“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 139
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Though the particulars vary, these situations are all related, corollaries of the same mindset. People are allowed to come flying at you with whatever, but at that this point, basically all you’re permitted in response is to tell them they are right even when they are not. Anything else is offensive. Despite reams of history and evidence, if you mention that people hanging their own incorrect signs is the far greater culprit, or somehow missing the correct ones, they will still roll their eyes insist that “pricing” is screwed up…and if you are especially insistent with evidence to the contrary, then they will claim you are attacking them. A tendency which has only grown exponentially worse since the complainers are now well aware that they have management’s ear.
Edgar has long since recognized that he is no longer a member of the “in” crowd, if ever he had been. At least there for awhile, those who get it had a sizable influence and were making some serious progress around this place. But most of the cool people have long since quit. Allies are few and far between. Now, it isn’t just that the inmates are running the asylum, it’s that the guards handed them the keys and told them to have fun, because these guards were all moving to the tropics.
The next thing he knows, he’s got Louise calling his cell phone from across the store, instead of walking up here from the deli. He is dreading this conversation before it even begins, and with good reason, because she’s one of a handful at this location who has fallen into the complainers camp. Perhaps paradoxically — or maybe not so much, considering Lorena is a huge store, populated with many seasoned vets who have experience in more corporate atmospheres, and therefore seem to have a better handle on how things actually work — the help here is on balance friendlier to him than those still hanging around at the three older stores. Louise is not one of them, however, and is now complaining that she lost a recent sheet of revised PLU numbers, and is pissed because she can’t use the old ones.
“Why do we even have these new scales? This is soooooooooooooooooo stupid!”
“Well, this is a Wholesome Shopper Market store now,” he patiently explains, at least the third similar conversation he’s had with her, “we had to transition you guys over to using our system instead. If I changed the number, it’s because there was some sort of conflict.”
“Yeah, I understand all that,” she snaps, “but I still think this is really stupid. Especially considering half my scales are the old ones!”
“Well, you know, that wasn’t my call.”
Worse yet, they get all this out of the way before the highly uncomfortable remainder, where he is forced to look up some numbers for her in the RU Data system. Mainly because despite the ballyhooed presence of “The Cloud” or for that matter the RU Data desktop interface which anyone whatsoever can use, he remains their point man for constantly looking things up. Has been warned it is a major dick move to suggest people look up things themselves in The Cloud and/or the RU Data desktop interface, in fact. Similar to how most of the bulk managers balk at looking up and printing labels from that folder on the shared drive, which has been there for over four years now. Even though this means that tacky handwritten ones proliferate yet again, up until he prints the damn things himself. Kind of like how when certain other department managers refuse to look items up, he must print out paper lists for them instead, which they might subsequently lose in short order.
It’s a good question, worthy of the long drives to and from work, to wonder how many allies truly remain around this place. A good half of the top ten are new recruits here in Lorena, which is great but also somewhat sad, in equal measures. He feels like Ashley and Amanda make great teammates, and that the three of them are all on the same page. Leslie out there on the back dock does a terrific job, and totally understands what’s up, and the same can be said for department managers like Katy or Megan, not to mention many of the underlings floating around this store. Otherwise? The same handful from their soon to be busted up Central HQ — Dale, Vicky, Valerie, and Park — and a smattering of others stranded like driftwood in unexpected places, from Sarah on Central’s back dock to Marita still going strong in Arcadia’s bulk section. And that’s about it.
Granted, there are some with whom he has a fine, even solid working relationship on the surface, even though he suspects they are throwing him to the wolves behind his back. But there’s no real proof of this, so their interactions keep humming along same as always, and he’s as neutral yet cordial toward them as can possibly be. This camp is littered with the likes of Ken, Sharon, and even Felix, whom he still can’t quite get a read on after all these years. Edgar’s thinking on this is he’s going to make a concerted effort at remaining friendly and professional with them, so that they have absolutely nothing to complain about on that front. And anyway, wondering what people might be saying when you’re not around is, aside from not being his style to begin with, bound to go nowhere, and eat at a person, because it’s one of the things that the more you inquire about, the more you are bound to receive wild misinformation and place yourself even farther away from the truth. So it’s best just to hang back and observe, try to piece together on your own what you think is really going on with a given situation. Asking someone a specific question about what they have said about you will almost never produce the intended result.
Yet, some answers have the potential for arriving, on an afternoon where Felix unexpectedly breezes into the equipment room and invites Edgar to lunch. Even before they’ve moved in that direction, however, this outing has already turned into a strange one. As Edgar quickly wraps up what he’s doing, Felix stands in front of the closed door, regarding him while he works. It’s the expression of someone appraising another, looking at this person and thinking about what it is they’re dealing with, here.
