"Have a nice day at work, sweety!" His mother spoke at his side in the car.
Jaune grabbed his lunchbox, before doing one last check of his pockets to make sure he had all the essentials before leaving the car. His employee ID, a box cutter, gloves, and a pen. With everything accounted for, he smiled at his mother as he unbuckled his seat belt in the passenger seat of the car.
"I will, Mom. Thanks for the ride!" He shut the door behind him as he stepped out of the car into the parking lot.
He gave his mother one last wave as she drove off. Jaune fiddled with his pockets again, grabbing his Scroll to make sure he was still on time. A quick glance showed he still had a good twenty minutes to kill before needing to clock in. He approached his workplace, doing his best to delay his journey as long as he could.
The first thing he took notice of when he finally reached the entrance to Pete's Warehouse was the entrance cart corral. He was fifteen minutes from starting his eight hour closing shift. The entrance cart corral was at a whopping 0% capacity. There were no carts to be seen.
Customers blocked the entrance doors to the warehouse, waiting for carts near the corrals. Jaune saw one of his fellow employees come by with a full row of ten carts. Each individual metal cart weighed roughly sixty to seventy pounds. It was not easy to push a full ten, Jaune could attest to that. Especially with how hot the weather was. He could probably fry an egg on the windshield of any car in the lot.
The ten carts instantly disappeared, the awaiting customers nearly tripping over each other to grab one of the carts brought to the entrance. Jaune idly glanced into the parking lot to see nearly all the corrals throughout the parking lot still filled with carts. God forbid the customers just grab one of those on their way up.
Jaune moved with the flow of the crowd, entering the front of the warehouse. He idly glanced at the door to see it was Ollie checking membership cards today to get customers through the entrance fast or at least attempting to. Customers stopping right inside the entrance to dig through their wallets and purses for their membership cards brought things to a crawl.
Jaune internally wished him luck as he passed him by. He moved past the registers as he increased his pace to head to the breakroom to kill some time. Unfortunately, he passed a supervisor on the way there.
"Hey, Jaune! Can you clock early, man? We need all hands-on deck!"
'Fuck.' He internally cursed.
Jaune falsely smiled as he answered back, "Can do."
He pulled out his employee ID and headed to the time clock to clock in. After clocking in, he put his lunch in the refrigerator in the breakroom before returning to the front end of the store. He stopped in front of the front end merchandise pickup counter where all the supervisors and managers tended to gather.
Jaune tried his best to keep up the facade of being happy to be there. He was just so damn tired. He only took the job to take some of the pressure off his parents. His dad could spend more time at home and less on missions if Jaune could save up enough Lien to support his own future..
One of the supervisors approached him, "Jaune, need you out on carts. A few of the cart crew called in today. It's horrible out there."
Jaune nodded, "How many people are out there? Need me to grab anyone for rotations?"
His supervisor glanced at his Scroll, "Three out there now. Need you to tell Charlie to come in."
Jaune blinked as he tried to process what he just heard. Carts were at 0%. They had three people out there in the parking lot. One of those three out there before he arrived was Charlie. Charlie was sixty fucking years old. Why the fuck did they have him pushing carts during the rush when he could only do four to five at a time?
Jaune's eyes glazed over. It was going to be one of those shifts.
"You got it," Jaune walked away from the supervisor.
He headed back to the entrance, grabbing a high visibility vest from a nearby locker by the entrance door. Jaune needed to wear the high visibility vest while in the parking lot to reduce the risk of getting hit by a car, not that it made much of a difference in his experience. Customers had a habit of just pulling out of their parking places without so much as a glance. Jaune had already had more than a dozen close calls and he had only been working at Pete's for under a year.
Before heading into the lot to start the tedious grind of collecting carts in the unbearable heat, he set a timer on his Scroll. He just knew that if he didn't set a timer, the supervisors would have him out there well past his break.
