HowTo:Work at Target

Employees at Target can aim for the stars!

Being Hired

Congratulations! No doubt this is your first successful attempt to gain a foothold in the retail world! We here at Target (Pronounced Tar zhey) are glad to have a new meat slave, I mean, team member here with us at the work farm. Please take the next eight and a half hours of your orientation to relax 'cause, after today, you are hostages and need to get used to pushing clearance and going up for backup, so familiarize yourself with our company and its goals! We look forward to draining your happiness away from you and watching our profits rise ever so slightly.

Your Core Roles

No doubt you have spend ample time at various other jobs and are perfectly sure of what you want to do in our store. That's nice. But we here at Target have niches to fill and unexpected vacancies that need to be, perhaps, less vacant. Therefore, you will be assigned to a job that requires fresh meat, I mean, experience and dedication. Prepare to work all holidays, be denied vacation and the birth of you first child. And if your lucky they might let you out of your cage to visit your grandma's grave since you missed her funeral. These jobs are as follows:

Sales Floor

Just one of your many duties.

Your job working on the sales floor is one of mystery and excitement! Surely you have wondered at some point, who is responsible for keeping these stores so clean and not frightening enough to cause me to flee screaming?. That could be your job! Sales floor employees are to keep our store organized and not smelling like a rancid jock strap used by an entire army of fat homeless people. You will be required to organize shelves, answer questions no matter how stupid or pointless, restock items that have been misplaced, reinforce support beams, find unattended children who will be sold to the circus, capture stray pets, work as a cashier on several occasions without warning, bring forth items from the back, sign treaties and put back items you may or may not have found at other stores, such as top secret WMD topics. In other words, a Sales Floor team member is to do nearly anything at any time, whether it be servicing a woman no matter the age, weight, looks, and as is often the case, many things at the same time. But survive, as some do, and you will be bestowed with an incredible capability to multitask as well as creatively lie your way out of any situation If you have no other choice you must summon your inner "David Bowie", point your finger at the arising situation, and say, ch, ch, ch, ch, changes!; all will be well. At any time that the team member cannot handle the assigned tasks, the team member must get in his or her car, find a cliff, and drive right off it (into it is okay too).

Fitting Room Operator

As Operator you are responsible for answering phone sex calls, counting people's items and vigorously shaking and smelling them basically to let them know that you think they are kleptomaniacs and to think twice about stealing that grandma sweater they're about to try on, page team members hundreds of times when they clearly don't respond, do HR's work (call people that are obviously incapable of thinking and offer them a job), deal with snotty housewives that get angry because you wont let them try on underwear way over their STD filled muffins, and hang clothing that has been severely stretched out because it didn't fit the fat ass lady who thought she was a size 2. But don't worry, you get a chair. But because your so busy doing other shit you wont get to sit in it, and this chair will mock you over and over.

Cashier

It is the goal of the Cashier to ensure that our customers spend as little time as possible actually purchasing items, because as Spot's Third Law of Guest Dynamics states, The amount of items purchased is inversely proportional to the amount of time they have to reconsider what they are purchasing. Ergo, the more you delay, the more likely they are to discover that mirror is little more than cheap plastic and aluminium foil. Our cash registers have patented technology, designed by Germans, that examines your speed and takes action should performance slip. Our minimum requirement is approximately fifteen guests a minute, regardless of the amount of items or how fast that old lady writes a check or the fact that there's a significant delay between pushing a button and the next screen showing. Due to the rise of the credit card era, all cashiers are required to force credit applications on little old people with hearing loss, small children who are too young to understand, and your ever-so-popular white trash redneck trying to save 12 cents on a dollar twenty five pack of used chewing gum.

Your register may be equipped with several features

• A small 8" CRT display. You will notice that the interface from the POS software used ten years ago is still burned into the screen

• A printer type device. This is where the receipt comes out and checks go in. Both are equally likely to jam up

• A keyboard. There are several important buttons on this

• • F1 - This is the help button. You will notice that upon pressing it, nothing happens.

• • K1-K8 - These are function keys that do various things. You will notice that the 'K8' button is broken because it gets pressed every time a guest does not want to apply for a Target' credit card.

