Oops

My job is easy.  REALLY easy.  By my calculations, I've been paid something like $200 just to play Hexyz Force so far.  That's not even counting all the time I've spent reading, or my playthrough of Monster Tale. 

This doesn't mean that I don't do my job; far from it. When we have shipments, or moves to be completed, or...you know, people actually in the store... I'm all over it.  But particularly at this time of year, things are slow, and there's only so many times you can walk around looking for out-of-place action figures.

And so it was that, yesterday afternoon, I was behind my counter in an empty store playing Hexyz Force (pretty sure I'm over-leveled, but that's beside the point at the moment) with one earbud in (I leave one out so I can hear what's going on, obviously), listening to a podcast.

And then the company president walked in.  I must have looked like a deer in headlights.

Now, at certain OTHER companies I've worked for, the mere fact that I wasn't... I don't know, hand-cleaning the carpet or something... would have resulted in me being chucked out the door so fast my head would have spun.  Luckily, rather than immediately freaking out, the gentleman in question actually LOOKED at my store, saw that I was the only one there, and asked me if it had been like this all day.  I truthfully replied that it had, and then he checked out the rest of the store to find that not only was it empty, it was also clean and well-merchandised.  Yes, I was sitting on my ass, but at least I did my job first.

Higher-ups like to nitpick, in my experience, particularly when they think you don't have enough to do, so the fact that I only got one note (to hang a ceiling banner lower "when one of the guys comes in".... Sir, I hung that banner myself because everyone else is scared of the ladder, including the ONE "guy" on staff. It does take two people to carry the giga-ladder, though.) was pretty good, I thought.

Gotta admit that I was on a twitch reflex for the rest of the night, though.  Excessive charm and good looks can only get you out of so many situations per day.