"Did You Call The Police?"

My second day on the job was originally meant to teach me how to run the register for the payday advance loans. I, however, spent very little time behind the counter and was more often than not busy completing and checking off items from the list of daily chores. Such shores included filling up a mop bucket and then hauling it outside to water five knee-high flower pots (it was a bucket specifically designated for this so no soap residue would poison the plants and flowers), sweeping the parking lot (twice, actually--you would not believe how many cigarette butts appear in the parking lot of a pawn shop, but there were many other debris that I took care of such as used napkins, wads of gum, many unidentifiable plastic shards, and an unbroken beer bottle), cleaning, organizing, greeting customers (usually referring them to another worker when they asked questions I didn't know the answer to), and--my favorite chore of the day--organizing the portable DVD players we had in the back.

I was directed to the back room where there were two large totes of brown paper sacks, most of which were torn and falling apart. My task was to make sure all the DVD players were put in new sacks with the appropriate chargers, cords, and/or carrying cases. There were some very nice looking ones, specifically an LG model, but most of them weren't the in the most impressive condition. There was one ancient SONY model which was thicker than a literature anthology and about twice as heavy. I wouldn't advise parents to set that on their children's laps because it just might cut off the circulation to their little legs and result in the need for amputation. But, overall, the sorting went pretty well until one point when I had several models with random cords that I could not match. One of the original sacks was especially difficult as it had a DVD of one specific brand but then a phone charger of a different brand and a wall charger of a third brand. Wow. I solicited the help of a seasoned pawn veteran and we sorted it out. We matched cords according to polarization and voltage, not necessarily brand. I was directed to a drawer of AC adapter cords. There were so many colors and shapes and sizes. I think my favorite was the purple cord with the square prong on the end, but the red cord with the rectangular socket and strange fang like grooves came in at a close second. When it came down to hunting for the final cord I had some difficulties, but after ten minutes of digging, untangling, and re-wrapping cords, I found a mismatch that would suffice and completed the task.

Even though I did not necessarily work the register, I was in the store area for the majority of the time and overheard many customers' conversations dealing with the same exact problem--something or some things of theirs had been stolen and they were wondering if we had recently received said items. A man with four young girls was looking for a white Nintendo DS, a younger couple was looking for about 30 DVDs, and there were several other times when store protocol required my fellow co-workers to ask "Did you call the police?" Apparently, this happens a lot, several times on a daily basis--as I saw--but the only way we can help stolen items be returned to their rightful owners is if the rightful owner has already filed a police report against a specific person. We can then contact the police to verify the report and then go into our computer system and see if the accused individual has recently sold us anything and, if so, what it was (we keep very good records). Amazingly enough, none of the conversations I overheard dealt with a customer who had already called the police, but they were all very thankful for the knowledge of what steps they needed to take next in trying to regain their possessions.

Once again, this does not even cover half of what happened today, but I will share one last thing. The pawn shop I work for has a dress code, khaki pants or black slacks with a polo shirt or striped button up shirt (we buy the pants on our own but we order the shirts through the shop). Yesterday, I wore my long sleeved striped button up shirt and I thought the collar was very uncomfortable. When I got home, I realized that I had been working with the cardboard insert meant to keep the collar's shape still under the collar and it had been there the entire day. I just hope I wasn't walking around with the cardboard sticking out from under my collar the entire time. Needless to say, I fixed the problem and my collar was much more comfortable today.