You've heard of white collar and blue collar jobs. Well I'll be spending my summer working another polyester collar job. Last year it was Meijer, this year it's Family Fare, the local grocery store. Thursday and Friday were my first days working there. They started me at 11pm on Thursday so that it was like I was working two different days when really it was like working 13.5 hrs in one day with a break in between to get 5hrs of sleep. They had me going in so late just because the Dairy manager works those hours twice a week, and it was rather important that he be there given that my orientation was so lacking.

My orientation pretty much consisted of an anti-union video in which squinting, short men in suits kept approaching workers trying to represent them while "WE HAVE A BETTER WAY" periodically scrolled across the screen. After that video was a video on chemicals, and following that we filled out forms. It took about two hours total. I asked the store manager, "So I'm done with the orientation process then?" and he said I was, which was a bit surprising. At Meijer I had to go in two different days for four hours and another day to work on their computers. The Family Fare orientation didn't even have a tour in it. "Rotation, rotation, rotation," was pretty much all the training I got.

My first eight hours of work was all night stocking. A while ago when Kevin was working third shift stocking in Grand Rapids, he posted a list of all the different kinds of soups he stocked--every type that Campbell's made--and I was surprised that he could remember all that. Well, now that I too have done the job, I could very easily tell you every single type of cheese that Family Fare carries. For like the first two or three hours I was stockin cheese. I'll spare you the listing, but trust me, there is a lot of cheese at family fare.

Eventually it starts messing with your head--something about every single box you open over the course of four hours having cheese in it. When I was at Meijer, stocking wasn't as bad just cause it was sorta scavenger-hunt-like in the sense that the next box you open could go on any of the twelve or so aisles you were responsible for. For me it was the few feet of aisle 16 that was cheese. Eventually you start amusing yourself, asking stupid questions. You wonder if there's some racist, ignorant redneck that sees "Precut for crackers!" on the package and thinks "finally someone cuts my cheese for me." You wonder why Dannon has "Handle with CARE. We are ALIVE!" on all their yogurt--not just the Danimals. I don't even think Louise Woodward could shake that yogurt to death. You wonder why the only people that buy Light 'n Fit yogurt are already Light n' Fit. You wonder how the two varieties of Light 'n Fit, both the same prices, are different. If one has a "Silky and Smooth Texture" is the other one coarse and gritty? You wonder when low carb went from being a diet to a "lifestyle"? All this is very amusing at four in the morning.

So, night stocking was kinda boring. There's just no one to talk to. The dairy manager was there but stocking on the other aisle. I went home, got 5hrs of sleep, came back. Family Fare ran a two day sale on milk for a buck eighty eight a gallon; everyone going through the department grabbed two gallons of milk. I spent most of my day in the cooler, stocking milk. Between milk stockings I was usually keeping the eggs full. Keeping busy with something besides cheese was nice, and there were of course actually people in the store. Somehow all the employees--or "associates" as they're called at Family Fare--knew that there was a new Dairy guy so I got to meet a lot of the workers already.

All in all it's not boring, nothing you hate to go to or anything. The people you work with are nice and all that so it turns out to be a pretty alright job. Now if you'll excuse me I have to put on some music to get the Family Fare jingle out of my head.