On one of their days off Moby and Leo went up to Lakeport to visit a friend or cousin or something. This friend/cousin/something bravely took the foul pair out onto the lake in his motorboat. At one point the motorboat conked out, and while the friend/cousin/something was tinkering with the motor, Moby very stupidly stood up in the boat to get a better look at what was going on. The motor suddenly started, the boat took off, and Moby lost his balance and fell on top of the motor. This caused a huge gash to open up on his left leg. His friend/cousin/something got the boat to shore, found a phone and called 911. As the location was rather remote, a helicopter ambulance was sent. Moby later told everyone that the EMT's had one hell of a time lifting all 500 lbs. of him onto the stretcher. There were only 2 of them, so both the friend/cousin/something and Leo, plus a couple of innocent bystanders, had to help lift enormous Moby onto the stretcher. Moby said that it was at that embarrassing moment he decided to go on a diet. Said diet lasted about one week.
Moby was transported by helicopter to a local hospital, where his leg was stitched up. He was then sent home and was on leave from RGIS for a couple of weeks. When he came back to RGIS he delighted in rolling up his pants leg and showing everyone the huge slash on his leg. This act never failed to elicit gasps of horror and disgust from his audience. And he would do this all the time! While we were in the office parking lot waiting for a ride to a store; during an inventory, while you might be standing on a milk crate counting jars of spaghetti sauce; or, if you might be so unlucky as to be sitting behind him in the company van. Moby would prop up his left foot on the dashboard, roll up his crusty pants leg, and give everyone in the van an eyeful of his oozing wound. Talk about making your stomach turn! It was sickening.
This leg wound of Moby's took an exceptionally long time to heal. It never seemed to close up fully, but instead oozed and dripped around the stitches. His brother Leo kept urging him to go to a doctor and have it taken care of, but Moby always refused to do so. The rest of the district speculated on why that was. Someone said it probably was because Moby was embarrassed about his gargantuan size, and didn't want the doctor lecturing him about his enormous weight problem.
A couple of months after his accident, Moby ran an inventory at a DKNY outlet store in St. Helena. It was a small store, with little stock on the sales floor but with a back room crammed full of clothing and accessories from floor to ceiling. There were barrels of belts that had invalid bar codes, so each one had to be scanned individually and forced into the audit machines one at a time. There were shelves piled high with t-shirts wrapped in plastic; when you touched one shirt the whole pile of them would come cascading down, and there would be t-shirts all over the floor. There was also rack upon rack of shirts and dresses, with each hanger on a 'waterfall' (2 or more items hung vertically in one space). It was a nightmare.
We were there for about 10 hours. Everyone was starved, so we broke for one of those exceptionally rare RGIS lunch breaks. While we were eating, Moby came downstairs from the mezzanine level of the store and thrust his leg in front of us. He rolled up his pants leg and said, "Check it out!" It was horrible. More than 2 months after his accident and his leg was still red, gummy, and oozing. We said, "Moby, that's disgusting! Gross! We're trying to eat here, and you're showing us your pus-y leg! Do you want everyone to throw up?" Moby just grinned and walked away. So foul.
14 comments:
Still enjoying your tales.
Do you mind if I ask what it is you enjoy about the RGIS job?
I guess in the US it offers benefits, but in Canada it's just shit pay and abuse -- most of my memories are of injuries and illness (especially after a few days of 10-12 hour shifts with 1-2 hours of commuting each way, not being allowed to carry water, getting more than one break and being told that going to the washroom on company time was unprofessional (I once went to wash off a paper cut I received in stationery and my supervisor was told off for not keeping me on a tighter leash). She'd trained 2 of the AAMs, and her advice was that in the future, if I bled, I should use the blood to proudly mark my area tickets.
In my district I think Mondo would have done well -- we did a Zellers store once that ran about 12 hours. It was a 2 hour car-pool ride from our district, and an elderly woman who barely spoke english, who was in my car sat down about 11.5 hours in, pulled up her pants-leg and saw that her ankles were hugely swollen and purple. Our AM saw her, told her to get back to work immediately. She managed to explain she was hurt, at which point he dragged her, limping, to the sign out sheet and told her to find her own way home.
Are there honestly no such monsters outside of d501?
I guess most of the RGIS people here are recent Eastern European and South Asian immigrants who don't really know better than to accept it or really need the job, while the rest of us find it easier to quit than to report the abuse.
A AM here back in Janaury broke his leg and well it was funny because he would come to the store in cruches and basically sit at the portable for most of the time, then he would sometimes do "Patrols" as I called it on crutches of the store.
I guess later on, we needed some extra people to count a section, so this AM found a wheelchair in the store and put a machine in his lap and did all the round clothing racks in a section.
Thanks gas. I'm enjoying everyone's comments, too.
We don't have benefits anymore here either. At least the auditors don't. The managers have medical, dental, and a 401K plan. We used to have medical benefits, but RGIS cancelled them for the auditors because they said they were losing too much money. So I guess you could say that here in the U.S. it's just shift pay and abuse, too.
