Yes, EvilMister, There Is Such A Thing As Santa Clause

Or perhaps the employment equivalent thereof...

Allow me to explain; there are times, every day, where there is nothing for those of us who 'work the line' to do. That is to say we've either expended our product to bag (meaning the guy who mixes the product, an incredibly intense dood named Mohammed, is running behind), the electricians are banging on a part of the machine we use with hammers and nodding enthusiastically at the results, or the foreman is trying to patiently display for our employers (notorius skinflints if I ever saw any) the sorts of problems we're having with the line, and what he thinks should be done. So, like I said, there's a couple of us standing around, drooling on our coveralls and wondering if there's a number bigger than five, or in the case of JuniorHumper, he'll regale me with the frequency of sex, the age of the women he begat his sex upon, and the various (some of them highly unlikely) positions that he's forced these girls to undergo.

It's at this point that the foreman'll say 'EvilMister, why don't you go and flatten all the garbage in the big blue bin as flat as you can make. Take, ohhhhh, twenty minutes or so, do a real good job', or, 'EvilMister, how about you sweep the mezzanine, the floors, the bathrooms, and, uhhh, take your time.'

Until very recently, I had no idea what was really going on. I mean, I'm trying to bust my hump here so these mofos will give me a real job so I can get off the fucking Express Personnel train (believe me, I ain't winning friends and stunning coworkers by being a Retard), so I do it lickety-fucking-split. I mean, I sort of realized what was going on, so I did my very best on flattening that garbage, and it did take me a good five and half minutes. That was with me, in the pile of this garbage, lying on my back, staring at the sky, enjoying the fresh air. Time warp convinced me that I'd been out there for ever.

Same goes with the sweeping. I mean, I can do it as slowly as I possibly can, which is pretty goddamned slow as far as I am concerned, but apparently it ain't slow enough.

My good friend ChubbyMonk explained what's going on, as this is my first introduction into the world of slave labor in a warehouse setting. It goes like this: when the boss says go sweep for an hour, he's not really saying 'go sweep', he's saying 'fuck off until I call you, because I can plainly see that there is sweet fuck all for you to do, and I don't/can't/won't waste my fucking time coming up with anything that'll keep you occupied.'

Wait a minute.

Waste time. Go away until I call for you. Stay out of my sight, and I won't think about you. Oh, and you're still on the clock.

I can tell you that this never, ever ever happens in a retail environment. Quite the opposite. In retail, if there's nothing to do, managers will tell you 'you got time to lean, you got time to clean' and insist, no shit, that you walk around the office with a pair of needle nose pliers so you can pull all the staples out of the carpet. And watch you do it, to make sure you are doing it. And make you do it again if you do it 'wrong'. Breaks are randomly taken away, and in some cases, added on to the manager's breaks. If you are off a manager's radar in retail for more than three and a half seconds, said manager will materialize out of thin air and start looking for you, with a pair of needle nose pliers.

Now that I know that when the boss says, 'go ahead and spend some good quality time with a broom and a dust pan', I will fully spend as much time doing sweet fuck all with as much vigor as I can, all the while doing not very much at all, and getting paid for it.

This is why I call it the Santa Clause, because I get paid for doing nothing an awful lot of the time. Wheeee!