Jeff’s Dream of a New Job: at Meijer’s!
I dreamed that we decided I needed to get another job in order to bring in some extra money. So everyone decided that it would be best if I applied to work at Meijers. I went there and went to the back rooms to see who to talk to.
I visited with the raucous, young hick girls with boufant hair-do’s who were running the announcement booth. They told me to go find some guy. The booth area was very crowded and chatty girls all doing different things or standing around gossiping. It actually seemed like a lot of fun and they all seemed very nice even though they said ‘ain’t’ and such. They were working girls, maybe just out of high school.
The place they decided I should go see about hiring was in Bellevue, that’s where the work was. So that’s where I went. When I got there, and went to the back rooms again, there was a lot of hub-bub. A long line of hard-bitten teenage boys was waiting to get their paychecks. And a bunch of other young guys were working hard and loading and hauling boxes.
I asked a manager if I could get hired and he looked at me and said I tell you what, you go over there and ask for Mike and we’ll put you in Filing and Sorting.
So I went and found Mike and he was young and chubby, wearing glasses and in a flustered busy state. He was friendly though. I told him that the manager said to see him. He said OK, I’ll show you what you do. You follow me.
He scurried over to one part of a crowded labyrinth of office stuff. “OK, what we do here is get the C folder and the D folder when they come in, then put the C clip from up here on the folder and put it in this tray, do the same with the D clip. Then what we do is come over here and separate these piles of computer printout into separate rows.” There were reams of printout coming out of the wall onto the floor. “You have to peel and trim the excess edges off of them and stack them. Then we bring them over here to Mr. Johnson.” We went to another area where some older people were busy analyzing the printouts. One old guy took them and said thanks. He then started scribbling on the first page which was some kind of invoice for labor. He wrote “Died. Cause of death, deceased” or something like that on a few different lines, then stamped it, tore it off and put it in another pile. Man, they sure must have lots of employees here.
It was exciting learning how to do a new job. It was sure a lot to learn. We scuttled all over the place doing very random things that we had to do in a certain order.
“Well, then, by the time I’m done with all that it’s time for a break,” so we went into the break room. He said “I’m punching out now, but we usually do all that twice a day. Think you can handle that?” I was game. Then he told me about how it’s nice having put in his time so that he gets the good shift now. When you’re low man you have to work all night. I only wanted this job part time, so it seems like I’ll work only two days a week, but for 15 hours straight.
Actually, the dream was much more detailed than that. It was quite a rich scene there in the back rooms of Meijers. You would be really surprised to see all the work that it takes to run a big store.
At the end of the dream I started wondering why didn’t I try to get a nicer job in a field where I am an expert. I guess it seemed like too much bother, but maybe it would’ve paid more. Well, actually this seems like it will be like being part of a little city and maybe more rewarding than some fancy job that has the life drained out of it. We’ll see!