A grueling two hours later, he finally got his break after helping to get the main cart corral up to 60% capacity with the others. He was drenched in sweat by the time he got to sit down in the breakroom. He had fifteen minutes to himself before he'd be forced back to his duties. He spent that time randomly browsing nonsense on his Scroll. Before he knew it, his timer went off and he had to head back to the front end.
He checked in with another supervisor.
"How are you doing, Jaune?"
'God, just get it over with,' he thought.
He didn't need pointless idle chat. He knew his answer didn't matter.
"Fine. Where do you need me?"
The new supervisor looked over his Scroll, "Uhhhh, go tackle self-checkout for me."
Well, it was a dull assignment, but not one he personally hated.
"Wait! Before you go, make sure you check over member's cards to make sure their photo matches the back of their memberships. We're cracking down on card sharing. Just call one of us over if you see anything off."
'Fuck my life,' the assignment just turned unbearable.
Jaune headed to self-checkout, grabbing one of the hand-held scanners hidden away behind the displays of the self-checkout machines. He waited patiently, standing just in front of the entrance area to the self-checkout machines.
Two members approached, one with an overly full cart going to the right, the other a cart with a lot of heavy items going to the left.
Jaune called out to both members, "Excuse me, can I see your memberships real fast?"
The member on the left flipped his membership card to show his picture without issue. The customer on the right stopped and gave him a dirty look.
"Why do I need to show you my membership?"
Jaune's eyes glazed over as he died on the inside just a little more, "Sorry, management is cracking down on card sharing. Just need to make sure it's your card."
The member with the overly full cart grumbled, "What a dumb policy. Waste of my time. Obviously if it's in my pocket, it's my membership," he was fumbling with his wallet as he spoke because of course he didn't have his membership prepared when he knew he was about to checkout.
As Jaune waited for the guy to pull out his membership, a third customer arrived at self-checkout. Right when Jaune was about to ask him to show him his membership, the light above the self-checkout register of the customer with heavy items flashed. It meant the guy requested employee assistance.
Jaune took a single step towards the customer requiring assistance before the customer with the overly full cart interrupted him, "What, you don't need to see my card now?! You didn't even ask the guy over here for his card!"
He pointed at the newly arrived customer at the self-checkout registers.
'Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off,' Jaune internally seethed.
Jaune ignored the guy, going over to the customer with the heavy items to hand scan the things he could not realistically check out on his own. With that done, he headed over to the new customer.
"Hey, can I check your membership real fast?"
The new customer showed his card without issue.
"Thanks!" Jaune said before falling back away from the machines.
He watched the obnoxious customer with the overly full cart struggle to balance all his things on the self-checkout scale. It was an amusing sight considering the guy was a dick. Jaune had no idea why people would even bother with self-checkout when they had over twenty items in their cart. It's not like they didn't have registers open. A quick glance towards the registers and Jaune could see eight of them were currently manned.
Jaune ended up stuck at self-checkout for a good hour before he was rotated off. In that single hour, six customers made a big deal out of having to show their picture on their membership card they already had to have out to scan on the self-checkout machine to checkout. He bottled down his growing hatred of humanity, heading back to the merchandise pickup counter to check in with whatever supervisor was now running the employee board at that current moment.
As soon as Jaune approached, the supervisor barked out, "Need you to open up on register nine!"
Jaune headed over without a single word. He didn't mind cashiering, especially because he earned extra Lien per hour while on the register. Jaune took a deep breath as he grabbed the closed sign off the belt of register nine. He logged into his cashiering account and waited a few moments to just steady himself. His false smile slipped back on as he finally announced his aisle was open.
"Open on nine!" He prepared his hand-held scanner to scan products in the carts.
The first customer he got had a good fifty items in the cart. Jaune could see just how overloaded it was at a glance. Jaune stared at the customer as the guy fumbled in his pocket for his membership.
While the guy was doing that, Jaune started to remove stuff from the top of the hill of stacked items in the cart to put onto the register belt.
