On my first job out of high school, I had two primary responsibilities.
- I worked at a big box store.
On any given day, I would either bring shopping carts into the corrals or into the store, or I would work in the home & garden section. Whenever my fellow co-workers would complain about their jobs, I would remind them that, at the very least, they had a powerful air conditioner to cool them as they worked at their cash registers or stocking the shelves inside the stores. On the other hand, I was almost constantly sweating my butt off! I especially liked how anytime one of the workers in my department called out, someone who normally worked inside the climate-controlled part of the store would be sent to assist me, and they would act like it was the worst thing in the world. Strangely, I was never asked to work inside the store to cover someone else who called out. What a joy that would be to be able to work in the air conditioner for just once! So many times, I would clear the parking lot of carts, nearly by myself, and then take a moment to rest just inside the building to take advantage of the A/C. One of the assistant managers would assume that I was slacking off, even though I was just trying to cool off! When things were really busy, and the carts were piling up despite our best efforts, those same managers would sarcastically offer a “team building” exercise in which they would go out and help us. Fat chance that would ever happen!