"Lights, Camera, Minimum Wage!"

A lot of people take jobs at video stores for the money, the fame, the lifestyle, the parties—But, me, I got into it just for the money.

At the time, I was eighteen years old and in the process of putting together five hundred bucks so I could buy some musical instrument and/or accessory[1], and I already had about half of the money together, but where was I was gonna score the rest? Answer: a gig working at a very large, very popular, and very successful video store chain that rhymes with Glockbuster.

I applied, was interviewed, and landed the job.

Now in case you haven’t been paying attention to the story so far (shame on you!), I wasn’t planning on having what you would call a lasting occupational relationship with my new place of employment—like I said before, I just needed to make the other half of that five hundred bucks—and being the immature idiot I was back then (and still occasionally am now), I had, before even getting hired, put together this clandestine idea—and subsequent clandestine plan—where I figured the following: One, if so inclined, can obtain a job and work it for roughly two weeks—without working hard at all—due to the fact that the first week of the job is more or less the training period—during which your performance can be lackluster and mistake-ridden—because you are, after all, new, and then you have about another week until they, whoever you are working (not very hard) for, finally get fed up with you and fa-fa-fiya yo ass. But by then, it’s been about two weeks, and you have your loot, and you’re in the clear. Seems perfect, right? (Assuming your situation is almost identical what mine was.) But like so many things in life, the perfect plan turned out to be not so perfect, and many things went wrong.

The plus’ of the job: As an employee, you got to rent five movies a week for free, and this kid, who I went to camp with when I was younger and who is a living legend, worked there for, I think, one day that I did, but then was organizing videos and just couldn’t take it anymore and quit very quietly and without incident right then and there. I couldn’t believe this. However, a co-worker, who wasn’t phased by this at all, told me it was no big deal and happened a lot. (By the way, I know that second one was a weird thing to consider a plus.)

The minus’ of the job: They played this TLC music video/promotional ad for something or things round the clock, and it was so annoying that, after about an hour, you wanted to shot yourself in the head. Droves of people would return a video or videos, only to discover that there video or videos were late and they had incurred a late fee, and they would righteously announce how they weren’t going to pay it, and then I would explain to them that, because we had their credit card on file, they most definitely were going to pay it, and then they would get even more angry and ask to see the manager, and sometimes he was there, but sometimes not, so sometimes they got the assistant manager, who told them the same thing the manager would of told them, which was the same thing I had told them in the first place—we had their credit card on file: they were paying the late fees. End of story. And then they would still be all huffy-puffy and go off about how they were never going to rent movies from us again. But then, after like three weeks usually, they would be back, sheepishly renting whatever movie was popular at the time[2].—And another thing: Why would they get all mad at me? I mean, it wasn’t like the late fee money was going in my pocket. I was making like six-fifty an hour, for crying out loud. I couldn’t have cared less. In fact, as far as I was concerned, people were free to loot the store.

Getting back on track.

Duuude, this job was seriously hard. It was like the hardest job I’ve ever haaaad[3].
Now, to Glockbuster’s credit, they ran a very tight ship—but sadly, I was on this ship and not really down for all this tightness[4]. Check this out: At the end of the night shift (which I worked at least a couple of times), we had to go through every movie on every shelf and make sure they were all lined up perfectly. That still haunts me.

Okay, every story has an ending—even that movie, The Never-ending Story, and its two sequels.

I missed a day of work.

Honestly, I can’t remember why I missed it—I think it was just an honest mistake—but that led my boss to call me, and rightly so, be very angry with me and demand that I come in on a day I wasn’t previously scheduled to work, which would have been fine if this particular day hadn’t happened to coincide with my older brother’s graduation from college.

Quite the pickle.

To the point: He told me if I didn’t show up that day, I was finished at Glockbuster and I told him I probably wasn’t going to make it. He said you either show up or your fired. I responded, well, if I’m there I guess I still have a job, and if not, I don’t.

I went to my brother’s graduation. I had to. It was a big day, a major achievement.

Career at Glockbuster: Finito.

In the end I didn’t make all the money I set out to, but I got close enough to buy whatever I wanted to buy; my friend, Matt Mazzoni, who worked at another Glockbuster, heard about my not showing for work and my quitting/getting fired and ripped on me about it; and lastly, they never asked for the shirt back and I kept it. However, since I didn’t work there anymore, I had no place to where it. What can ya do, ya know? Ya know?

[5].


[1] For the life of me, I can’t recall at all what it is that I wanted.
[2] You can’t beat the late fees at Glockbuster. Ya just can’t.
[3] Good thing I wasn’t planning on staying more than two weeks. Maybe my perfect plan really did have something to it.
[4] Again, good thing this job was basically a scam.
[5] Who am I, Chuck Klosterman?