Time for the most important sorting question of them all—

Which Batboy is which Golden Girl?

The Greetening

Hi everyone! It's been a bit of a while since I've submitted anything here, but I've worked for the Goods at Home store for going on 5 years this winter - I submitted stories a while back, but it's been a while. Still read this blog on every single break of mine.

A LOT has happened, of course, but what I'm here to talk about today is the beautiful experience of our new Greeter position. You see, the Goods at Home store, owned by the YKC company (also fake), is taking the current world situation at least somewhat seriously - we're checking in before each shift about temperatures and all that, and they're taking the time needed to quarantine in suspected cases pretty darn seriously with not the usual expected "but we're shortstaffed" complaints - and they have created two new positions just for the C-19 Shopping Experience (trademark pending). We have a Cart Leader, who fetches all the carts from the parking lot to inside the store and sanitizes them before customer use (and also helps with carryouts), and the Greeter, who keeps track of the number of people inside the store, answers questions, and of course, greets everyone who comes in.

Being someone who's good at pretending to be personable, I've found myself in this position...a lot. I actually enjoy it in the broad strokes - it's pretty easy to stand there (and dance, to keep my knees from locking) and say pretty much the same things for the whole shift - but like anything in retail, the customers make it better....and worse. This is gonna be a long one, TLDR at the bottom One more note - our store's carts keep disappearing, and we're down to 17 for a store that has a current max person capacity (not counting employees) of 66.

Since the store has reopened three months ago, I have been -Told I sound like I work at Disneyland at least 60 times, like a stewardess at least 24 times, and like a robot by one lady who I don't think was trying to be mean but it came out very mean -Told I sound like I "must be on drugs" by a lady who I forced to repeat it until she qualified "cuz you sound way too happy for this time of night!" (WTF lady, it's my job, you'd grumble if I didn't sound like I wanna eat your shoes) -Scoffed at for telling people that the store is full and that they have to wait outside -Cursed at by a lady who didn't hear me saying to walk to the back of the VERY CLOSE INLET THAT I POINTED AT to follow the arrows for a return, because I "made" her walk to the back of the store for no reason (my coworker was going to bat for me, but I just let her go with a smile. She mighta flipped me off on her way out, but that's your own fault for not listening to me saying "just to the back of this inlet, right here, behind that very table" three times) -Cursed at by people standing in the line outside on an incredibly busy Sunday; I know it's hot, miss, but I cannot let you cut 13 people - we sell nothing life-saving, if you're that desperate for our stuff, you'll wait -Been standing out in the heat and smokey air (California baybee) for half an hour plus, with people constantly complaining about the heat who've been in line for five minutes -Threatened with legal action by a gentleman who I would not let cut the line to join his wife inside the store (because "If I get heat stroke I'm suing you"), who got immediate karmic comeuppance after he stormed off to the car and thirty seconds later, I got an updated headcount that would have had him in the store if he hadn't been so impatient -Been sneered at for asking people to follow our directional arrows -Been told very sharply that other people aren't following the arrows and  I should "do something about it" (yeah, let me just approach a customer and tell them they're wrong, miss, that goes over well for someone in my position) -Been lectured at least seven times on how ridiculous our lack of carts is -And, apparently, been "the reason" one lady dropped her stuff and stormed out because she kept refusing to wait for a cart, leaving to shop, and coming back to find no carts, because any that became available in the meantime got taken by someone else who was willing to wait

But, it's still a position I enjoy. Which says something about retail, I guess, when there can be this much bad inside a job and it's still considered "pretty okay" TL: DR our new greeter position gets a lot of hate and blame for things that aren't anyone's fault

@andholy​ said:  what do you love most about writing aziraphale? ( bonus if you want: would you say you are pretty similar or different to him, & in what way(s) 👀 )

OOH THANK YOU FOR THIS!! i’m gonna start with similarities and differences bc what i love most is gonna be LONGER

so i think i’m just slightly more different from aziraphale than i am similar, if that makes any sense?? the reason i’m ?? about it is because the things that i have in common with him are HUGE parts of my personality, so it’s ?????

main differences are:   i swear like a dnd barbarian  /  i’m more goth-wannabe than pastel dandy  /  i generally try to be nice to most people i meet unless they get on my case first ( instead of passive aggressively scaring off every stranger who comes near, az )  /  i’m more sociable than he is in general  /  i’m more at home with casual affection than he is  /  i’m not nearly as well-traveled  /  i get angry a lot more  /  i SHARE my books sometimes  /  i’m not okay with casual killing  /  and i’m pretty tech savvy and modern-ish overall. he’s also got this detachment from people as a whole since he’s lived so long and since he’s got this connection to a higher power, and i’m, comparably, more down to earth ( badum-tss ). also not religious, and have a kinda negative view of humanity given the past couple years’ political events.

