WORK SUCKS

Stardate. Sunday night. Johnny gets a call from his outpost of employment "CVS". "Hello?", Johnny asks. "We need you to report in tomorrow 2 hours early, the photo personel we have scheduled cannot make it." For a split second, he hesitated and looked into the distance just before he blurts out, "sure."

And that was that. His fate was sealed. Little did he know that what awaited him at 7 in the morning was a workload that was weakly supported by those who were charged to do it. Nothing could prepare him for the chaos that would ensue that day.

"It's okay." Johnny assured himself. "I'll have Becky, the backup cashier stay up if it gets busy, and I'll be able to focus on my orders." Johnny thinks as he prepares his mind for the day. As he gets to CVS he starts work. Becky never comes...

Things are looking bleak. The truck is coming with all the 40 - 80 totes full of merchandise to be processed unloaded, organized, counted, shelved and sorted. "Not my assignment." Johnny says as he breathes a sigh of relief, masking the fear in the back of his mind that he will be short on backup, and a commmanding manager who will be hard pressed to come up and help with any issues that arise... Bleak starts to look good from where he is now.

Johnny's first reinforcements won't arrive till 1100 hours (11 AM). It is now 700 hours (7 AM) The first woman comes in with 12 orders. A challenge for the day. "If I'm lucky, the day will be slow and I'll be able to finish the orders in a few hours as promised." Johnny thought. "If I'm lucky..." Woman after woman flew into CVS in droves, requesting politely that their meager 2 or 3 cameras be developed, Johnny keeps pushing back their pickup times apologeticly.

Flustered, Johnny gets a moment to work on photos, he boots up, checks, calibrates, analyzes densitometers, refills liquids, and executes startup checklists. All seems to be moving along. Until he realizes the film control strip that has come out of the machine has multiple scratches and a slightly high reading on the optimal color ranges. He runs another film control strip. It doesn't help... the densitometer spits out the foul un-refined film and emits a loud *bxxxxxrrrrxxt!!* Things are looking hopeless...

Johnny decides to move on with the high reading and runs the first of 12+ rolls. To his dismay, it comes out scratched and half unusable! The colors are slightly off and the black is white washed.

He gives in and calls for reinforcements from base at Kodak Tech Support. They send out the order to an analyst who says he will call back. Unfortunately, Johnny has to take his lunch, for the day is half gone, with no pictures produced. As he comes back, help has finally arrived, Kevin, the usual tech for this outpost of CVS has come with his tools and skills to get the machine working again. Johnny helps any way he can and stores useful information learned as he continues to check.

Finally... the machine fixed, Johnny can execute his job with excellence. Yet he only has 30 minutes left in his shift... He quickly processes and labels film 2 at a time through the machine, back to back, not worring about processing them. He manages to get 10 rolls through the fixed machine and organized for the next person. The last thing he does is writes a note for the next person behind him who will take over the photo department. Then he runs for his life from the place which has held him captive all day... runs and doesn't look back... ...

*tumbleweed*

Actually... he has to go back in a few days... Dun dun DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!