The Tales of Target: Episode 6
Now, I need you all to keep a secret. And if you are my boss… Jesse, please don’t fire me.
This episode will showcase Brooke the Manager’s off scene shenanigans. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had doing them.
To preface, I am typically the person in charge at the end of the night. I close the front of the store, including all twenty-four registers and keeping my handful of closing employees in-line. However, I am usually at the front of all out-of-line activities. (Nothing illegal of course, just some good-hearted, clean fun.)
Scooter Relays.
Scooter relays are one of my favorite, and on going activities. There is a scooter in the lost and found closet that has been there since I was hired. It is past the likelihood of ever being returned to its owner, and has been converted into the store relay medium. After close, we time one lap around the entire inside of the store, following a specific route, and timed from the same location. If you time in at under one minute you become a part of the elite few who have done so. I wish I could say this wasn’t my responsibility, but I was the creator of the competition.
Cart-Mover Donuts.
Sherwood Target has a fairly large parking lot, as well as a couple hundred shopping carts that circulate it. The store has what we call the “cart mover” which is just a lawn mower/go kart love child machine that makes it exponentially easier to bring all the carts inside.
One night our Cart Attendant forgot to bring the cart mover inside during close so I went out to grab it. More energetic than normal I discovered you can do donuts with the cart mover if you run in a circle fast enough. For clarity I have provided a picture of the endeavor.
Now cue all my employees watching their manager run in a circle at 11 P.M.
Car Seat Box.
Once a year Target has an event where guests can bring in their old car seats and receive a discount on a new one. During this event there is a very large box sitting near the entrance of the store for the used car seats to be placed in. At the end of the night I decided to climb in the box and scare my coworkers who walked by. Some are still holding grudges because of this comedic masterpiece.
I wish I had time for all my stories, but I’m typically finding some type of trouble every night, so that is just not possible to tell them all. A few honorable mentions include electric cart races, putting party hats on Spot (Target’s dog mascot) around the store, Christmas caroling over the store intercom, throwing frisbees over the isles, and too many more to count. (Hi again, Jesse. For the sake of my job, these are all *lies*)