The customer spoke as he finally presented his membership card for Jaune to scan, "Oh, sorry. Didn't know I needed to take things out. You guys usually just scan everything."
He wanted to call the guy an idiot, he truly did. How the fuck was he supposed to scan anything at the bottom of the pile when the guy had such an overloaded cart? What the fuck was he thinking? Was he thinking?
Jaune neutrally spoke, "Need to be able to see the item barcodes for the stuff at the bottom."
"Oh, okay," the customer said as he awkwardly continued to just stare at Jaune pulling items out of his cart.
Jaune continued at his own pace as the customer clearly wasn't in a rush, considering he wasn't helping him load the belt. Before long, Jaune had enough items cleared out to scan the remaining layer of items inside the cart. With those items in the cart scanned, he turned his attention to the belt. Right as Jaune began to scan the items on the belt, the customer spoke.
"Hey, can you pack those in some boxes?"
Jaune's eyes glazed over.
He was internally screaming. Why the fuck did the guy not ask for the boxes in the first place? If he knew the guy wanted his items boxed, he would have taken everything out of the cart instead of leaving a layer of items in there to scan.
Jaune nodded his head to the customer as he reached for the boxes stored under his register, "Sure. I can toss them on top at the end if that's fine."
"Actually, I'd prefer if you'd pack them in the boxes as you go."
'FUUUUCK OOOOOOFFFF.'
He hated people. He hated people. He hated people.
Jaune smiled at the customer as he nodded, "Sure."
It took a few minutes to make things work, but Jaune eventually managed to send the customer on his way with a cart full of packed boxes. It would have been far faster if he had an assistant helping him, but the board runner hadn't sent an assistant to aid aisle nine and ten yet.
Thankfully, the next customer in line only had four items. It was a very fast scan and go process with his hand-held scanner. The third customer had about an average shopping trip worth of stuff Jaune had to scan. Roughly fifteen items or so. Not too bad. Though the guy bought a large supply of cereal for some reason, about six of his purchased items.
The cereal was only notable because it was absolutely plastered in the sponsorship image of that one redhead girl he didn't even know the name of. God, he was just so sick of seeing her face on every product in the store. The cereal boxes were the worst offender with her smug face making up a good 75% of the box. She probably made more Lien per hour than him just breathing. What a sellout.
Right as Jaune prepared himself for the fourth cart, he heard his supervisor call out, "Jaune! Close!"
'What the fuck?' He thought to himself.
He only rang up three customers and now he had to count down his register? Why the hell did they have him open up in the first place just to ring three people up?
He really needed to stop questioning things. Trying to understand the thought process of the current boardrunner at any given moment was truly impossible. He could only assume the supervisor was trying to balance multiple breaks or lunch breaks at once and was getting overwhelmed.
After counting down his Lien in the register, Jaune logged the amount of each denomination of Lien in his register on the clipboard next to his register. He headed back up to the boardrunner at the merchandise pickup counter.
"Hey, we need you back out at carts again. We're at five percent."
Of course! Because why would they ever maintain carts?
Jaune fought the urge to sigh in front of the supervisor, "Need me to bring anyone in?"
"Yeah, grab Charlie for me."
Stop. Please Stop. Why do they keep sending him out? Jaune didn't know if Charlie's heart was going to give out first or his was at this rate.
Jaune glanced at his Scroll as he put his high visibility vest on, he set a timer again. They would absolutely be late giving him his lunch if he didn't, he just knew it. Thus began another grueling slog. He could only pray that a Nevermore would swoop down and steal him away in the middle of the parking lot.
Jaune headed back inside after finishing another assignment on carts. He had thirty minutes to himself for lunch. He ate leftovers his mother cooked for him and his sisters the previous night. A simple container filled with meatloaf. It wasn't a bad dish, especially considering how many people his mother had to cook for. Saphron was the only one of his sisters who had moved out so far.