“What would they do without you?” Felix wonders aloud.
“Uh…hmm. Heh heh. I don’t know.”
“There’s a lot of knowledge there. A lot of knowledge there,” Felix says, sighing and shaking his head though he continues to study Edgar.
“Yeah…I guess you’re right. I’m not sure. That’s a good question.”
Maybe he should make more of this conversation, but then again this is just the freaking IT guy he is speaking to, after all. This is not his boss. This is not a management figure. Felix is their only IT person at present. Edgar’s payroll gets charged to the accounting department, as it always has. Yes they occasionally collaborate on projects, but the two roles are not even remotely related. This is the IT guy.
Without dedicating a whole lot of thought to the matter, though, it seems obvious what the impetus was behind this lunch proposal. Clearly some others, most likely management, were saying some negative things about Edgar. Either Felix was directly lassoed into the discussion, or he’d overheard it. But while Edgar just assumes that Felix extended this invitation out of sympathy — which might be true as well — as they leave the store, he can see that their longstanding tech whiz might be in the same boat himself.
“Todd keeps saying, do this! Do that! I need this now! Drive over here! Drive over there! Why isn’t this done yet? It’s just not realistic,” Felix complains, as they are heading into the heart of Lorena, such as it is.
“Oh yeah? I’ll bet,” Edgar replies, nodding.
They eventually settle upon this locally based, down home cooking themed country buffet. Both had seen it in their travels, and were wondering if this place was any good or not. Except as they step inside and glimpse some serious worn down, dated 1980s décor, which had plainly not been revitalized since, they have their suspicions about this place. All but confirmed when they partake of the lackluster food.
During the course of this meal, Felix continues ranting in a similar vein. He does seem to be attempting to solicit a similar reaction much of the time, but if so is not receiving much in response. The reality is that Edgar truly hates being put in these spots. Even with management figures — or just plain fellow employees — that he does not get along with, he still can’t quite bring himself to sit around bitching about these people. It feels unprofessional and a complete waste of time both. Confronting the problem directly works best, except you’re not supposed to do that either. This is why the corporate world leaves you tangled in knots, if you’re trying to conduct yourself with any semblance of integrity whatsoever. He’s also not very good at playing politics to begin with, and in fact resents being all but forced to much of the time by the people calling the shots: either sell out your coworkers, or accept the blame yourself. Take your pick. Even if you had nothing to do with this, it’s still true because we are the ones saying it is. We have no idea what’s really going on, so this is our only weapon. Deal with it.
Well, screw that. He refuses to play this game. He’s not selling out his allies over some stupid fucking job. Yes he takes his actual responsibilities quite seriously, but nothing is worth crossing that line. But also, it’s true, isn’t wasting his breath bellyaching about perceived enemies. Instead, though listening to Felix vent, if Edgar’s speaking, he prefers to discuss topics that involve the two of them. This is an ideal venue for broaching such minefields as those HXS printers, or even, with as much delicacy and tact as possible, what is going on with the atrocious internet connection.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. The wiring here is very outdated and bad. The wiring or what you might call the infrastructure. But I can’t fix it overnight!”
He wants to believe the guy, but isn’t exactly sure what’s true and what isn’t. Then again, this isn’t his responsibility, to sort out the IT guy’s performance. Management is responsible for determining this, not random employees on the accounting department’s payroll. All Edgar knows is that one day last week the connection was so bad, that after approximately four hours of constant disconnections, he packed everything into his laptop bag and ventured to this Taco Bell just up the road. Sat at a table there for the remainder of his shift and, over the course of a delightful, leisurely lunch, knocked out a ton of stuff in short order. Near the end of which, he experienced this burst of joyous disbelief, that the internet signal had not dropped out once during his Run For The Border…until realizing how ridiculous this was, that businesses were supposed to have functional internet signals, in this day and age.
This is another example, actually, of something he could have tacked onto his conversation with Don Evans, but did not. That not only did Edgar perform a ridiculous file dump with impressive speed and accuracy, especially given the time constraints, and they really only failed that scan audit due to a couple technicalities, despite having Univeral reps in the mix theoretically hanging half the tags, but the internet signal was dropping out to the extent they couldn’t use the tag scanners effectively anyway. The solution for which was to have everyone emailing Edgar files to print when he was able to. Despite that all that, though it’s impossible to say where this attitude originated, or why, management insists upon spitting venom at him and implying or stating outright that he’s doing a terrible job.
If they really want to think this, despite all evidence to the contrary, then whatever. He’s not tripping over himself to kiss up to them. Instead, it’s far more productive to focus on things at least tangentially within his realm of influence. Felix says he’s working on the wiring, so he has to believe the guy. He also mentions having just hired a helper, whom he hopes to task with finally solving those HSX printers.
