Hello all and welcome to another “Tales from the Video Store” installment. I was debating about making this a Pet Peeve installment but I don’t think this one is all bad, in fact I got to meet a lot of people because of it. To get to the point, this blog is going to be about a reality of most low–paying, entry level jobs: the massive turnover of employees.
Not too long after I started at the Video Store, the manager realized that I was learning a lot about how the business worked, especially the computer system. Having grown up on computers, the functions reminded me more of working with MS-DOS than anything else and I was surprised how hard some of the reports were for other employees. I was quickly unofficially promoted, not with a title or a raise but I was expected to train all of the new employees on the computers and later everything else!
The high turnover rate meant that I was basically training someone new every few weeks. It’s always interesting to be the “expert” and teaching others but in some ways enjoyed it. The new employees looked to me for help with problems, especially with customers. It felt as though as soon as you got someone trained and comfortable with the job, they would quit and the process would start all over. There were always exceptions and sometimes workers stayed longer but they were few and far between.
As I mentioned in my previous article, employees all got to pick movies before a shift. Because I was always doing a lot of training, I got to experience the movies people would pick for their first shift. This would always give me a good laugh as they try to figure out what movie they would like to watch that would be appropriate. There were some movies that these new people would gravitate towards. Any guesses on what movies I remember them picking first?
I know that I will take heat for this but there are 2 movies that I remember them picking and mostly because I got very tired of them. Those 2 movies are Grease and the Wizard of Oz. While I do not mind these movies, watching them over and over again was at first humorous and then after years and years it got on my nerves. I can watch these movies today, but during that time I got very tired of hearing “Greeeeaasssseeeed Lightning!”
What movies would you pick on your first day and what movies would make you frustrated to watch every time you train a new employee?
Thank you for reading and have a great rest of your day!