• • Mainframe - Do not under any circumstances press this button.

• • Addl. Asst. - This red button, in theory, summons other team members to help you when the lines get too long. Like the Help button, it doesn't actually do anything.

• Scanner - This is the thing that beeps when you put items on it.

• Credit card reader thingy - This is what the guest uses to process their payment. Note that despite the directions on the screen, people will always put their card into it the wrong way.

Back Room

Hotly disputed is the severity of the work done by the back room worker. The casual bystander will see little of these shy creatures, and assume no work is done, but any other Target team member knows better. They know the back room team member actually does a lot; after all, someone needs to get that fish bowl out! Their duties are far more limited than the sales floor, being little more than 'go fetch'. California Targets have experimented with using genetically enhanced super-canines (see SPOT, below) in lieu of back room workers. The experiment is still being evaluated and perhaps this particular line of work will not be available when your number is called.

Other Jobs

The three primary castes listed above are vital to the survival of Target and its profits, but other employees do similarly useful tasks. However, positions such as Team Leads and Assets Protection are drawn from enlisted, not drafted team members.

Food Avenue

Food Avenue is Target's own food service brand. Here you'll engage in stimulating activities such as making popcorn, washing your hands, and cleaning up the ICEE stains (as every single person who uses the ICEE machine will spill some) This is the place where you can go to eat during breaks. Food Avenue has an extensive menu consisting of popcorn, hot dogs, and pretzels. They call for the cart attendant all the time because these little old ladies can't lift the fucking sodas/popcorn and all of their other shit.

Cart Attendant

You are basically what I like to call miscellaneous man. You basically get to do what no one else wants to do. If you don't like getting attention or recognition, pushing carts(just one of the "fun" things you get to do...)is the job for you. Accept the position thinking your only going to push cats, well you'll soon learn that was one big misinterpretation. You'll have to go a million miles per hour trying to get everything done, while being pulled in 8 zillion different directions, being told to do this and that and this again. Your supervisors will forget about you and ask where you have been for the last 45 minutes as if you didn't exist, unless you can't keep with carts (which is sometimes impossible with all the other shit you have to do, distributing hand baskets, helping guests out to their cars, cleaning the bathrooms/shit...yes I said SHIT..., cleaning up spills, stocking spill stations, sorting defective merchandise, helping at the register, dumping hangers/used bags finding a hanger bin or bag bin, getting bags/supplies for front lanes, emptying the garbage, and new shit you didn't even know you were supposed to do).

Also, you have the fun job of taking defectives back to the compactor. Good luck finding a backroom person to unlock it for you while you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait some more. You also have to listen to the GSTL ask for your location and why your other shit hasn't been done. Well shit.... go and figure.

If Target didn't have Cart Attendants they would be so screwed, and wouldn't have a clue wtf to do

Guest Services

Guest Services is a very important part of the Target shopping experience. Here you'll explain to guests that they can't return those pants they purchased last year using cash. You'll also tell everyone about the return policy, which is also stated on every register and on the back of every receipt. But dont worry, you get to call the cart attendant to take care of all the rest of your shit.

Guest Service Attendant

Targets bottom line screwage of a GSTL. You have the roles and responsibilities of a GSTL with rats shit pay of what a real GSTL makes because you are a regular team member (slave). Sure, you can have an ego the size of Jupiter because you just owned the cashier who deserved that position after 5 and a half years of pretty much doing what you are about to do and are now in charge of them, and boss around your other Cashiers, have zilch clue how important your cart attendant really is and treat him like your bitch....but you get still get the important manager keys and walkie and walk around like you're the shit. The best way to identify a GSA from a GSTL is the brown floaties in their eyes.

Your true cashiers will know how ignorant you are by you asking other cashiers questions you are supposed to know. You will get no responses to the front end for backup cashiers. Daily your cashier will come thank you with their special jingle "fast,fun, and FUBAR (F*cked Up Beyond All Repair."

Tools of the Trade

There is specialized equipment available for use by any given Target employee. You will be required to use some equipment, depending on your role in our retail machine. Proper equipment will be handed out by the fitting room lady; lack of equipment or excessive such will result in punishment (see SPOT, below).

