Brain Washed and Indoctrinated

I have a disclaimer on this post. Earlier today I sat down to write. What resulted what what I thought was an accurate description of the last few days, with some wit and some good cultural references. Those are now lost forever thanks to blogger, when I went to publish said entry it collapsed. It is frustrating because I was already happy about the entry and now this one will never live up to the previous one. It isn't as spontaneous.

The news of the week though is that I am officially employed. I am now on the payroll of one of the most insidious corporations on the planet, a place that I will not be able to freely reference once back in Guelph, I am now a member of the Walmart Corporation. I can't believe it myself. I was getting desperate thats all I can say. The funny thing is, I shop there. So, I can't really have a huge moral obligation to it. I've worked at other similar establishments doing similarly monotonous work at No Frills, Home Depot and DQ. But with all of those jobs (ok, maybe not DQ), I actually very much enjoyed myself, especially because my coworkers were fantastic. And guess what, Its no different at WM having started there (2 shifts under my belt), but I still have this dread of being. I think its the stigma. The only thing that held me through the training was knowing that its only for a few months and I could tune out the sections of how to move up in the company to build a career with them. One perk was that I showed up for the first day and someone I went to high school with but now never see was also hired. It helped me not feel so bad haha. Its a pride thing I suppose.

One interesting thing to note: WM is actually ahead of No Frills and DQ but behind HD in pay scale. I'm making almost $9 to turn off my brain and ask "have you found everything you needed today?". And I get a 10% discount. Only DQ offered such compensation and that was dangerous to my health.

Another dilemma. I took the job because Rotary (where I had worked two years ago planning a summer festival--best job of my life), has still not heard if they have funding from the government to hire anyone this summer so I was in no position to turn down a job after saying no to a call centre a few weeks ago (I just couldn't be that person on the phone!). I thought, well I'll just do both jobs. But the mighty WM doesn't work around schedules so it looks as if I'll have to choose if Rotary offers me the job. Can I just quit after 2 weeks?

Speaking of brain washing, the first training day involved some 'pamphlets' about the history of the company. And a video. And some Sam Walton. I didn't know that it was Sam Walton who said "Give me Liberty or Give me death" and "I have a dream..."...that was Sam wasn't it?

Mary gave me some comfort in the fact that I can emulate the slightly sarcastic and charmingly angsty teen in Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants who spends a summer working there. All I need is some black hair dye, a video camera and to befriend some kid who looks suspiciously like my cousin from sudbury. But to cut all this fun short, I need to go map out my garage-saling route for tomorrow. It looks like a promising weekend.