This Is Your Life on Retail: March 2022

Hello world.

 

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I've been busy dealing with the vicissitudes of life. Here I'd like to continue my dialogues about what retail work has been like at this current juncture, amidst the pandemic still going on, corrupt corporate policy and abuse, and the war in Ukraine. 

First off, a general rundown on the gig. The daily grind as a cashier at a multimillion dollar company has become much more difficult. There's not much staff to help you with, well, anything. Management is always absent from the front end so most of the time you're on your own. 

There's no baggers to help you bag the large orders that come down your line nonstop for eight hours straight. 

The union has finished up its voting for the strike authorization vote but it remains to be seen if there really will be a strike. I was skeptical about the vote to strike authorization because it seems that most of the public has given up on retail workers at this point. We need your support still and our fight isn't over even at this stage of the pandemic.  

At the beginning retail workers were heroes. The customers supported us as much as nurses even because of the pandemic. But now, the customers show us a lot more of the contempt hidden in their hearts for the unskilled labor. It's very easy to hate unskilled labor. Nowadays, there's always a yelling going back and forth throughout the day between cashiers and customers. Something about a dollar off most of the time that could be easily resolved but management will only agree to things if they just want people to go away so they don't have to deal with it. 

The union asked the company for $5, $1 extra per year for five years. Even that alone won't be enough for the workers to live on in California. The company said no, so they've been reduced to going down to $3, $1 per year for three years. That's an even worse proposal. But if they could get it, it would still be a victory for the workers and a victory is a victory, no matter how small.  

I'm not surprised by any of this. In fact, most of the stuff I mentioned here has already been mentioned in a lot of my other blogs about retail during the pandemic. 

And yet covid is still happening there and now the customers don't have to wear facemasks. Today at work, I had to work at the only cashier station that didn't have a plastic shield shielding me from customers and their maskless faces. Thanks a lot you corporate guys.

As Loki says in the show, "trust my rage." 

For those who are interested, compare this post about working conditions today with about a year ago, you can read it here.

Thank you for the support. 

The song we sing, did you know, we're listening. 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is a drama movie written, directed, and produced by Martin Mcdonagh. The film follows a mother who puts up three billboards outside her town after the police fail to find out who raped and killed her daughter. Its been seven months and no arrest. These billboards say "RAPED WHILE DYING", "AND STILL NO ARRESTS?", and "HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?" Needless to say this polarizes the community.

Actress Frances McDormand plays such a fantastic grieving mother and we feel so much sympathy for her despite her doing some terrible and illegal things like setting the police building on fire and insulting the dignity of a midget (Peter Dinklage) that wanted to take her out to dinner and be there for her in a trying time.

The movie mostly revolves around a white town (in Missouri) that is pretty damn racist, where most of the cops are country hicks, real redneck types. The movie is about the characters and emotional seriousness that isn't seen too often in Hollywood blockbusters. This one is a little sad. In the end we don't know what emotions to have, other than the ones we initially had at the beginning of the film when she first puts up the bill boards.

The movie did very well at the box office. At the 75th Golden Globe Awards, the film won the awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actress – Drama (McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Rockwell), and Best Screenplay-wow! So the masses (regular johns) really loved this movie. I can see why, its quite effective at what it does, intrigue and inquiry, we want to keep learning more and more until the end where we get a non-ending. 

The film ends with a stupid cop and McDormand (playing Mildred, the grieving mother) going to the state of Idaho to find this guy who is supposedly a rapist, and even though the police commissioner told him that his dna didn't match the murdered girl's killer, they still want to go to his place and kill him. But they're not quite sure if they want to go on with the murder, so they agree that they will decide on the way there. That's how the movie ends, essentially a non-ending to which my friend said, "They're just going to end it like that." "Guess so." Its a pretty good ending for what I consider to be a non-linear movie.

The movie doesn't have any particular linear direction where it hits a climax and then things fizzle out, and then climax again, nothing really like that. Instead, a ton of different things happen throughout the film and all of it works in an effective way, everything has a lasting effect in the movie, its very well done. This movie is a more effective movie than The Shape of Water, which I also saw today. I would say this is the better movie but that I liked The Shape of Water better because fundamentally this movie is so serious and goes into the realm of losing a child in such a violent, brutal way, that in many respects I just can't understand that. I can, but only up to a point. The movie is quite transgressive, but again, in a effective way. You should definitely see it if you haven't yet.

Mildred Hayes: So how's it all going in the nigger- torturing business, Dixon?
Dixon: It's 'Persons of color'-torturing business, these days, if you want to know. And I didn't torture nobody.