Chapter Text
What sucked about this new job was the fact that you were closing on your first shift—not to mention it was a Saturday. Of course you had no plans or friends to make plans with anyway because you’re a lonely bastard who stays holed up in your comfortable home; so when your boss asked if you could pick up a shift tomorrow and you said ‘Yeah sure I can work tomorrow. What time?’ you really didn’t think anything of it. Jeff on the other hand—oh he thought about it.
You see, when somebody no-calls-no-shows enough times they get fired, Jeff had to fire someone yesterday and, well, somebody needed to take their shift or else it’d just be Stephen, Philip, Dave and Brandon. Not that he distrusted his boys but, between himself and Spike, the store would probably look the exact same with them closing. He figured that if the new employee worked Saturday night under the guise of them “training the new guy” then they’d have to get some work done! Right? That was the plan anyway.
But what sucked the absolute most about this job was that Jeff didn’t tell you his master plan, he didn’t tell you that Saturdays are the busiest days or that your co-workers were complete nutcases. It’s not even closing time and you’re already being pulled around and overwhelmed by everything.
You get there early, trying you best to come off as time conscious despite having horrible time management skills, a kid who went by “Bam” was pulled from his register to show you each room. There weren’t any real rooms aside from the men’s and sleepwear sections, upstairs was a bit of a mess because ‘Johnny smokes crack and forgets to put people upstairs.’ You really aren’t sure how to respond to the accusation of your boss being a crackhead so you just nod and continue to listen to Brandon explain things.
Downstairs looks considerably better, there’s still shit noticeably in the wrong places but nothing’s on the floor.
”Okay so I don’t know if you’ll be working cash or not today but if you do you’ll work downstairs cash,” Brandon points to a lanky looking dude behind a register ringing up a woman with a lot of random shit, there was a sale going on and it just then crossed your mind as to why the place looked so horrible, fuck customers.
”That’s Stephen, everybody calls him Steve-O, I don’t think that guy’s a human—literally nothing can hurt him! He stepped directly onto a sensor spike once and just pulled it out and kept talking to Chris.” Brandon looked around quickly, only giving you a split second to react before pulling you off somewhere else. You try to wave at Stephen which goes unnoticed, he’s too busy with that customer to see you.
”Speaking of Chris,” Brandon continues borderline dragging you to the fitting rooms, a man and a woman stand next to a table with clothes piled atop it, they don’t seem to notice Brandon waltz the both of you in as they laugh at something funny between them.
”This is Chris and that Stephanie. He’s probably a methhead and she’s a coke whore.”
”You fuckin’ know it.” Stephanie winks and finger guns at you, not knowing how to respond you just nod. It's awkward for a few seconds before Chris says something disgusting, cracking everyone up and giving a slutry wink at...well nobody really. Or was it for everybody? A customer walks in holding armfuls of clothes, Chris' shoulders slump as he has to go back to actually working.
"Chris is our fitting room specialist; he knows where literally everything in the store is!" Brandon praises, Stephanie chimes in with bonus lore pulling you both out of the fitting rooms and over to a table, she absentmindedly folds the mess of clothes as she speaks.
"Yeah Bunnys' first day here-he had a normal eight hour shift-and this was like two years ago?" She turns to Brandon who's joined her in pretending to be busy; you feel a bit left out but you don't know how to fold correctly yet so you stand there. The brunette confirms; two years ago Chris started working here. "Anyway-His first day turned into a 12 hour shift, nearly all of the old team was fired because it was just a horrible day and Chris took like 20 or so minutes to memorize where everything went and headed straight to the fitting rooms-for 12 hours. And yeah that includes closing hours. He stayed and closed dude. He would've been promoted on the spot but he refused and had a panic attack in the break room." Stephanie and Brandon finish folding. Brandon takes you by the arm to go elsewhere, you wave goodbye to Stephanie to which she gives you the finger before grinning.
"Ehh there aren't many more people to meet today until like," Brandon checks his watch, he huffs seeing the time. “It’s only 4:40! God I thought it was like, 11 at night already!” You chuckle softly at his exclamation. He gives you a look before cracking a smile himself.
”Um Brandon—“
”Bam.” he interrupts, you’re both back at the registers upstairs, there’s no customers in line at the moment and there aren’t any managers around so you don’t know what to do.
”Bam...What exactly am I suppose to do now?” you felt a little awkward just standing there while “Bam” quick organizes the clothes customers didn’t want, he stops for a moment but doesn’t put the armful of clothes down. The brunette sticks his ass out at you, you feel slightly uncomfortable at this.
”Grab my phone and ask Jeff lmao.” it’s in his back pocket, you grab it, password time! He tells you the code and also tells you that if you drop his phone you’ll have to buy him a new one—the latest IPhone actually—with your first check. Nodding, you try to be as careful as possible with his precious baby, only a tiny fuckton intimidated by the kid.