So why would anyone stay with it? I'm not sure. I guess everyone has their different reasons. For some, the appeal of flexible hours is really good. That was one of the things that I liked about the job. Another thing that I liked was the actual, physical aspect of counting. I found that it was sort of fun to count things, bizarre as that may sound. I got a personal sense of satisfaction when, after the inventory was over and I was walking out of the store, I would look over at all the areas that I counted, and that had been gone over by a store clerk and approved. It's not much, but it was enough to keep me working for RGIS for some time.
What IS it with employers and bathroom breaks? How can they consider a full bladder unprofessional? What, do all of the managers wear adult diapers or something? Lol!
Bloody area tickets! I wish I had thought of that. Imagine, no initials or last name marking an area ticket, just a great bloody slash mark. I can laugh, because it didn't happen to me. If it had, I would have been shocked. And ticked off. Was your supervisor really serious about that, or was she just joking? How did you reply to her?
Oh, that poor old lady with the swollen ankles! I don't think that even the idiot managers in my district would have been that cruel. I hope that old lady complained to someone. I wonder how she got home? Did she ever come back to work there?
Agentskelly: Did that AM move very fast in a wheelchair? I mean, could he count very well in it, or did it really slow him down?
That AM only did it once and I don't know, since he walks again :P
Hey Gas, which of the Canadian Districts is 501 out of curiousity?
You guys think the past was bad, just wait! What with the new owners and added pressure to be more profitable while the nansy pansy national account idiots cut the rates RGIS charges, who do you think is going to suffer most??
poor hygiene hinders wound healing, as it increases the infection.
I can't believe they still let you use milk crates. They've been cracking down on safety in our district recently. I'm guessing due to some recent workers comp claims, because some of our people are too idiotic to use the two-step ladders properly.
The lack of breaks used to bother me, but then I got used to it. o'course, this past year they adopted the company break policy of 1 ten-minute (paid) "rest break" for every 5 hours worked, and one 30-min. (unpaid) "meal break" for every 7 hours.
as for restroom breaks, I've seen too many people who take far too many trips to the restroom (either they really need to see a doctor, or they just need to stop screwing around), and/or they take forever on such trips. Very unproductive, so I understand where some of the concern comes from. But when you get a "bathroom break nazi" who chews people out for reasonable restroom trips, that is stupid.
cuts should ALWAYS be taken care of, if only to keep the store's product from getting bloody. as that's just plain gross and unhygenic. And as for people getting hurt, it makes sense that if they can no longer work, they should get signed out. But they're still entitled to transportation back from travel stores (even though they'd probably have to wait until the store is done). Although this should be handled in a professional manner, not "dragging them to the timesheet"
I often wonder why I still work for the company. When I started working, I told myself it would only be temporary, until I found a better job. And time and again I keep saying that I need to find a better job.
However, the flexibility of hours is nice sometimes.
And the main reason I'm still here is because I DESPISE job hunting, resume/application writing, and especially interviews. I'm just no good at it. ugh.
JJ: That would explain it then, about Mondo's festering wound. He had the worst hygiene around. Gross.
Oh yes, the milk crates. Once again, my district was too cheap to buy enough stepstools for everyone in an inventory. The only stores we really needed them for were the grocery stores like Albertson's, Whole Foods, and others. For grocery stores there were usually around a dozen or so auditors scheduled, and often less than that. But the AM or TL running it would show up with maybe three stepstools, if we were lucky. Most of the time we had none. That's when we would break out the milk crates from the store's back room. I think it even says in the RGIS handbook that you're not supposed to use milk crates, but when did my district ever do anything by the book?
About the bathroom breaks, we generally had one supervisor per 5-8 auditors, and an AAM per 3-5 supervisors in the really big stores (and we only did big box type stores or warehouses) which meant that there wasn't a lot left for the AM and DM to do during the audit but torment us grunts. I don't know if they had to show up every day, but they did and neither had a life outside of RGIS -- apparently the DM's major love interest was our Ops lady.
As for the blood, my supervisor was serious...Idiot that I am, I agreed to do greeting cards once in a Zellers (imagine a canadian Walmart -- almost as big, much less evil)and was stuck doing them thereafter. You can imagine, rubbing your hand against the paper dried them out after an hour or so and everyones fingers at the base of the nails would generally crack and spew blood, even if there weren't any paper cuts paper cuts. our options were to wash our right hand, wipe the blood on the greeting cards...not professional, wipe it on the yellows...for another auditor to touch, or use the area tickets, where hopefully someone would recognize it as a cry for help (to her credit she carried a tissue in her pocket for her own use, but most of us had enough trouble remembering to bring a pen to work when starting at 5am).
I never saw the old lady with the swollen ankles again -- that was at the end of my first week. It's what started me wanting to quit even before I found out that the bathroom thing was more than a joke to scare newbies.
Gas, Zellers is more like a Canadian K-Mart :)
I remember during training, my DM pointed out that we used to use crates and a few older versions of the training videos showed crates, but said there was some incident where the policy was changed to stools.
I think DM and the rest of the management all beleive in the concept of "a Happy Employee is a Productive Employee" or how that saying goes, which I think is true.
gas, to answere your question, what do I like about RGIS? It fits my exact needs for the moment (and many more moments in the future). I can't think of any job that I would like or could tollerate more.
