Survivor: MM - Day 1, 2, 3, and a bitter rant about CT

So I have worked three days at Harvey's without getting fired or reprimanded yet. So far, this is the least objectionable place I have worked since I left Chipworks. The tasks that I am assigned to are so far not that bad relatively. Taking orders, doing cash, garnishing the burgers, and even tasks that I traditionally despised, such as sweeping, cleaning tables, and taking out the garbage, just seems to be easier than, say, working those dirty assed kitchens that I worked at at the beginning of September. This is much more bearable than Canadian Tire, because I'm not stuck in one place at a time. Eventually I will have to do prepping and the frier for the fries and onion rings, cause I see some of the kids doing that.

I have to say that the manager is a genuinely nice guy. All the managers I had in my Minimum Wage adventures have been owners of the establishment, so they are all no non-sense and watching-you-under-their-constant-gaze types (i.e. dicks). There are a few dicks here too, but there are not that many, and I am on good terms with the manager, so all is good for now. I think he might be the nicest manager I've had since Denise from my co-op term in Toronto.

Overall, this Harvey's location isn't a horrible place to work for. A handful of students worked here for two and a half years or so, so it looks like they don't fire people randomly for being "slow". No one is bitching at me for being "slow" or some bullshit, and the tasks aren't as physically demanding or backbreaking as the three other jobs that I worked at since September. I actually was told I'm doing a pretty good job. All in all, Survivor: MM is proceeding as planned. Six more months to go.

One observation that I have is that the people here are a lot less anal than Canadian Tire. For example, in Canadian Tire, the people (that weren't fired) really seem to be indoctrinated (and therefore more likely to rat you out if you speak frankly), or for the managers, have an authoritarian streak to them. We were instructed to learn about things like "corporate mission" and stuff like that. Managers at CT go left and right giving "verbal warnings" or "reprimands" like they're some hall monitor in some middle school, and everyone is careful of what they say because everyone is a potential big brother. Canadian Tire made up all these inane policies and irrelevant training that I had to learn and adhere to. I got written up for a warning in Canadian Tire once because I was 7 minutes early instead of 10 minutes early like I was suppose to. I am here to make minimum wage, my labor is already being exploited disproportionally to make rich people richer. Don't make me give a shit about Canadian Tire's corporate strategy or be here 10 minutes early for my shift instead of 7 minutes. I don't need 10 minutes to be ready, I only need 1. As long as I'm ready to go at the appropriate time, don't bitch at me and fuck off.

However, in Harvey's, you just have to be ready at the right time (with your uniform and everything) and there's no problem. You don't need to be here 10 minutes beforehand or some crap like that. I don't need to know about Harvey's corporate strategy. They just taught me how to do things that I need to do on this job, and I'm not being harassed to give up my time outside of work. Overall, a much nicer place to work for, if unglamorous. Hey, if I'm getting paid minimum wage, then I'd rather just do work, not know as much as irrelevant information as possible, and not know what the hell Canadian Tire's 5 values are.

Another thing that is good about Harvey's, or accurately, another thing that sucked about working at Canadian Tire, are "secret shoppers". What these douchebags do is that they pretend to be a customer and try to catch you making a mistake. Mistakes include not saying "hello, how are you", offering to sell them those ripoff Canadian Tire MasterCard plans, having to open up every stacked large bins and containers to check for theft and then awkwardly apologizing to the customer because you are basically accusing them of theft, having to scan 50 of the same thing, even though you can just hit x50 and scan once, and saying "thanks, see you soon". You get reprimanded for saying "thanks, have a nice day" (because it signals them that you don't want them to come back... yeah), and not scanning every item, despite the fact that 50 of the said items are the exact same thing. But no, you have to scan each of them. Once these secret douchebags catch you, you are given a reprimand by the manager. You never know when these guys are around, but given the fact that 99% of Canadian Tire's clientèle are people over the age of 80, well it's probably going to be that middle aged smug bastard that's buying 50 bins, stacked on top of each other, inviting me to waste hours unstacking and scanning each one while frustrating the hell out of other customers.

Speaking of training, there is online training thing that employees (i.e. I) go through called "Canadian Tire University". In it, they have these "courses", and they have many courses including "Canadian Tire Corporation Strategy, Corporate Vision, and other crap that business majors invent to make themselves feel useful. They set it up like a curriculum so that if you take these courses and some of these electives, you get a "degree" or certification, just like a real university! First of all, I object strongly to the name, because using the word "university" in their corporate indoctrination program is demeaning to real universities. Universities are places of knowledge and free thought, they promote equality and fairness and intellectual merit, and serve as the economic equalizer of society. This "Canadian Tire University" and Canadian Tire itself is the antithesis of a University, it's a corporation that only cares about profits. Canadian Tire University is to universities what Church of Scientology is to churches; it's blasphemous.

In Harvey's, there's no crap like that. People are just generally more chilled out/apathetic. When customers come in, people usually say "hi, what would you like", or something to that effect; nothing's set in stone. You know, normal, appropriate stuff, instead of clumsily engineered statutory phrases born out of an attempt by a corporation to make the customers feel at ease while regarding people's worth only in so far as how they contribute to their profits.

Maybe it's because the workers at Harvey's are basically indistinguishable from, say, Beavis and Butthead in those Burger World episodes. Maybe because people working at Harvey's are in general much less anal. Harvey's is just less stressful place to work for, and as I said, I'm making minimum wage, so I can't afford good healthcare anyways.

Speaking of money, I got my check from Canadian Tire recently for my time there. I have extracted a total of around $460 from them. Not too bad for less than a week of work. They can still kiss my ass though. Fuckers.