Writing for fun

The dreadful workshift 2

This chapter is from Jeremy's perspective

            "2:00 pm already!" elated said as I'm stepping out of the passenger door to my mothers red 2021 - or something like that - car "Bye, love you. Please don't forget 11:00 is when I get off.". My mother says, "Love you too, 11:00 I'll be here." . I walk through the motor detectors, pass the fancy French doors, and I immediately run to Joseph hug him and say "Hey, how are you?". He usually responds rather quickly, however, today he looks at me dead in the eyes for a second or two then says, "At 3:00, don't get near Carrie. She has the Flu." I nod. "I'm beyond thrilled! How are you?" He says. Grinning ear to ear, I say in a British accent "I am very much adequate, thank you sir. The weather is quite splendid today." He laughs.

Joesph is a black African American, five feet six inches tall, and has a very healthy body type. He usually has a nice trimmed haircut, but he has not had his hair cut for a yet so he has braids now. His skin is very smooth and clear. Sometimes I almost envy him. He and I are the same height and have the same skin tone. I might even be not as dark as him. He has a nose ring. He's very intelligent, he just doesn't want to admit it. I'm not going to say anything but everyone can tell that he's a hopeless romantic man.

            The time flys by, it's about 2:56 pm, he and I stay talking at work. That's probably why Carrie doesn't schedule us together. I'm at register two, where the team leads ring up customers, and where you can usually find the "person in charge". From behind me, I can hear a terrible coughing with sneezing. Terrible. I turn around to see Carrie running towards her locked office. She manages to unlock her door and settles there for what doesn't even seem to be five minutes. She comes out of her office with my her excruciating conditions, and announces that Christian and I are in charge. I don't look at Joesph even though I heard him moaning and groaning. I wonder why. Is it because Carrie leave me in charge? Behind Carrie, I see Christian. He glazes at me then looks away. Just an FYI - the last time him and I were left in charge we got into a huge argument. He ended up telling his boyfriend. Let's just say that things has been better since! I'm hoping we don't get into it today.

           The reason I'd rather not work with him is because he doesn't know how to efficiently do his job. All he ever does is talk negatively with his boyfriend or he is searching for the longest words in the most easiest crossword puzzles. I hope that Carrie knows that he doesn't do his job, and that I can manage without him. If she were to do something bad, he'd report that HR. I believe all that crap he does it a little overrated.

When my break approached at 5:15, I went into the break room. I needed that mental break. Joesph ended up going on break with me. Joesph wonders out loud if Christian notices. "Not like Christian was paying attention to the staff members anyways", I say. While on our break, we sit in the break room and talk about how Christian's performance is nearly atrocious.

7:00 pm approaches and his shift is over. He and I don't argue this time. That's good. Success. I exhale as he leaves. I had to keep counting to ten as we were working together. He did not attempt to finish any reports, and I was not going to stress over the reports. Ms.V, an older lady is working on register one so that's good. That means Joesph and I can talk some more. She's wants her scan time higher so she'll take all the customers! The evening manager, T and I are now in charge until 11:00.

            T says, "How are you feeling Jeremy?" he looks at me the way I would look at Christian. I say, "Good. Good. And you?". He says "I'm well. If you need anything, I'll be stocking." He leaves.

The rest of the night goes by quickly. The next time I look at the clock, it has already strikes 11:00. My father picks me up. I was not expecting my mother to pick me up anyways. She works a lot. I love her.