'Box Cutter'

The box cutter is a simple device employed by managers to unlucky floors people(drones) to open boxes and sever the limbs of the box's super-mutant guardians created by the mass amount of radiation given off by Target's suppliers (or demons), so they can be made into popcorn later. Most employees, given the foreboding job of opening boxes, never return to collect their measly $5 salary at the end of the week. The Target box cutter is a retractable blade that is based on a variation of German World War 2 combat knife and MUST remain blunt AT ALL TIMES.

'Portable Communications Device'

Also known as the 'walkie', the radio is vital to the location, identification, and survival of all Target employees. The standard-issue walkie is capable of operating on dozens of channels, however the vast majority are taken up by talk shows and soft rock music, leaving two, one to be used by the employees, and one to be used by those watching the employees. With one mutual channel to be used by all Targets nationwide, identification is key: remember to state your store's location, department, and battalion number when speaking, and wait for a clear opportunity. Signal range on these puppies is questionable. Once you enter the parking lot, all hope is lost. You may hear a crackle, or a beep, if you are lucky. You will get asked if you heard someone calling for you, but if you are a CA and in the parking lot, you may or may not have heard it. Or maybe you did hear it, but you tuned it out, or maybe you just did't want to answer their cries for help. Multiple people attempting to speak simultaneously will result in the infamous 'walkie screech', a sound capable of shattering all eardrums within ten feet of the walkie holder; though results may vary. Due to the rise of little green men invading Target stores all over Iraq, walkies have been limited and have all been equipped with lo-jack. To have one of these walkies bestowed upon you, you must first give the "ETL"(Extreme Tyrant Leader) a $50 deposit ($100 if you want one that actually works).

Personal Execution Data Opening, Properly Held by Internal Liaison Employee

This device, better known as the PEDO, is the Target equivalent of a Scanner from Star Trek. It uses a complex interface involving buttons, a touch screen, and various suggestive ports to transfer information to its various devices, including a price reader, item stock analyzer, wheel arm, clock, notepad, and broken dinner plate. Anyone save for Cashiers requires a PEDO unit; even the janitor requires it for navigation and cauterizing wounds.

M1911A1

Security of our employees is top priority. The service pistol assigned to all employees, the trusty Colt M1911 uses the legendary .45 caliber round. This weapon is only to be used in cases where the employee is in severe danger or if a customer has repeated herself thrice. WARNING: under no circumstances turn this weapon at a fellow employee; it will result in senseless loss of life unless pointed at a manager (managers come equipped with a bullet proof vest and are authorized to fire whenever they feel necessary).

Name Tag

Target, though nearly perfect, is not immune to the dangers that face the retail world. We are sad to say that every now and then one of our valiant employees is lost in the line of work. But on a good note, courtesy of our name tags, not once have we been unable to identify a body (excluding the times the corpse was... less than intact). Every name tag comes with a reminder of our glorious corporation in the form of the Target bullseye, to be worn directly over the heart; the ceramic composite that comprises each and every name tag has been proven to stop anything up to a .50 caliber bullet. Or, if your one lucky enough to have one of them fancy ass ones with your picture on it and discount card built into it, it can stop rocket propelled grenades.

Emergencies

As previously stated, the retail world has its dangers. Target, however prides itself on being able to deal with the fury of nature with minimum casualties. The variety of threats we face has resulted in danger codes being assigned to each emergency. Upon encountering any of the following, simply activate your radio and repeat, no more than four times, the color code of the situation as listed below.

Code Red

This warns all employees of a new Mountain Dew product, no doubt designed to cause maximum damage should it be spilled. The shoddy manufacturing of the average Mountain Dew bottle virtually ensures that its precious cargo will soon be all over the shelves as well as burning through the floor. Upon locating the product in question, NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER, and immediately cordon off the area with warning tape (price of tape will be taken from employee wages).