main similarities are:   BOOK LOVING MOTHERFUCKERS  /  huge collections of books  /  would kill anyone who damaged a book  /  i love tea and cocoa more than coffee  /  i like being comfy  /  i don’t mind a nice helping of alone time  /  i’m also dumb of ass and home of sexual  /  i have unhealthy attitudes instilled in me from my upbringing/education that i’m learning from and breaking out of over time  /  i get SUPER excited about the things that i’m interested in even if i’m not very good at them  /  i FUCKING LOVE SHAKESPEARE ( i’m literally about to go to a camp that teaches me stage combat through fight scenes from shakespeare plays can i get a WAHOO )  /  i’m Soft ( or i like to think i am at least )  /  i love food  /  i tend to ramble  /  alcohol nights and existential rambling with friends baybee  /  and i cannot drive nor do i enjoy driving. also i do think the world is worth saving, so that’s something.

as for what i love the most about writing aziraphale......it’s a couple of different things!

first of all, good omens and i have a History TM, i read the book years and years ago --- this blog was made five years ago!! --- and then lost it and bought a new copy, and lost that one, but ever since, whenever i’m at a really difficult point in my life, i’ve always been able to find one of those two copies somewhere in my house, and sit down and read them and enjoy them. the mini-series came out right at a tough time for me too, so good omens has always been my little comfort nook to settle into, even though i never really appreciated it until this year. so writing aziraphale is comfortable, and makes me happy, and reminds me of every time he and that story have been there for me.

second, like i said, our similarities are HUGE parts of who i am as a person, so sometimes it’s just like being the most positive version of myself on here! i get to ramble about books and reblog aesthetic pictures of tea and be hella gay, and when my personal life gets rough it’s really nice to be here and dive into the elements of my life and myself that make me feel happy and safe. the past couple of months were rough; like i said, the mini-series came around at a perfect time. and everyone in the fandom is so nice and so chill as far as i’ve seen, and there’s so many people who have loved the book for years and years and now get to share their love with an even wider audience, so it’s cool to feel both that history AND that energy at the same time.

third, good omens has always had that aura of lived-in-ness to it. there’s a vast and mapped out and familiar world behind it for crowley and aziraphale both, we know weird specifics about both heaven and hell enough to make them feel like entire fleshed-out concepts, BUT at the same time, we don’t have all the details. there’s such a wide, wide world of possibilities within the good omens universe, even with all we’ve been given! what are the departments of heaven? are there individual offices? does someone plan out things like freak accidents ahead of time or is that human influence gone wild and the angels are just like ‘oh yikes’? I Don’t Fucking Know, I Just Go Here! same questions for hell! there are spelled-out limits to the garden, but no one knows exactly what kind of fruits are growing in it, so we can pick and choose and imagine whatever we want to! and it’s fun to write in a universe with some boundaries but limitless liminal spaces for imagination to fill in!

fourth, aziraphale is a challenge for me, as a writer. i’ve always favored morally grey asshole-with-a-heart-of-gold characters, but aziraphale is different in certain ways from my usual mold. it’s like, he’s GOT a moral code, but no one else really knows what it is and it can change at any given time. he’s hypocritical in action, not just in words or ideas; i mean, he’s an ANGEL, and he’s the one who comes up with the idea of killing the child antichrist. who on earth would think that’s the angelic play to call? aziraphale does. he’s a nice person at heart: he loves humanity, he’s apologetic and kind and helps heal people who got hit by cars, he feeds the ducks and reads books. but he’s also customer-service-hates-your-guts extraordinaire in his shop, and okay with casual murder to suit a cause, and jumps around people’s bodies sometimes ruining their lives in the process ( sorry televangelist guy that we all kinda hated anyway ), and manipulates people into doing the stuff that he doesn’t find morally agreeable enough to do himself but that he still needs done. he’s a mosh pit of enigmas and it’s hard to pin him down, because he is SO kind and SO dumb of ass but at the same time he is FRIGHTFULLY callous at times and really an asshole at times. which is SUCH a dichotomy and i love to experiment and play around in it!

in summary: I Just Think He’s Neat! writing him brings a lot of positivity into my life and i find him a fascinating character to dissect in so many ways and he loves books just as much as i do! Idiot Angel Man Take Me By The Hand Lead Me To The La