Talking Soup

We have been "about to be audited" since I started working at Micheal's.

An audit is exactly what it sounds like. Some person comes in to the store and decides what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Then they give you a score and tell you what you need to improve on. The reason this was happening was because we essentially failed our last audit.

So when I first started working, the managers pressed for thoroughness and efficiency, because the auditor was supposed to arrive in the next week or so.

He never came.

Weeks went by. Every once in awhile we would somehow receive word that "The Auditor" was in the area, or would be heading down over the weekend, or would probably be in on Monday. Lots and lots of false alarms, but of course we never got any explanation about why The Auditor hadn't come yet. It became this sort of joke and this sort of mystery.

Three weeks ago we finally got word that the reason The Auditor had never come was because he had been on sick leave. For the past several months. No one bothered to tell us. So they told us they were sending someone different, and that she would be down around the weekend. The managers were certain that we would be audited that Friday or Monday.

She never came.

Again, no word as to what was going on. She was "in the area", but there was no sign of her. We knew she was around, though, so the idea was that she could basically drop in at any time.

A week went by.

And then another.

Today, apparently this morning, we were audited.

We passed.

We have this woman who apparently comes into Michael's periodically. We call her the Bead Woman. What she does is she grabs a cart and fills it up with beads, then proceeds to steal quite a few of them, leaving the rest for us to "reshop" (that is, put them back where they're supposed to be.

Now, first of all, if you've never seen the bead section of a Michaels--let me tell you right now, it is EPIC. Two entire aisles of nothing but beads and beading tools--loose beads, beads in canisters, strings of beads. Glass, clay, semi-precious stones, metal. There's about ten different brands, and that's not including the ones that are just outside of the aisle. Never mind that a good portion of those are rather pricey. Finding everything is a chore in and of itself, and finding things quickly is virtually impossible unless you know the store well or have a scanner gun with you.

Second of all, SHOPLIFTING IS BAD. It means we get our hours cut, which essentially means our pay gets cut >(

So, this woman comes in the other day, and since we know she's a tricksy little thief, the manager sets someone to just sort of keep an eye on her--which tends to deter her from stealing quite as much. And who should be assigned to watch her but yours truly.

Monitoring a thief is more epic than it sounds! It was very spec ops. I would "recover" (clean up) in the next aisle over, and then she would suddenly disappear and I'd have to go find her again. I think at this point, this has happened often enough that it's become a battle of wills between her and the rest of us. I'm pretty sure she knew she was being watched, and so decided to make our lives a bit more delightful (read: difficult). She kept hopping around between beads, crystals, latch hook rugs and back, and I had to essentially spy on her each time.

And yeah, I know, profiling and all that--but this is different than sending someone to watch the OMG SCARY BLACK MAN, since we know for a fact that this woman has stolen from us several times in the past.

Anyway, I ended up ninja-ing back and forth to follow her (while, of course, trying to look inconspicuous). Finally she disappeared and I couldn't find her again, and it turned out she'd gone to check out. Pretty much all of us were in on the whole thing, so the girl on register got the manager out and, in the end, we managed to salvage most of what she tried to steal.

But, of course, there in the bead aisle, is a cart full of beads and crystals.

At seven.

Two hours before close.

So, of course, me being back-up register, me having to recover ALL THOSE BEADS, and the store being busier that night than usual, well. We didn't go home until about 9:45.

On the plus side, I'm pretty sure I now have the bead aisles memorized.