ring up cigarettes and tobacco, since it's a restricted employees-only area, that register is supposed to be open 24-hours, so that at night, we can sell tobacco. It's not supposed to be shut down and have the money changed out until 11.50pm, and it's to be reopened immediately after the Midnight changeover in the store computer, so that we can continue cigarette purchases during graveyard hours, from Midnight onward. So he shuts that one register down early, before he leaves at 10pm - an over 2-hour span of being closed, when that register is not supposed to be. So to ring up customers who are still coming in during the 10 and 11 oclock hours, I literally have to get management to pull that register's money bag out of the cash office, and sort out all that just-thrown-together money, so that we can check cigarette customers out.
It was myself and the two evening cashiers that stayed until Midnight to help me with the rush, Tuesday night. After I get all the registers properly changed out and all of the four self-checkout machines changed out (just changing out those 4 machines is a 1-hour job alone), and after midnight hits, I also have a whole 5ft tall pallet of cube cases of bags for the cash registers that I have to issue out to all 10 registers at the front-end. I get all those issued out and one box cut open for easy access per register, and get through with all of this, this takes me until my lunch. I come back on-time the next hour and just try to deal with the 3 heaping full shopping carts of returns as best I can. There's so much stuff in each basket that I only get done with two of the carts before 7am. I'm literally having to walk all over the building countless times to put back as many items as I can, back in their proper department, in their rightful place on the shelf.
That was Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. And, I told him, "You know the absolute train wreck that Leonard left early and left me by myself to deal with, right?" And the manager's like, "I know. But still..." As in, no matter how hard I pushed myself, and no matter how I pulled my weight, plus the evening shift supervisor's too, it still wasn't enough, because everything was done. That was the message I was hit with, earlier tonight, before I clocked in. So the day already started out negative.
Fast forward to the 11pm hour - typically either feast or famine, sometimes a little bit of both, in terms of customer traffic. The evening shift supervisor for tonight/Wednesday night (a really cool lesbian girl) and the cashier left at 11pm. I was left up there by myself to handle it all. So I get a flash mob of customers. The proper thing to do is to call for back up. I did. The other cashier came up there and helped the first time. We got the lines down, then a quiet period, briefly. She, the other cashier, goes back to doing the cereal aisle. I get a second flash mob a few minutes later. I radio over the walkie again for help. She comes back up to my register and approaches me when I have a customer in progress, "Oh, Joseph, I'm not gonna keep coming up here and helping you with these customers. You've got to pick up the pace and speed it up a little bit, and quit slacking."
The customer immediately raised his eyebrows and was like wow! He told me, "There's a whole crowd of people that decided to checkout all at one time. It's not your fault that you got hit with all of this." I smiled and said, "I apologize for the unprofessionalism".
I checked the rest of my line down, and in doing so, the other cashier ran out of one dollar bills in her till. So her customer her customer taps me on my right shoulder. Remember the old rule, "When you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Well, I ignored her customer tapping me on my shoulder. I ignored everything about her line, and just focused on my customer and making their change in my till. My temper inside my head was escalating rapidly. You're not going to dress me down and humiliate me in front of customers, and then ask me for help right behind it when you get in a bind. So yeah, I ignored both her and her customer. I was livid. Madea livid. My hands were shaking, I was trying to not explode in front of everybody, like she did to me.
Honestly, I was kinda like how refuji gets sometimes.
So I got the rest of my line down, and went and told the manager goodbye.
He's like, where are you going?
Home, I told him. Then I told her when she went up there to get change, "You're not going to dress me down, then ask for my help. You're not going to go off on me, then still expect me to be on your side." She attacks back, "You're just sorry! You're sorry. If I can handle crowds of people by myself, then you can too! You're just lazy."
"Ok, bye." If she thought she could handle it by herself, then there it is, handle it dear, handle it.
That's when I went and clocked out and walked out. I tried to physically divorce myself from the situation, before I made a mistake and let my anger get out of control, to where I would have hit someone and have possibly gotten arrested.
But because I just clocked out and walked out, it's basically viewed as abandoning the job. Honestly, I would agree. I should have just went to the back or to the breakroom and just cooled my heels, instead of just up and walking out.
But yes, I screwed up tonight. I was a bit of a coward, who ran from a fight instead of standing my ground. I don't know. I just don't. Tired, exhausted, frustrated, and drained.