LJIdol Week 2 - 3 Little Words

[vik_thor]

"LOVE" is one of the prototypical "3 Little Words".

Most of us probably utter 3 word phrases containing "love" several times a week:
"I love SciFi."
"I love gaming."
"I love my job."
"I love my family."
"I love cheese."
"I love pickles."
"I Love You, You Love Me"
EEEP! Get the Barney song out of my head!
What's scary, is that I am nowhere near the Barney Generation. I had graduated college by the time Barney made his national debut. I have no kids, and usually don't want any. I've never had close friends who have kids of the appropriate age… So where did my dislike of Barney (more specifically, his song) come from?

Retail.
When I worked at Osco Drugs, most years every store would get a shipment of whatever the buyer thought would be THE big seller for Christmas. Sometimes, they hit the mark, and we would sell out of whatever it was shortly after it was put out on the sales floor, leading to almost 2 months of saying: "I'm sorry ($APPROPRIATE CUSTOMER GENDER), we sold out of (ITEM X) last month.…No, we will not be getting any more in, it was a one time special shipment…No, I am not going to call around to our other stores AGAIN to see if any of them still have them, we've already done that for 50 other customers over the previous 3 weeks…I'm sorry that you are desperate enough to be buying your kid's Christmas present at a drugstore, 2 days before Christmas, but I really do not know where you might be able to buy (ITEM X), nor do I really care, as I have no kids…"
OK, yeah, the last part of that is a bit exaggerated from what I actually told any customers, but I SOOOOO wanted to tell some of them that! (Anyone who has worked retail around the holidays, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about!)

Then there were the items that didn't hit it big, and sat around the store well past Christmas. These always seemed to be noise makers of some sort.
One year, it was Big Mouth Billy Bass. Luckily, by the time it made it out of the seasonal aisle to our 'Clearance area', all the batteries were dead.
I was not so lucky with a singing Barney, however. (And yes, one of my usual work areas was close enough to hear Barney singing every time a kid walked by and hit the button and shrieked in laughter.) Hearing that song, in that particular Barney voice, several times a day, every day, for several months… yeah, I'm not surprised most of the parents were smart enough not to give in to their brats and get the toy…

Actually, aside from stuff like that, I pretty much enjoyed my time working in the retail sector. During most of my time @ Osco, I wasn't primarily a cashier. Some of the other jobs I did were Photo Department Head (which included being in charge of the One-Hour Photo machine), Supervisor, and the one I enjoyed most, Scan Coordinator (being in charge of the pricing integrity for the store.) I eventually moved to the Albertsons Drug Division headquarters, where I helped stores across the country with scanning issues. I eventually ended up being trusted enough by our IT department to be allowed to recreate batches in a store's controller. The only person not involved in IT to be allowed to do so.

Once Albertsons was split up, none of the 3 divisions took me, so I ended up unemployed for a few months, before ending up at my current job. It's OK, but I don't enjoy it as much. Largely because most of my current job is routine data entry. I rarely get a chance to actually do intensive, deep research into a problem.

(Wow, this really went in a different direction than I was originally planned. Almost more of an introduction…)

This is my entry for Week Two of therealljidol. We will be voting later this week.

Comments

[solstice-singer.livejournal.com]

I just have to say that Barney is totally and utterly obnoxious. One of my young cousins adored him about fifteen years ago. It drove me nuts.

[vik_thor]

>laughs<
Actually, rereading the first part of this, my mind first went with the "BoomDeYadda" Discovery channel song from a few years ago.
Then a record scratch, leading into Barney's song.....

My mind is going weird places right now! :]

[majesticarky.livejournal.com]

That Barney toy sounds soooo annoying! At least you had fun in retail over all.

[snarkerdoodle.livejournal.com]

Barney is completely incomprehensible and annoying and 'oh my lord where is my shotgun'-inducing for anyone outside its target age range (and even for quite a few kids in the target age range, lol).

I have been known to take things like Billy Bass out of its store display and remove the batteries more than once... >.>

[pixiebelle.livejournal.com]

The Barney song! My oldest niece used to LOVE Barney and I spent so many hours singing those obnoxious songs to her!

[notodette.livejournal.com]

Usually don't want any. I loled.

[fading-light.livejournal.com]

Barney didn't bother me as much as that stupid Lamb Chop song.

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

We actually own one of those singing fish- though he sings the "give me back that fillet of fish" song from teh McDonalds commercial.

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

I happen to LOVE that BoomdeYadda song! But, yeah, I'm in the same general age category, and Barney makes my skin crawl, too! It's weird, also, because, it's immediate, and was since he first came into existence... I think it might be that really dumb voice. Or maybe it's just the extreme insult to our intelligence of the concept of a huggable dinosaur. I mean, Dragon, sure, I can get behind that, since they're mythical, but, ,....ah, here's me going on too long. The stupid bass always makes me smile for a few seconds. I think after much more than that, though, I might be willing to throw it into someone's head.

[sweeny-todd.livejournal.com]

aha! agreed! Barney can be annoying.

[vaudy.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I can relate. I used to work in a pool store, and in winter, we carried Christmas stuff. We had a huge display near the front counter with animated dolls, many of which made noise of some kind, music or talking (Santa Soaking His Feet moaned "Oooohhhh, my feet!" every few minutes). The couple of years singing Christmas trees were popular, we had on right on the counter for demonstration. It was downright maddening.

[greenfernway.livejournal.com]

I found myself starting to sing the barney song then read the next line. LOL I remember the billy bass.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Once at a party with some friends, we had a Barney pinata and whacked away with that abomination with gusto. The death blow was with a katana, and the victor carried his head around on a stick for the rest of the evening. Good times. =)

[vik_thor]

In general, and overall...

Thinking of possibly going back to it, at least part time.

[vik_thor]

(though, I had some dreams last night, that reminded me of why I may NOT want to… being a part timer in a store, you don't get the knowledge/relationships that make it enjoyable…)

[vik_thor]

LOL! definitely sounds like a fun party!