Shiftless When Idle

It's finally official. Our former individualist identity inherent in our name was removed last week...

...and the Borg-like assimilation into the corporate hive mind was made complete.

Yep, that's right. I'm puttin' it out there. Not saying their name, but yes, these are the mofo's that have given me the anal ramming this past week. Because at this point I kinda don't care who knows it, as I have stopped giving a hoot about anything that goes on within the politics of this company. Yes, I am as bitter as I sound. It's all about my customers now. Until I find my new career path, the people who walk through the door will get my love, the way it has always been. The company, however, will be lucky I give them a raised eyebrow over their predicament. Business is business, I know, and this happens to people all over the country. I know how these things work. But it doesn't mean that they are going to get the 110% effort that I once made to put into their bottom line anymore. In just over the last few years I have developed an intense allergic reaction to being taken advantage of, and maybe I lack the finesse to wield my own integrity like most learn at an early age, it's still better late than never to acquire a new skill. Angry men might mellow with age, but mellow women just get angrier. And they are going to see how angry I can get.

So what am I doing now? Here is a snip from a email I just wrote to a friend of mine this afternoon:

"I've felt terrible for the last few days, but I'm trying not to be so crushed and try to be optimistic about it. Thing is, even if I go regain my full time position back, I no longer feel like I trust the company to not take it away from me on a whim again. I've lost my trust, and as a result, my love and devotion to the company as well. It feels like a sort of mental divorce. I know that sounds dramatic but I can't think of any other description to liken this to.

As much as I want another music job, I think in this point in the game all I really want in my life is stability -- both financial as well as the kind that comes with peace of mind, knowing that your job will always be there in the morning. The music retail industry isn't one of those secure type of careers right now. My friend told me that the local Guitar Center might be hiring, but a part of me feels that maybe I should just go apply to Geico like Joe did, where I can make double digits an hour, get great benefits, be treated well by the company, and know that it's going to be sticking around for awhile and hopefully not go all Enron on their employees (well here's to hoping). It's not exactly romantic work, but I really am far more seduced by the idea of security in my life than keeping at this for another decade of my life, especially since I'll be 40 in 6 months."

Oh, I did want to mention the new Mix & Burn station we had installed in our store that are finally up and running. They allowed us to burn ourselves one free CD to get a feel of what to do, and since I didn't have time to make a mix disk I burned an entire album off the company's library and watched as it printed out the album cover art

as well as track listing for the back, and on the disk itself. If I had made a mix disk or just burned a single track ($3.99 for one song, $1-something for each additional song) it would have printed out this sort of generic cover of a hip Asian girl listening to music on her headphones while the title of the disk is typed out evenly over her head. This album cost probably $12-something, I think, which is less than it retails in our store, so I guess that's something. But it was kind of cool when I was able to burn Al Jarreau's Live In London for a customer because it was out of stock, we couldn't order it for him, and he really wanted a copy of that right away. And he was quite pleased with it. I guess that really is something.

I asked the store manager if we were a test market for this idea. "No, there are about 70 stores that already have it." he explained. I asked him if it was catching on and doing well. "Uhh... no, not really." he revealed. Well, that's just marvelous. I suppose this is what the industry has succumbed to. Encouraging folks to waste their gas money driving out to the record store to burn music that they can probably do on their own home computer for considerably less on iTunes. And wait until our iPod docking station gets up and under way. Shouldn't it stand to reason that if you have an MP3 player, you already have a computer?

Then again this is the thinking of a girl who still calls the place where she works a "record store" out of habit.