I'm a stay at home mom but we need the extra income. The starting pay is much better than I could find at any retail store where starting pay is usually not much higher then minumum wage. I'm sure there are jobs that pay just as well or better, but they aren't as flexible or you have to deal with customers, or sell, or put on make up or wear pantyhose or the hours available to work are evenings and weekends so I won't be home with my family as much. With RGIS, since most hours are at night after stores close, I can be home to spend time with my family and tuck my kids in bed before going to work. Another good thing is that RGIS isn't retail and there's no customer service involved! Sure, our customer is the store manager, but that is very different than customers at a clothing store. All I have to do is show up and count stuff. The Team Leader or whoever is running the inventory is the one who has to deal with the store manager.
It's brainless, it gets me out of the house, it's flexible and it's fun. I also like the variety of going different stores and counting different things instead of heading to the same place day after day. Becuase I might work 3 or 4, or maybe up to 6 hours for one shift, I get pleanty of hours every week without having to work more than 3 or 4 days a week,and I don't have to give up my whole day on Saturday or Sunday. I also like the fact that sometimes we work alot, and sometimes we don't work at all.
We have suffered our fair share of abuse, but things really seem to be different now. For one thing, managment has changed. Either the the bad ones have left or the mean ones have gone a little soft. Another thing is, my district has been enforcing the break and meal policy. Some managers are much nicer and break us at 3 or 4 hours. Others can be nasty, and get irritated when we complain after 5 hours. We always get a break now. No one cares if you have to use the bathroom or want to get a drink without waiting for a break time just as long as no one abuses it.
I think my managment is starting to recognise that we are more productive if we get our breaks. We'll start talking more and counting less as the inventory drags on. I think it has partially become a sense of entitlement though. When we knew we wouldn't get a break or we'd have to work some insane number of hours before we were allowed 10 minutes and we didn't know how long we'd be at a store, we'd count our asses off to get the hell out of there. Now we start goofing off if they deny us a break. Sometimes it's really because we're tired, but I have to admit, sometimes it's becuase we're pissed. The downside to the break at 5 hours is that we know that when they announce a break time it means we're going to be counting for an hour or more. They won't give us a break if it's almost finished. But then when that happens, it gets us going again so we can count our asses off and get the hell out of there. It's a decent guage on how well the inventory is going.
My managment can still give us a hard time where breaks are concerned though. They'll announce break and start timing it right away. We'll be in the far back section of a huge store and by the time we walk to the front and someone lets us out, we may have 5 minutes or less. I'll check my watch as soon as I sit down now.
I can't beleive the way some people are and were treated in some of these districts. The idea of someone bleeding on merchendise and management not caring makes my stomach turn. That's unsanitary and possibly dangerous! My management doesn't do that. If someone is bleeding, take care of it. If someone is sick or injured, they are sent home and a ride is provided if necessary.
Speaking of health. We had a manager who was as mean as they come. She didn't give breaks, and she was one of those bathroom nazis. She developed health problems of her own and started complaining that she couldn't run big stores anymore becuase she couldn't be on her feet for more than 4 hours at a time, doctors orders, plus it caused her great pain. The DM told her she can sit down at work but that part of her job was to run big stores. She ended up quitting. Immagine that. The person who was the worst about giving us breaks was complaining and quit becuse she couln't be on her feet for more than 4 hours at a time!
We aren't allowed to use milk crates anymore either and they actually do get after us about it. I can't say it doesn't happen, though. Most of the time they don't bring enough step ladders to go around so now alot of us just bring our own to stores.
I was told that they got rid of the health benefits becuase no one was signing up. Who could afford it? It was expensive and the policy was crap. Plus, if people don't work consistent hours, how will they pay for their benefits. One week might have 70 hours packed in to it, and another, only 10, or none.
I think with RGIS, it's gets in your blood. It's like a virus. It may lie dormant for awhile but then it comes back. You either love the job or you hate it. I think some people who stick with it either don't have a choice, or they get so used to the lifestyle that even when they do leave, they end up going back. They can't stand the 9-5, or the rigid schedule of other jobs. RGIS doesn't drug test so that's a good reason for a lot of people! It's always something to fall back on too. RGIS (or my district) never turns away someone decent no matter how many times they quit. They have black balled a few, though.
Mondo takes more pride in grossing people out than in his job. I think he has given up trying to be a normal human being. The refusing to bathe is sick enough, but proudly displaying a serious wound that could cause major damage(i.e. gangrene) makes Mondo seem like he needs serious therapy.
Wow... I remember doing that when I was 8 when I got a severe gash on my scalp and would show off the wound to gross out girls or get oooo's and ahhh's from the guys. But then again, I was 8 and it was cool to do that stuff.
We aren't allowed to use milk crates in stores in my district but we usually have enough two-step ladders for everyone (because we stole some from D185. or is it D158? Whichever one is in Oklahoma City). In regards to a health plan, they offer it here still as well as cell phone plans and bank account partnerships.
155 and 181 are both Oklahoma City districts, though 181 was merged into 155, and 185 is the Oklahoma City-based WalMart team's district. Just for clarification.
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