The thirty-minute lunch he had ended far too fast for Jaune's taste. He was back on the clock and had to slip back into his helpful employee persona. He used to be a naturally friendly person, but the walking Apathy Grimm that Pete's Warehouse called members, brutally wore him down. He was just so exhausted with people.
Jaune found a new supervisor running the board when he got there, "Where am I going?"
The supervisor looked through her Scroll, "Can you do self-checkout until closing? After that, go bale boxes for the night."
He nodded, internally praying to the God of Light and God of Dark that he didn't have to deal with any more obnoxious people at self-checkout.
It surprisingly wasn't horrible. Mostly just old people not knowing how self-checkout worked yet decided to use it anyways. He didn't really understand why because the manned registers weren't busy at all. Outside of those encounters, the only other annoyance was having to manually ring up bagels, muffins, and pastries because Pete's refused to put barcodes on them. He also had to remind several customers to go back and grab an extra bag of bagels, muffins, or pastries because they made the products a buy one get one "free" type of deal.
Jaune started to sign off the self-checkout machines when the final customers left a good thirty minutes after the store officially closed. Mostly because their customers had a horrible habit of entering the store a literal minute before the doors were closed. Management within the store gave customers leeway to get some shopping done before kicking them out post-closing.
With everything shut down, Jaune headed to the break room to take his last break. After his last break, Jaune headed to the very back of the warehouse where the cardboard and plastic baling machines were stored. He hoped it wasn't too bad back there. He had around an hour and thirty minutes left before his shift ended and he wanted to take it easy.
Jaune's false smile faded into a deep scowl. He totally jinxed himself. He finally reached the back of the store to see the baler was at the max limit his store preferred bales to be. Not only was the baler at maximum weight, three full box bins awaited him filled with boxes. The box bins were taller than him and about as long as a register belt. Four flatbeds of boxes were there as well with boxes stacked up to about his shoulder.
He sighed as he died even further inside. He needed to make a bale. He glanced around to see if anyone was around to help, only to not find anyone.
'Solo bale it is.'
It took ten minutes to get the bale done on his own between tying the metal bale tie wires and getting the pallet ready. Thankfully, the bale came out just fine. Right as he finished getting the bale out of the way with a pallet jack, two employees arrived in the back with more boxes.
'Of course, they get here when I'm already done.'
One of the guys left his flatbed of boxes, "Hey, need to clock. Can you get this for me?"
Jaune nodded, "I got it."
The other guy left his flatbed of boxes too, "Sorry man, I'm not done with the food aisle yet. I'll help when I get a chance."
Jaune nodded. He didn't count on it. Foods was always the last of the aisles to finish. He was going to be baling boxes on his own tonight.
He spent the rest of the night getting the boxes taken care of. True to his expectations, no one else came to the back to give him a hand. He could only assume the other closers got pulled to do other things around the store. Or at least he was giving his fellow employees the benefit of doubt. Jaune finished everything, including the cleanup of the back, with a few minutes left to spare.
He was in the clock out grace period, so he just headed up to clock. He clocked out, a little early, grabbing his lunchbox on the way out. He pulled out his Scroll to quickly check what days he worked next since he hadn't checked the schedule for the following week yet.
His eyes glazed over. He was working the next seven days in a row because it didn't technically count as working seven days in a row if the seven days happened to be split over two weeks. Because he had his days off earlier in the week, the way his schedule was currently set up, meant he was going to suffer.
Jaune shambled towards the exit to the warehouse.
He had enough. He was too exhausted by the monotony of it all. God, he'd rather risk getting ripped to shreds by Grimm than do another eight hour shift.
His mother was waiting for him in the parking lot. He got into the car without saying a single word.
"How was your day, sweety?"
"Fine, Mom. Just… fine," he had his Scroll open, searching for the price of a Bullhead ticket to Vale.
'Fuck this. Beacon should be accepting new students again soon, right?' He'd just need to somehow find a way to get in; he had enough Lien saved to figure something out