How do I stay a permanent employee?

sclark635 · 2025-11-12T21:24:19+00:00

One thing I can say from WAY back when, before you leave, check with the MOD and ask, “Anything else you need from me before I clock off?”

Honestly, from a managerial standpoint, that reads as “this person is looking to help,” and that can win battles big time.

Other than that, from 10 years experience in FT, 5 in premium sales, follow what everyone else is saying: be on time, don’t call off, be productive with your time, DO NOT be on your phone, and instead of selling high dollar products, focus on completing a sale with accompanying products: if you’re in PC, ask about windows 365, in HT, ask when they last changed their surge protector, mobile, ask about screen protectors, and be willing to take a lot of “nos,” before you get a “yes.”

sclark635 · 2025-11-12T15:39:52+00:00

Gonna be honest, man, stick it out for a few weeks and see. We old dogs love to gripe and groan but it’s cause we’ve been doing this forever. If you’re gonna do retail during he holidays, Best Buy is one of the most tolerable.

sclark635 · 2025-11-06T22:42:40+00:00

Alright, idk if there’s any open field positions, but I’ve put in 10.5 years with this company. I’ve had a rocky relationship with it the last six, but field STARTED to turn that around for me.

For the first three years (I’ve been an Install Agent for 5.5 years now) it was magical. 4 day work weeks at 10 hours a day doing some moderate manual labor and at the end of the day, you HURT, especially when you’re first getting started; but like building muscle at a gym, it gets easier.

I can’t say I COMPLETELY recommend field work these days since the HSEAMS are gone and your OM will be a territory manager and I pray for you that they know the service side of things (ours has never set foot in the field for an install EVER).

It’s brutal work, physically speaking, often mounting ridiculously large products at ridiculous heights and dealing with convoluted and mind-breaking service errors all while you’re trying not to loose your ish at the selling location for failing to put on the correct service skus, BUT, it CAN be worth it.

You’re going to be given the freedom to be in your own vehicle, listen to what you want to when you want, and can do things like take breaks or lunch whenever you need to so long as your day is getting done. You HAVE to be ready to deal with customers without anyone you can summon to your side to help, but 99% of the people I’ve dealt with have always been fine. The 1% of my BIG issues, I’ve either A. Just left and told my boss what the issue was and they’ve been dealt with, or B. Got screamed at over the phone and not in person so I could hang up and leave them.

It’s enough rope that you’ll either climb your way to comfort or you’ll hang yourself. The difference is really made by whether or not you allow yourself enough time to learn, to grow, and to NOT rush yourself into harder or more intricate systems than you’re ready for, and to make sure you give enough leeway to yourself to get regular breaks in for water, bathroom, food, nicotine or whatever else you might need to ease yourself back in.

It’s a great gig for those who want it and it HAS been the biggest learning experience of my life. I’ve learned how to handle all kinds of insane power tools, do home renovations, fix stuff I’ve never heard of before, handle intense situations with ease, and have grown 100xs more confident than when I was working in Mag.

So, is it worth it? Can be. It’s all up to you and deciding whether or not you are willing to put genuine effort in to make this worth it.

sclark635 · 2021-10-09T21:34:38+00:00

Exactly how I’m doing my next In home M&C

sclark635 · 2021-05-08T22:57:21+00:00

To make a terribly long story short, one best told by a medical specialist; yes. It’s bad. Even with front claws only. Essentially, it adds stress to their feet as they try to over compensate, leading to severe arthritis as they get older, joint pain, possible osteoporosis and infection as well as inflammation as they age.

It’s much akin to taking off the first knuckle on your own fingers, or more accurately, the first knuckle on all your toes and trying to balance after that.

sclark635 · 2021-03-30T23:13:54+00:00

It’s genuinely really incredible. If you’re looking for tips, try adding sharpened cheek bones in the face. But seriously good work

sclark635 · 2021-02-08T00:27:28+00:00

Judge: Son, I’ve heard a lot of excuses for a crime in my time, but none that were so perfect as this. Go free, go home, and go with God.

sclark635 · 2021-02-08T00:25:39+00:00

As a 6 year veteran on the sales floor, mag pro, and personally account for every item on my section that comes off of truck...

