Let Them Eat Cake

"Look, You do a great job here, but this is just not gonna fly on the shop floor, ok?"

"I think you are missing a huge, unique selling point, myself?"

"Please go ahead and tell me how an employee of a music store, with their walkman on, ignoring customers is a unique selling point."

"Well, isn't it obvious? Me having my headphones on indicates that the current music playing isn't my thing, so that sends all the misfits my way, and away from Hair and Makeup."

"Ok, firstly, Chad and Rachel are the names of your colleagues. Secondly, you know many customers specifically come here to see them, and most importantly, you can only deal with the misfits if you can hear them talking to you."

"Ah, but as misfits, they are used to the cold shoulder of society, right? So it's very in keeping with their whole aesthetic."

Your boss rolls his eyes, "Look, just help out on the floor, ok? I don't want to hear another complaint about you this week, undertand?" he's trying to reprimand you, but his heart isn't in it.

He folds his arms," Somehow, you are my best seller, the only person I can trust to open and close the store on their own but also my most complained about a staff member. But I am honestly tired of dealing with it. So can you just please give me a few days of peace? Maybe a quota like 2 complaints a week or something?" He asks hopefully.

"The gods work in mysterious ways", you joke and leave the office.

With your headphones still around your neck and Walkman on your hip, you head out to the floor.

At least it wasn't Saturday. You could do this just a few more days to get through with no complaints, then maybe he'll get off your case.

Scanning the shop floor, you don't immediately see any lost souls needing musical direction, so you decide to work your way through the new stock that needed putting out.

Probably best to stick to mainstream whilst the store was open. Keep the real magic for when you got to flip that door sign to 'Sorry we're Closed.'

Then is curator time. You grab the collection of oddities you had thrifted and put them in the relevant music genre sections on the other side of the store.

It wasn't that you were anti-mainstream or disliked popular music. It was just everywhere you went. Whereas the hidden gems on the other side of the store are a little more obscure. Almost like treasure hunting.

You grab a box of tapes from the back and begin refilling the charts.
Hair and Makeup at the registers greeting their fans and upselling to them via various fake flirting techniques,

"Oh sure, I love this one, but have you seen the new entry at 24 this week." In the peppiest voices possible. Then leaning over the counter and whispering, "It's just like my favourite song, ever. So hot"
Or something like that.

The problem was, even with their sea of fans, they couldn't outsell you because you knew paths through music, and if you directed someone at the song at number 24 that week, you'd actually know what it was.

These pair didn't give a damn. Their whole existence seemed to be high school, sports, making out with one another, and their appearance.
They weren't terrible people. They were just what you called surfacers. People that only let you see their surface and nothing beyond. That was just a bit too Stepford wives for you to bond with, so you kept it civil. You had to spend a long time with them after all.

You salute as you go past them, "Register, babes."

They respond with smiles and in unison, "Backroom Brit!". For them, it was an inventive nickname. You shake your head.