Say What??

I work at a clothing store (actually, I'm about to work at two clothing stores) in the mall here in town. The store recently lost one of its managers, and another one went on a two week vacation. The results were having two associates fill in manager positions for the next two weeks until they could hire more help.

One of the associates is cool. The other one, though, is positively Clueless. She doesn't know what she's doing. She stresses out way too fast, which is not good when you're in charge of running a store. And apparently, she isn't really fond of me. Chalk it up to my female intuitions, but I knew she didn't care for me the first day I met her. She said hi with one of those fake, polite smiles and didn't really say much to me after that. Unfortunately, the first day she had to open the store by herself, I was the one who was there working with her.

Not only did I witness ALL of her mistakes and her near mental breakdown, I apparently bugged the shit out of her with questions that only she could answer (as manager) for customers. It wasn't intentional, but someone had to be in charge and since she was wearing the hat, I handed over her fair share of responsibility. Of course, the store was a disaster, and it was held against her.

Today, I worked with her again, filling in for someone else who had a funeral to go to. We both opened the store, this time not having to worry about her making any mistakes. One of the more experienced managers did everything for her the night before. We went into the back room to start the opening procedures, and she bent down to pick something up. Because we all wear low-rise pants, her ass crack was showing. I didn't say anything, obviously, but she must've felt self-conscious because she said, "Don't be looking at my butt crack."

"Right," I said, rolling my eyes, "because I woke up this morning definitely thinking about looking at your crack."

She gave one of her fake polite laughs, and I continued, "Don't worry. I know how it is to wear low-rise jeans. My crack shows sometimes too!"

"Well," she said dead serious, "your butt is definitely bigger than mine, so you would show a lot more crack." What the hell? I walked over to a mirror and did my little "yeah I know I'm fine" jig in it before saying, "Yep, I gotta keep my figure for my man!"

"Your man, " she echoed and didn't say anything else. I left it alone, letting it go. We went out to the front of the store, and while she did some more work (that I have to watch her do and sign off on), she mentioned, "Oh, today you're going to take your 15 minute break at 9:30 this morning."

"What?" I asked incredulously, looking at the time. It was 9:01 and we had just gotten to the store. "Why?"

"Because Ashley (our district manager) told me that at her store, they take their breaks around that time so that no one will be left by themselves during the day."

"But, that doesn't make sense," I sputtered, confused. "We just got here! What am I taking a break from--walking through the door and going to the bathroom?"

"Actually," she said, sighing, "it makes a lot of sense. Because soon we'll start opening at 8, so you'll be here for a couple of hours."

Readers, I ain't no punk (pardon my ghetto), but I know when to pick my battles. I figured it would freeze in hell before I would go on a break before even working, and she must've saw it in my face because she came back a few minutes later and said, "Well, someone gets here at noon so you can take your break then."

The icing on my cake was later on that day when I had to ask her advice for a customer. The girl was telling me that the dirty yellowish color was "in" and I was skeptical.

"Clueless, what do you think?" I asked as she was walking by. "Is dirty yellow in?"
Clueless raised her eyebrow. "You know, I could take that as a racist comment." She's Mexican, by the way. I rolled my eyes.

"Whatever," I said, and continued the conversation, asking her the same question. Who the hell was she? And how the hell am I racist? Uh, duh, I'm black, remember?! My ancestors were in chains LONG before her's came across the border. Ack.

We ended the day with not much said between us. It's clear--she doesn't like me and vice versus.