Monday, June 8, 2009

later dicks!

After a few nanoseconds of thought, I decided to quit the sex shop yesterday. Of course, I did this in the bitchiest of ways in that I waited for the manager to post the schedule with me on it before letting her know.

Whoops.

But I had my reasons. And, well, I was going to quit next week anyway...so...

Rightfully, though, the manager tried to make me feel guilty. Luckily, the knowledge that I earned a grand total of $2.37 an hour outweighed any modicum of empathy I may have had for leaving her with one less employee to do absolutely nothing for the mere 15 hours a week I was scheduled. Also, my conscience is made of Swiss cheese -- there's lots of holes in it, but it makes a delicious patty melt -- so feeling guilty is not something I do very well.

The truth is, for economic reasons and beyond, I had to quit yesterday. It was a do or die situation and sometimes you just have to look out for yourself no matter what the collateral damage. The collateral damage in this case means someone's going to get 15 hours of overtime. (You're welcome.)

I told my manager to blame logic or fate or the fact that I made less than the typical child laborer working in Malaysia for my sudden departure, but she didn't take to that idea too well. She said it was "unprofessional." Hmm, heard that before... Although, unlike last time, this was a sex shop. How professional can one be expected to behave when surrounded by rubber dicks?

I did feel a little bit sorry, however. I'm not one who usually balks at commitment. (HAHAHAHAHAHA!) Mostly though, I was sorry that the store always smelled like ass. I was sorry that the place looked like it was decorated by a blind child with spacial relations problems. I was sorry the shop's management didn't realize the economic benefits of making sure the shelves were stocked with stuff people actually wanted to buy. (Newsflash: No one wants to buy edible body paints that are opened and look like they've been used.) And I was certainly sorry to learn that one year later, some people were still getting the same hourly minimum wage that I was getting. That is a whopping $7.55 per hour. One year later? That's still a whopping $7.55 per hour. I don't care how bad the store's supposedly doing in "these trying economic times," there's something super f*cked up about that.

But just because I will no longer be working at the smelly understocked sex sweat-shop (not to be confused with the smelly understocked sex-sweat shop...ew), it doesn't mean I won't be writing about it. Au contraire, my experience has inspired me to try my hand at fiction. In fact, that's the sole reason I started working at the sex shop in the first place if you hadn't guessed that by now.

So, we shall see where this goes...

All I know is that I hope David Caruso will play the part of Perv #2 in the novel's film adaptation.

*Fingers crossed!*

5 comments:

JFo said...

First, great post title.

Second, if I remember correctly from one of your earlier posts, you worked at the Gtown outpost of the sexy store. I'm not sure how long you have lived in DC, but there used to be two more sexy places on that same block (I think one is now a sushi restaurant and the other was annexed by the Prince of the Harbor in a bloodless coup). That makes your former employer the most successful sexy business in that neighborhood.

Not sure what that means. I guess maybe be glad that you didn't have the chance to work at Sinsations with the person who was always parked outside of there with the "DOMNTRX" vanity plates.

I am Teriffic Man said...

As long as it isn't Interactive Fiction, sex shop stories should be plusgood to doublegood on theme alone.

(I haven't read Shel Silverstein (though I did listen to "Ein Junge der von Sue heisst" within the last quintuplefortnight) so I don't recall, but the order may be $descriptor, +$descriptor, 2x$descriptor, 2x+$descriptor, anyway, that's what I went with)

Patty Duke said...

I thought about stopping by to say hi. But well,it's a sex shop. I don't do dildo's and butt plugs. And stopping by just to say hi to someone in sex shop is kind of skeevy. IMO

Marissa said...

jfo--

I might have to put that in the book.

franklin--

Yeah. I'm aiming for a paper publication, not a Web publication. It's time to get paid and I think fiction is more my zone than news-writing. It's weird how little I miss reporting...

patty duke--

I don't blame you. Plus, you avoided the ripe smell of musty ass. I can't wait to capture that smell in literary sensory cues. Or maybe I'll just say, "It smelled ripe of musty ass." That's not bad.

Unknown said...

You are soooo selfish! I can't believe you quit before I had a chance to come down and visit you on a shift (although including a wall full of gyrating latex cocks in any future mental picture of you would have been tough to get past...) Now I have to come up with anther chapter for what is sure to be my wildly successful book - haha.