What kind of company do I work for?

Sometimes, I've just gotta scream at the higher-ups in RadioShack. I'm completely convinced that you do have to lose a lot of sense to work as upper management.

Consider this:

Shoplifting at RadioShack Bonnie Doon is rampant! I NEVER had this much of a problem at Kingsway. I started feeling that I couldn't do anything about it about November of last year. So I've got a lot of impotent rage when I see a DVD player stolen right from under our noses.

I swear, the first person I actually catch shoplifting will be in for Rock Bottoms galore. And The Walls of Jago, just to make them squeal for mercy...

The reason for all the shoplifting, mainly, is that we are completely understaffed. And we have been for a while.So when we have one person closing by themselves, things get stolen. Because I can only help one customer at a time. And I'm the vigilant one!

So what does head office do this past week? Cut hours. We have too many staff, they say. One full-timer has to go. So Jason, who was hired back in the company only two weeks ago, (Old friend of mine from Kingsway when I joined in 2000...) will be transferred to Sherwood Park.

I *really* want a new job...

Second sign of idiocy: We got a fax last week saying head office wants us to power up the electronic (read: lots of lights and sound!) water guns.

AND (and this is the good part...)! AND! We should squirt customers, just to prove how cool these things are!

Because NOTHING says happy like a drenched customer who came in to buy a dish, or a computer. Ah, who am I kidding? They're picking up a $5 battery...

WHY? Why would our company insist we squirt customers? HELL! For that matter, what was the thought process behind bringing these stupid things in?

EXEC 1: "Now, it's summer. What can we bring into stores that will sell?"

EXEC 2: "Heart rate monitors?"

EXEC 3: "New remote control cars!"

EXEC 1: "Good ideas. But I want something more!"

EXEC 3: "Fans that don't work!"

EXEC 2: "Water guns?"

EXEC 1: "WATER GUNS! YES!"

JUNIOR EXEC: "In an electronics store? You want to put guns that shoot water into a store full of things that don't really work when they're damp? Are you crazy?"

(Execs look at Junior a beat. Closest one smacks him.)

(Curtains down. Mad applause from the audience...)

So, after thinking up the latest chapter of Jago RadioShack Executive Theatre in my mind, I, of course, power up a water gun. Batteries, water, the whole nine yards. But something wasn't quite right...

I mean, it worked and everything. But there wasn't that coolness factor.

So I opened one of the new Laser Levels we carry these days. (Pretty much, a level for keeping things straight with a laser at the end so you can line it up.) I fasten it onto the gun with some wire ties, and all of a sudden, I've made a military-issue laser-guided Super Soaker. Which I then run across to Bentley right to show the girls...

I am a SUPER GENIUS! And the laser sight actually works, as long as you're shooting someone closer than five feet. That's when gravity kicks in...

God, scary things happen at that store when I'm bored...