Overcoming Boredom In the Workplace

This time of the year always reminds me of when I worked retail.  Just coming off of the holiday season, we were still semi-busy preparing for inventory.  However, once that was over, there was a lot of thumb twiddling.  Just not many people interested in going to a department store to spend money in January/February.

One of my favorite parts of being a retail manager was working the late shift.  You could get a bunch of stuff done at home, or run errands, then roll into work at 2 pm.  I'd walk around and greet everyone in my department, check my mail (inter-office snail mail in those days) and those old fashioned green/white computer printouts, and return phone calls.  By 5 pm, most of the staff left for the day (and I did have some sales clerks whom I was happy to say goodbye to, as they were always bitchin' about something!)  Six o'clock meant dinner time and whatever other two managers on duty and I would go eat our special employee priced meal in the store's restaurant.  Anyone else remember the days when department stores had really nice restaurants?  For around $6, you could get a salad, entree, dessert and soft drink or coffee and it was actually good food!

After dinner, it was party time.........there really was nothing to do, especially in the off-season.  I managed the 'Home Store' which was a boring place for a 22 year old, fresh out of college, (towels, bedding, china, glass, silver, tabletop, draperies........you get the picture).  So, I'd stroll other departments, looking at new clothes, talking to my friends in cosmetics, or chatting up the cute younger guys who worked in TV/electronics.

This was the mid-80's and VCR's and camcorders were the hottest gadgets.  We couldn't keep VCR's in stock.  This was also the hey day of the music video, when MTV actually showed them on a continuous loop.  One cold winter evening, someone got the idea that we should shoot a video, fashioned after two popular videos of the time:

Those employees who were free to do so (someone still had to man the registers and put on some semblance of helping customers) gathered in the TV department and chose which parts they wanted to lip sync (I always wanted to be Bono; our middle aged personnel manager was a bit wacky and insisted on being Cyndi Lauper or Boy George every time).  I don't recall us having microphones, but we did find a headset or two to use.  We also gathered props from around the store and the supply room for costumes and extras (mannequins).  Someone would yell 'Action!' and the our self-appointed camera man would start taping us.  It was fun to come to work the next morning, when you hadn't worked the previous night, and watch the latest tape creation.  We had fun with the reenactments for a few weeks, and then got tired of it and moved on to some other hi jinks, I'm sure.