Ninja Pooper

Some jobs are way lamer than others. In my opinion, the job that is truly the cherry on top of the lame job sundae would have to be the one where you are selling vinyl windows in the middle of the mall. Next time you’re in a mall scout out the vinyl window kiosk. Trust me, they’re in every mall in North America. Now check out the salesman. I’m going to guess that he’s not even remotely aware that you are staring at him. Clap your hands and shout, “Hey!” Now, snap a few dozen pictures utilizing flash photography. Nothing, right? The mall vinyl window salesman is completely oblivious to everyone and everything around him. He’s really kind of like an amoeba in a vinyl-clad Petri dish: you see him but he doesn’t see you. Perhaps he is not even aware that he exists. Now that you’ve got the mall window salesman in your sites, I’m going to guess that he’s reading The Sun, The Journal and likely one (or both) of our national papers. By the end of his shift he will have read all of the newspapers from cover to cover including each and every international story and the religious stuff that no one reads from the Saturday paper without so much as glancing up from the news to see if there is a customer in need of attention.



This is a day in the life of the mall window salesman, the MWS.



Here’s my theory on the mall window salesman. The MWS used to be the best. He routinely met and bettered company sales projections. He won sales contests, he received letters of praise from satisfied customers and was even seated at the sales manager’s table at the company Christmas party for two consecutive years back in the mid-nineties. He had a beautiful wife, gifted children, a late-model domestic and an eighth-share in a set of Oilers season tickets. Then, the wheels fell off. Customers discovered do-it-yourself centres like Home Depot, Rona and Totem. They discovered that choosing their own windows and installing them was really nothing to fear. The salesman’s numbers plummeted. His wife left him for the lumber manager at Home Depot. His children no longer speak to him because he can’t buy them the designer jeans and $95 t-shirts they demand. Now he lives a life of squalor in a dilapidated house boat down at the marina. He drinks too much and his sales are soft because of it.



Fast forward to the present. Soon a crusty old window salesman from the past will wander past his booth in the mall. The old man will stop dead in his tracks, squint, and have a flashback to when he was the king of the vinyl window game. He too will have lost everything at one point in his life, but dammit, he’s not going to see it happen again. He will take the current day mall window salesman under his wing and demand nothing but perfection. They will train 18 hours a day down at the old man’s vinyl window dojo and through careful tutelage and age-old vinyl window sales wisdom, the MWS will once again rise to the top of his not-so-glamorous field. Sadly, however, the old man will not witness the younger man’s triple-glazed sales triumphs for he will succumb to an incurable disease that he has kept a secret for he does not want sympathy, only respect.



Later that year at the company Christmas party the younger man (now in his mid-forties) will dedicate his Salesman of the Year title to the old man.



The End.

Yesterday I took a walk at lunch so I could buy myself a sub. The order: a 6-inch club on wheat. As my sandwich was shaping up quite nicely on the other side of the spot-free sneeze guard the craziest thing happened. The most diligent assistant manager (DAM) in the history of diligent assistant managers happened by. Stopping dead in her tracks, the DAM spun on her heels, made a beeline to where my smartly-dressed, courteous sandwich builder was honing her craft and proceeded to lift the top off my now completed sub. My first thought was maybe the DAM is simply making sure my sub is up to company standards, but that wasn't the case at all. The DAM lifted the lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and black olives off the lower bun and began counting the slices of processed meat.



This wasn't about me at all.



This was a sandwich audit. Angry with the results of the sandwich audit, the DAM yanked one, single slice of processed turkey off my sandwich and slammed it back into the bin with its heavily processed turkey brothers and sisters while muttering angry words to my now embarrassed sandwich builder.



Unbelievable.



Even if today’s sandwich audit had been to ensure this glorious little 6-incher was up to my not-real-high sandwich standards, I would have been bothered by the DAM violating my sandwich in front of me. But, like I said, today’s sandwich audit wasn’t about me at all. It was about the company. And really, is one slice of meat so valuable that it’s worth embarrassing an employee over in front of a lunch time crowd? More importantly, is one slice of meat so valuable that creating an awkward moment for a paying customer is the only solution?

I've said it a dozen times: some ideas just make good, good sense. For instance, who knew that they sell beer and wine in the IKEA cafeteria? I sure the hell didn't until this past Saturday morning and that discovery, my friend, will go down in the books as one of the single greatest discoveries EVER. I liked the idea of drinking at IKEA so much that I actually wrote "Blog about IKEA beer" on one of those little order forms they keep next to the free golf pencils so I wouldn't forget.



Think about it. Being able to get your wobble on at IKEA works well on so many levels. For the parent at the end of their rope I suggest making the most of the free hour of IKEA smalland babysitting. Simply drop your kids off in the care of complete strangers, head right up that escalator and proceed to drown your cares in 11 domestic beers in 60 minutes while you bask in all that fluorescent light atmosphere. Too boozed to make it back before your hour of free babysitting is up? Go have a nap in either the living room or bedroom department. I'm sure that there are laws that prevent smalland from ejecting your kids into a busy parking lot, so relax and enjoy the bed spins on the all-new NORESUND. Trust me, your kids will still be there when you get sober.



For the frugal shopper, I suggest a trip to the IKEA cafeteria before you begin shopping. Seriously. A gallon of red wine and a few beers later, and the next round of KLIPPAN loveseats is on you.



And do I even need to mention the starving student? Hell, even if a beer is $4.50 that’s more than manageable when you just paid $1 for breakfast.



I used to dread our all-too-frequent trips to IKEA, but to be completely honest with you, I now look forward to them. A few dart boards, a pool table, a karaoke machine and a big screen would be nice, but I’m not going to complain. I’ll just hoist my glass, a SVEPA (or it might be a POKAL) and say, “IKEA: Swedish for let’s get drunk and go shopping.”

Earlier today, I went to the washroom to urinate. I sat there in my own little cubicle, whispering and then talking (out loud) to myself. I was completely oblivious to the fact that I was not alone. It wasn’t until I was standing at the sink washing my hands that I caught a fleeting glimpse of a pair of shiny black shoes in the mirror. Those shoes were directly behind me in one of the stalls. What the? How the? No sound, no smell...oh my God…it was a Ninja Pooper.



Now, I figure I was in the washroom for at least two minutes, maybe three, and did not have a clue that there was a stealthy pooper lurking in the shadows. It was the strangest thing. There were absolutely no signs that an office pooper was nearby. No smell, no sound, no “How’s it going, eh?” chatter, no nothing. This particular pooper didn’t even announce his occupancy with the perfunctory courtesy cough, overly exaggerated yawn, or the simple but effective “River Dance”. I was in the vicinity of the elusive Ninja Pooper.



The Ninja Pooper lurks in the shadows and will defecate without so much as stirring any one of your five senses. It is my theory that a Ninja Pooper is so adept at the office poop that she/he poops while simultaneously releasing a fresh potpourri scent/white noise combination to further conceal their occupancy of a washroom stall. This, combined with their ancient controlled breathing methods, allows them to stealthily poop without blowing their cover.



Later, as I wandered the hallways inspecting my coworker’s shoes in the hopes of finding the true identity of the Ninja Pooper, it occurred to me that this particular Ninja Pooper is so good that she keeps a spare pair of black shoes in her desk and only slides them on when an office poop is inevitable as not to jeopardize her deep cover. To that I say, bravo, Ninja Pooper, bravo.



All hail the Ninja Pooper.