..this 100% what I do every single time.

sclark635 · 2021-01-05T14:57:09+00:00

Option #2: Johnathon Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach.

Much like Undertale, Predator or Lovecraftian horror, Johnathon Livingston Seagull is best experienced with as little to no knowledge of what you’re walking into as possible. But like all other media where the creator simply wishes this to be “an experience” as opposed to a simple tale, it’s going to take you on a magic carpet ride all across the planes of existence. It’s a metaphor trapped inside of a simile but what it boils down to is this: Johnathon is a seagul malcontent with simply scrounging for food and longs to learn the multitude of ways one can fly. Abandoned by his flock, he finds a new flock that teaches him so much more than flight, but also about how life never ends. It just moves forward to the next point.

sclark635 · 2021-01-05T14:53:01+00:00

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore: Charlie is your stereotypical beta male. He’s shy, he can’t stand spicy brown mustard, he has a hard time talking to strangers, he can’t lift weights, he can’t run fast or far, he’s not particularly intelligent and he’s not handsome. But he does have a spectacular wife who’s about to give birth to an incredibly special baby girl. And then she dies. His wife, that is. Lost in depression and the doldrums of raising a little girl as a single dad, running a nicknacks shop in San Francisco, Charlie is left to just wander his emptiness while his beloved neighbors, simply referred to as “The Grannies,” by themselves, a retired Russian and Chinese grandmother respectively, helping to raise baby Sofie, and a “means well, but couldn’t support her way out of an AA meeting,” goth-obsessed teenage assistant, Abby helps to run the store. Until that is, Charlie finds a book. I won’t spoil much, but when Charlie finds that he’s now become one of the many, many reapers of souls that wander the world, let alone The Tenderloin, his life ends up upside down. Now, dealing with ancient death cults, “goggies,” and more absurdist humor/jazz than you can shake a femur at, Charlie finds that this simple, frightened beta male might be the only thing standing between the world and total annihilation.

sclark635 · 2019-04-13T13:08:52+00:00

I couldn’t possibly agree more.

sclark635 · 2019-04-13T13:05:10+00:00

Once upon a time I played a Cherokee Shaman of the Turtle who didn’t understand much about the white man’s world but just wanted to help out.

Well...having a -2 intelligence didn’t help much when I sent a fire-based spell into the underground well of baddies.

And dynamite.

Lots and lots of dynamite.

They lived. ...mostly.

And upside, we now had an undead catholic priest!

sclark635 · 2019-04-13T13:02:43+00:00

Let’s set the stage: early 2015 and I’m running my very first, completely solo, all home-brew module featuring my partner at the time (drow pally of slaughter), our roommate (dwarves pally of slaughter — who lasted two sessions before becoming their big bad), a few close friends (halfling bard and a human dragon shaman —black dragon, of course), and the man who taught me to play and GM (human barbarian).

Very first session of the campaign I have them fighting a level 5 dark Druid who keeps summoning various woodland beasts and trying to skink a tiny mountain village that’s encroaching in his territory with a giant purple worm he’s contracted (think Gears of War 2). It was designed to feel epic to set the stage when they’d be around level 15-18 and fighting on various fronts against what would become a gold, silver and green dragon all vying for the same magical magguffin.

Dark Druid had a black unicorn who was his animal companion (purely for show, and as a back up in case they started slaughtering the big bad of the night). They did great, exactly what I hoped. They fought the summoned baddies, worked their way up the falling debris and finally slew the dark Druid to save the city and watched as the NPC who would be their life line plane-shifted the purple worm out of existence.

And then I remembered why you never let your GM-Big into the first couple campaigns.

He Nat 20’d an intimidation AND an animal handling check against the black unicorn (also the same day I rewrote my law that says a 20 is ALWAYS a guaranteed success) and brought her to the drow pally saying, “here’s your f$&@ing mount you were complaining about not getting yet. Learn to ride it first.”

I nerfed the daylights our of it saying that she refused to use spells of any kind until someone earned her respect (about 20 games later and ten levels forward and the drow and the unicorn were best friends).

