Life of Spike Murdoch

Chapter 2 - A Miserable Reality

Spike was on his third day of his work week being a cashier, working nine grueling hours everyday, feeling irritated and fatigued, struggling to keep his eyes open for the longest time during the long hours of the day. All he wanted to do was pass out on the dirty store floor and not give a care in the world as to who saw him. When he wasn't dealing with rude customers, he would walk around the area of his lane, sorting the chips and candy in a sleepy trance. Starting to think about what he could be doing right now instead of being here, like playing violent video games with Remmy, or drinking at the bar with Truck and Roxie. Anything to get his mind off of real life. He was then interrupted by his uptight manager, noticing him nodding off a bit while zoning his area.

"The merchandise isn't gonna sort itself, son.", intruded the grumpy manager.
"Nnngh... sorry, sir.", Spike said, stuttering his words.
"Have you even been sleeping lately, boy? You look like Death himself."
"No, not really. I have real bad insomnia. Stress has been keeping me up all night these past few days. You can blame my landlord for that one."
The manager leaned back on the wall, folding his arms. "Son, you radiate stress from all the way across the store. I understand your living standards aren't in the best of shapes right now, but that's not gonna help you if you are over here dozing off like these other slackers here."
Spike, finishing up zoning his area, walks back to his register. "No disrespect, but maybe you should get on their asses instead of mine for once."
"Hmph." , the manager scuffs while he starts walking back to his office. "Just do your job, Spike. That's all I ask."
Spike gives a half-assed salute to his manager. "Yes, sir."

A middle-aged woman walked up and placed her groceries on the counter. "Um, can I get some service over here, sir?"
Spike turned around to greet the lady. "Yes, ma'am, my apologies."
The lady looked down at her phone while Spike scanned her items. "Jeez, you guys have nothing in this store that I need to buy. All your store is good for is canned food and litter."
Spike rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Would you like a raincheck on a specific item then?"
The lady puts down her phone, looking at Spike with angry eyes. "Um, NO. And could you stop calling me "ma'am"? I'm only 32 years old."
He looked up and down at the lady who looked way older than what she claimed to be. "Mm-hmm, you sure look like it."
"Excuse me, young man?!", the lady shouts. "Where's your manager? I wanna talk to them about your rude behavior."
Spike sighs, knowing he's dealt with these same types of people for as long as he has worked in this place.

Hours go by, feeling like the day would never end, Spike dealing with customer complaints, children crying, and his co-workers lazily lying around the store, on their phones, answering calls, text messages and writing posts on their social media. Spike was easily getting pissed off at this point, constantly looking down at the time clock, making every second last longer than it should have. He was finally nearing the end of his shift, ready to clock out and walk back home to relax. The manager from before called him to his office beforehand, giving Spike a cold sweat walking near his office.

"Uh, yes, sir? You called me?", Spike questioned, opening the door and closing it behind him. The manager was sitting by his computer, turning around to greet the hedgehog.
"Ah, yes, Spike. Sit down here for a minute. We need to go over something real quick before you go."
The manager then pointed to the plastic chair beside him. Spike sat down, crossed his leg over the other.
"What's going on, sir? Did I upset a customer or something? Was it what I said to you earlier? If it was, I apologize. My head's not in the right state of mi--"
"Just read this." The manager handed Spike a piece of paper.
"What the...?", Spike said confused, looking down at the sheet of paper, reading its contents.