Code Yellow

This one should be obvious to anyone who has relatives of any sort. Yellow indicates that some employee's long-lost uncle from Missouri has arrived in the store along with his wife and dozens of kids. It is common knowledge that concentrations of people from Missouri are capable of violently reacting with any form of retail environment, in the same way that matter reacts with antimatter. Therefore, a code yellow is to be called out upon visual identification of a Missouri license plate, and all employees are to go to battle stations. In the event someone from Missouri breaches our store, sparks will begin to issue from random places and Target employees will be sent flying due to the whole store shaking inexplicably. Ergo, should you suspect someone is from Missouri, NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER and flee the area.

Code Brown

Don't ask. Simply know that this is by far the most common emergency you should encounter; follow standard procedure and NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER. Then glare at anyone holding a small child within thirty feet of you, as they are undoubtedly the source of the problem.

Code Shitstorm

A subset of Code Brown, usually used when shit is about to get real. Not much is known about this, except that surviving employees usually hide in a manager's office with an offering of beer outside the door.

Code Blue

Under this emergency, one of Target's customers is giving birth in the parking lot. Your first instinct is likely be to find a doctor and assist the lady. Ignore this. The Target parking lot is not technically part of the store and not technically our concern. However, someone has to go tell her to shut up, so NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER.

Code Beige

The store is being threatened by fire! Quickly, children, run from this inferno! Oh, and NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER.

Code Green

In the case of this emergency, one of our customers has arrived in search of an item and not found it. Upon being told that the item does not exist, the customer has begun screaming incoherently and generally running amok. Under no circumstances should any employee attempt to appease the beast, who may be turning red or green, depending on the amount of gamma-ray radiation coming from our popcorn poppers. The correct course of action is to NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER, who will arrive shortly, armed with all manner of devices intended to calm down the customer, such as a harpoon, chicken wing, and maybe a pop-tart.

Code Green With Some Yellow Spots That MAY Just Be Snot

This emergency code notifies all employees that the manager is missing. In the event that this happens, the delicate balance we maintain in Target will be disrupted and the store will collapse in on itself. There is nothing you can do in this event, as there is NO MANAGER TO CALL.

SPOT

SPOT is the code name for a Target store's Human Resources department. By company regulations, and in order to save money on costly staff, the department comprises one large genetically altered canine. In the event of disagreeable behavior or less than satisfactory performance, a Target employee is sent to SPOT for consultations. This often results in a large amount of screaming and blood coming through the door, however, rest assured that encouragement is taking place and as a result no such failure will ever be witnessed from that particular employee again. Note to managers: in some stores, the amount of employees being sent to SPOT has resulted in the beast gorging itself and being too fat to eat further employees. If this is the case in your store, encourage employees with your service pistol.

Miscellaneous

Congratulations on your rapt attentiveness, as it has no doubt enabled you to survive the trial run our Employees are required to go through in order to be hired. As a full fledged employee, you will now be enabled to do your best in the name of our Chairman and His holy stockholders. There are a few items that you should be aware of, so pay attention.

• Target employees are allowed to use the break room during their specified breaks. You may only eat Target-certified food, as anything else will catch fire in either our microwave or refrigerator and trigger the halon fire extinguishers.

• Under no circumstances are employees allowed to use the restrooms conveniently placed at the front of our store. Those are for our customers. Please wait until you get home.

• All Target employees are given breaks depending on the number of hours they are working today and whether or not the manager has someone to cover your position. The amount is as follows: One break for the first three hours, two for those doing seven or more, and a lunch to anyone at Manager rank or higher.

• The Target dog is known as Bullseye. However, each and every Target has its own mascot dog, ranging from German Shepard to Border Collie, so long as it's painted white. There is also another pet that employees will meet in the event they fail to meet expectations (see SPOT, above).

• Fraternizing between employees is strictly prohibited. Unidentified children located in the store will be assumed to be the demon spawn of the two ugliest employees in the store, and action will be taken to discourage further mistakes.

• All employees pay 10% extra.

• Target is by nature a multi-state chain, literally. Any given store is rampaging through multiple dimensions, all alternate realities. Therefore, every employee is subject to laws and taxes of those realities, and the employees have to pay additional taxes accordingly.

• There are annual performance evaluations held weekly. The worst review will be sent in to headquarters at the end of the year. This is in order to keep employees on their toes.

See Also

• Wal★Mart
• Target guide to work
• SPOT
• Your Paycheck