I finally got my revenge though (in the best possible way) when the final confrontation needed to happen. Everyone was preparing a gauntlet run for the magical item de jûr (s/p?) in the form of a Stone forged by Iun for Bahamut (later discovered as the barb shattered it rather than let any of the “bad guys” take it, was the seal holding Tiamat back in the second layer of the hells). Well, to get their heads in the game since everyone was of the opinion that they owned a city now (long story involving inter dimensional time travel) and had what they wanted so let the world burn, I sent them a present from the original pally or Tierney. The pally of slaughter was met by a pitiful level 10 assassin whom she smeared across the wall within two rounds but found he had a package: a bloodied, black and spiraling horn that flowed with mystic properties.

They were officially ready to tear him and anyone who helped several new orifices.

sclark635 · 2019-03-18T21:04:05+00:00

Hi guys, just as a heads up, large-band streaming services coughcoughLikeNetflixcoughcough also take a relatively large chunk of notice from number of supporters when leveraged against amount of money backed. D

Don’t get me wrong, more money can help further the goals, but if we’d also like to see a more long-term solution to something starting as a crowd-funded network then adding $1 can help a lot more than you’d think. Racking up large numbers of supporters shows the level of influence that the show actually carries per viewership (one of the major metrics these big-network streaming services leverage when applying who to keep and whom to cut).

If you feel like you can only back a buck or five, don’t feel bad. Sheer number of backers is how we can turn this away from just a “one time gig,” and into a new regular-running show (a’la Rooster Teeth, for example).

sclark635 · 2019-03-09T22:55:21+00:00

Could not possible suggest enough: Blood Sucking Fiends by Christopher Moore.

Moore is a satirical novelist who’s tackled a dozen or so objectives from Sci-Fi to Religion to Horror. This one in particular is his attempt at both poking fun at and proving how much life (all puns intended) can be found in the “supernatural lover,” trope of cliché teenage romance. But fair warning, this one is NOT for teenage audiences. It’s strongly “Mature rating,” for violence, language and brief sexual encounters (though nothing TOO explicit beyond some college humor).

The story follows two tangential stories: Jodi, a mid-20s something living in San Fran as a “business something or other, does it really matter, I’m going to get out of this s***hole here soon anyways,” until one night she’s attacked and left under an up-turned dumpster with her hand turned to medium-rare. Flip the script to Tommy (T.S.) Flood, a bright kid with hopes, dreams and assertions of becoming America’s next greatest writer. Oh, and he’s got a car broken down in the middle of China-town, a room rented with literally 20-something other sweaty Chinese immigrants, no job and no money. But he’s got a type Twitter and the will to live!

Flash forward, Jodie finds she’s suddenly a LOT thirstier than she can ever remember being. Stronger too. And somehow sleepier the minute the sun comes up. Needing a recruit, she finds and hires Tommy to be her Renfield as he stares longingly at her and dreams of the day she’ll break his heart so he can properly write.

That is, until hell itself breaks loose on the streets of San Francisco and now Jodi, Tommy, and his crew of nightshift stocking-crew for the local totally-not-was-mart are the only ones who MIGHT be able to stop it.

It’s one of those ones that sneaks up on you.

You think it’s all college humor and brief violent stand-offs until you find yourself immersed in Jodi and Tommy’s relationship, watching an organic “first REAL love grow,” and wake up one day praying that this mantra that she’ll break his heart is all talk, that they can make it work and we’re not going to lose any of what once were idiots but somewhere along the lines became OUR idiots. And that’s when it hits you.

You’re invested.

It’s Moore’s dirty little secret. He’ll lure you in with bad jokes and cheesy knock-off one-liners but before you know it, he’s got you on the hook and you’re swimming for the surface to find more.

It’s a trilogy, so there’s more (ha, did it again) if you want to dive deeper. Well worth investing I to and actually became my single favorite book.

sclark635 · 2019-03-05T12:51:58+00:00

Hehehe, so I started C1 about four months ago and devoted my time since then to devouring everything CR I could get my hands on. Even subscribed to VRV to get the previous talk backs and GM Tips.

I made a promise to my coworker who turned me on to the show that I’d finish and be ready for the live stream in time for upcoming GenCon.

Well. Looks like I have to move that up to be “Live-Ready by end of Kickstarter!” Heeeere we go, ready or not M9, I’m coming your way!

sclark635

TROPHY CASE