The Mark(ings) of Zorro

The Mark(ings) of Zorro

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken

Front page
Archive

More ruminations, rambles, rants and raves from the downhill side of the mountain.

Just so you know exactly where I stand vis-a-vis today's polarized politics, let me recommend this organization to you.

And I also recommend my gentle employer to you as well. The Barnes & Noble Affiliate Network, which seemed to have stopped working, is back in operation, so the links and banners are working again.

Now, go buy some books.

Links:

My Other Blogs, Journals and such

Fox Den: Creative (i.e. Fiction)Writing
A Pilgrim's Progress

Business/Economics/Future Studies and other Social Sciences

Ian's Knowledge Modelling Weblog
Future Scan: Future Studies Department University of Houston at Clear Lake
PLSJ (aka Anne, the Anthropologist)
link

International

Lost in Transit
link

New Jersey New York Pennsylvania and Delaware

Coffee Grounds
Traveling in Style
Slacktivist Recommended with a bullet!
Hoofin To You: Bridgewater, NJ politics
Inadmissible Evidence

Personal/General

Big Black Van
Overflow
In Spite of Years of Silence
Metamorphosism (Mig's new blog)
Real Live Preacher

Blogs with Attitude

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Alas, A Blog
A Fistful of Euros
BuzzMachine
Eschaton
Pedantry
The Poor Man
Barefoot and Naked
Boing Boing
Craigblog
Fafglob
The Road to Surfdom
link

E-Mail Me

Syndication has arrived.
Click on the FeedBurner Icon for this site's (Mark(ings) of Zorro) feed.

Click on the following link for the RSS feed of my LiveJournal.

Subscribe to A Pilgrim's Progress

< ? NJ Bloggers # >

This site is a member of WebRing.
To browse visit Here.

And finally, here are a few books I might recommend for your edification and amazement.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

Sunday, September 07, 2003

by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

In which Our Hero suffers from a galloping case of Introspection and Self-examination and that, in turn, leads to some Hard Truths and a New Order
I was thinking (a dangerous pastime in and of itself) the other day about what I was accomplishing here with this public journal. When I thought about it, I came to the conclusion (ie. the afore mentioned "hard truth") that my life, per se, was not the raw material for a best selling novel. My meat-world life is pretty pedestrian. I mean, who really cares about what I am doing in the workplace--especially since what that mainly entails is working at a barely-above-minimum-wage job in retail. I hawk books...no, not even that any more: I hawk a paid membership where the major (only) benefit is a 10% discount on purchases for the term (one year) of the membership. This is not something that carries with it any overriding benefit to society. In fact, it is a rather calculated ploy on the part of the company that employs me to scrounge out another couple of bucks from its clientele. (The company is counting on the statistical fact that a majority of the purchasers of this membership do not purchase enough books over the course of a year to actually begin to save money. My guess is that somewhere between 25 and 35% of our "members" actually come out ahead at the end of the year.) What most people get is advertising, disguised as "special offers", from the company, and the good feeling that comes with paying less for a book that the guy right behind you in line. However, most people...at least a majority of the people who join...end up giving my employer an extra $5 or so during the year their membership runs.

OK, this one last time: I've been moved to a "new" job at work. Although I am still being classified as a "Lead Bookseller", my section now consists of Audio Books and the displays around the cash registers. What I actually am is the 3rd "Head Cashier" for the store. The new manager seems to think that we need a Head Cashier on duty at all times. We are open 14 shifts per week, so that means we need 2 and 4/5th Head Cashiers to always have one on duty. I'm the 4/5ths of a Head Cashier. This means that maybe one shift per week I will get to do something else. Whoopee! You have to understand that being a Head Cashier does not require a great deal of imagination. It is a pretty dull and boring job once you get past the fact that you are handling money. --Aside: Because we deal with money, we are automatically suspect as being dishonest bastards who want only to rob the company blind. We are constantly counting and signing for tills, "pick-ups" (which consists of removing "excess" money from the tills so that they only have their allotted starting draw. (Yeah, yeah...all you crooks out there will have to find another source for that information)), deposits and so-on and so-on ad infinitum. It was cool learning the procedures since they tell alot about the corporate culture which spawned them, but that only took a couple days. Then a couple more days practising to be able to do the tasks quickly and accurately. Then it becomes more of a pain than a joy. End Aside. It has been made abundantly clear that my future with the company rests almost exclusively upon being able to sell this "membership" to more than 1% of our customers. If I accomplish that feat over the next 4 months or so, I may actually get the chance to be promoted to a salaried (read about twice as much money) job . However, this is not a slam-dunk. In fact, the probility of failure is probably greater than is the probability for success. When this was all sprung on me, I was told that I would be groomed for management if I took the job. Since that is ultimately where I want to go, I acquiesced and took the job. But I am not comfortable with either the job or my current store manager. We shall see.

And that is the last post, other than brief updates, anyone will see about my job. I may, in the future, discuss Jobs/Work and use my day job as an example, but I will not ever again go on as if what I am doing there is of interest to anyone else but my wife and myself. What I intend to do from now on (this is the "new order" part) is use this space as my "bully pulpit" where I get to write about issues and ideas. That, to me, will be a better use of my time. Oh yeah, I will talk about things in my life, but only as they pertain to the subject of each post. I will try this approach for the next couple of months. Then I'll reevaluate again.

Tomorrow starts the new order here. I hope it works...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005

Home