You find Jeffs’ number in Brandons’ contacts, texting him about where you’re supposed to be; of course making sure that you tell him it’s you in the text. Your manager replies in seconds telling you that you’re going to be downstairs doing recovery and go-backs. You set Bams’ phone down and thank him for showing you around and letting you use his phone. He smiles and gives you the bird. How sweet.
Nothing too horrible happens on your first day other then a rude customer or two, you chock it up to them having a bad day or whatever—Oh! One other guy called “Ehren” mistakes you for a customer! It’s only because you don’t have a lanyard yet, your feet hurt though and your bound to have holes in your socks from all the walking. Bummer.
Jeff calls everyone upstairs to the registers for a wrap out, most everyone had clocked out already save for Steve-o, Bam, some dude wearing sunglasses inside, Jeff, Chris and another guy who was messing with Ehren as he left for the night. Chris was going to spend most of the night in the fitting rooms sorting clothes while Brandon and sunglasses guy count money upstairs. Stephen is supposed to count downstairs with Jeff.
”If you numb-nuts couldn’t tell we’ve got somebody new joining us,” murmurs of welcomes interrupted your boss, “Play nice, if they quit because of any of you idiots I’ll be so fucking pissed. Dave hurry up and lock the door already!” everyone turns to the dude who had been picking of Ehren before he went home, he looked like he was having a hard time with the door.
”Dude you know these locks are fucked!” He yelled back still fiddling with the lock, “Can somebody else do this?” Bam quickly volunteered himself jogging over to deal with the fucky door while Dave walked back to the group.
Soon Bam rejoined the wrap out, Jeff sighed through his nose while rubbing his temples, “Okay now that everyone’s here again—downstairs with me and Stephen will be Dave and upstairs is (Y/n). When we get done counting cash and Chris gets done sorting we’ll help recover. Chris’ll go upstairs to recover.”
A tiny bit confused you raise your hand, “What do you mean recover—I mean I know like clean up and stuff but is there a certain way we should do it...” You feel so dumb asking such an obvious question but nobody seems to beat you up for it.
”So recovery is getting everything of the floors, making sure all the hangers are facing the same way, pulling bad go-backs, refolding stuff on the tables and that junk.” Chris explains in, you nod, “Go-backs are the clothes people tried on that we go and put back in the right place.” Bam chimes in. Slowly, very slowly, things start to make sense but at least they do.
Everyone splits up to go do what they’re supposed to which means you have to try to recover upstairs by yourself and do go-backs, it’ll be tough because you have no idea where anything is but your determined to impress; and to keep your job.
About 30 or so minutes in sunglasses guy tells you and Bam that Jeff said downstairs is shit, your heart sinks at this. “Who all was downstairs anyway?” Bam scuffs and looks at sunglasses dude.
”Shouldn’t you know? You made today’s schedule.” the taller man hesitates before nodding, “Yeah but you can’t expect me to remember that!” you chuckle to yourself at their exchange from a table where you fold to the best of your ability.
”Well it was Raab, Ehren and the new dude downstairs.” You stop but only briefly, feeling dread again, it was your first day they couldn’t really fault you, could they? Glasses guy groans, “Can’t we just fire Ehren already? He’s so annoying.”
Brandon laughs and agrees that Ehren is a shitbag, with furrowed brows you fold a little harsher now, Ehren had been nothing but nice to you all shift, but then again you hardly knew him, “Nah he’s too good at his job Spike wouldn’t let him go like that.”
The rest of the night goes by smoothly, you learn that glasses dude has a name and it’s Philip, he tells you to call him Johnny though. when Johnny and Bam finally finish at the registers they help recover. Chris joins you three upstairs and makes inappropriate work place conversation while occasionally helping you figure out where everything goes, he also helps you clean up the men’s section because it’s the worst. And after everything was clean and Jeff did a walk through the store you all got to clock out early!
And so you wait with your bag in hand by the door listening to everyone talk while Jeff sets the alarm to the place, everyone seems nice enough yet you don’t speak. It’s probably nerves that stop you from joining in and cracking a joke—it was definitely nerves stopping you. Jeff appears while the alarm beeps, counting down the time you all had to get out and lock the door behind you.
”Open the door dumbasses!” Dave stops laughing and scrambles to get the door open, once it is everyone quickly gets out of the building, “Bag checks!” Johnny calls out. You unzip your bag and hold it open while Jeff and Johnny check everyone’s things.
”Oooh he stealing!” Bam laughs and points at Chris who giggles in response, “Yep! I’ve stolen everyone’s hearts!” literally everybody rolls their eyes at Chris’ horrible joke. Jeff says his final ‘You’re good.’ and sends everybody off. A chorus of ‘Night dad!’s and goodbyes meant that everyone was finally able to split off and go home.
You of course don’t have a car so you take the escalator down to the ground floor and leave the mall, walking to the closest bus stop to get home, “Dear god,” you murmur,
”All of my co-workers are crackheads.”