#tldr: long winded rant about pens

[esoomris]

like i try to not be too hard on the night shift b/c i know it’s mostly teenagers and high school is hard enough without me giving them hell, but i really wish they didn’t have some sorta seek and destroy instinct for literally every useful writing implement

like. we get doordash orders. i would write the name for the order on the lids of the drinks. i did this using a sharpie. one day the sharpie vanishes. i look in the office and find a whole big box of sharpies. like 12 of ‘em. i grab a sharpie from the box. few days later it’s gone. grab another. while later it’s gone. this goes on and on. sometimes i find them, y’know, like in a corner or rolled under the register, but most of them just vanish without a trace. 

one day the big box of sharpies is empty, and i can’t find any lying around. ok, i say, that’s fine, because we have these dry-erase markers i can use instead. we have five dry-erase markers. next week we have four. next week we have two. last friday i come in and both of them are lying on the counter with no lids. i had to track down the lids. they were nowhere near the markers. one of them was dried out completely, the other was surprisingly fine. we now have one dry-erase marker. i suspect not for long.

or, like, we have to put labels on open food containers, right? date and time of opening. every morning i open the store, and every morning i have to print out labels for the cupped sauces and cookies and stuff. one of the sauces is new, and they haven’t put it in the computer system yet. so i have to hand write that label. for this i need a sharpie, or a ballpoint pen. we do not have any sharpies, as established, but there are loads of ballpoint pens. all over the place. you can’t move a box or pick up a piece of paper without a ballpoint pen rolling out. so i start using the pens. the pens start disappearing. went from dozens of pens just lying around to a single ink cartridge+nib with no casing. and i’m using it b/c it’s what’s there. it disappears too.

so i, like, go digging around in drawers and shit, and find a working ballpoint pen! and i’m like, i am so tired of digging around for pens everywhere. i’m pretty sure the night crew is either taking them or losing them at a frankly staggering rate. so i hide the pen. there’s a big stack of boxes and tablets and charging cables that basically never gets touched, so i put the pen behind all those. for a few days, it’s fine! i go there every morning, there’s the pen. i write the literal one thing i need to write with the pen, then i put the pen back.

today, i come in. the stack of junk has been moved. the pen is gone. i cannot find any more pens.

y’know what NEVER disappears, though??? the highlighters. we have so many goddamn highlighters. 4 of those 4-color 4-packs, at least. loads of highlighters. you can’t barely fit the one(1) remaining dry-erase into the cup where we keep writing stuff because it’s just chock-full of highlighters.

you can’t write on cups with these highlighters. the ink is too pale, it doesn’t show up. you can’t write labels with the highlighters. the labels are plastic, the ink just beads up and wipes straight off. we have so many, so so so many USELESS highlighters, and i can’t even keep track of one (ONE(1)just ONE) ballpoint pen that i am actively trying to never move.what the fuck. like, hey. what the fuck.