Using a few more Bits loaned from Twilight, I get Misty Dale to recreate the Barnyard Bargains employee collar design into a full shirt, including material used, and I even have some money left over so I have her stitch a ‘name tag’ into the front. I check it out in the mirror that she has, and I wear the shirt well enough. I originally wanted the tag on my breast, but Misty Dale pointed out that would put it a ways higher than pony eye-level, so I agreed to having her move it to my abdominal area, but I still keep it to the side.
“That looks pretty good on you, Anthony.”
I nod and flex a bit. At least it’s got short sleeves so it’s not hard to move in, but... “Vertical stripes aren’t my thing, though I guess it’s not bad.”
“Well, if you ever find a problem with it later, I can fix it up for you.” Misty says, a big smile on her face.
“Yeah, I’ll let you know if I need it. Hope this is the look that Rich had in mind.” I say giving a few more stretching flexes to double check what sorts of movement I have in it.
Again, Misty takes a few moments without response. Maybe it’s not really a hero-worship thing and she just personally finds me attractive. I guess it’s not a problem as long as she can stay mostly professional. I stop and give a small cough and she snaps back. “Oh. Uh, I’m not sure. I’ve never actually gone to that big store before. I don’t have a lot of shopping I need to do aside from supplies, and they don’t carry fabrics.”
I nod. “Well, if there’s a problem, I’m sure I’ll find out sooner rather than later. Thanks a bunch, Misty.”
“Feel free to come by anytime!” She says, waving me out the door looking a little more chipper. Reminds me of a phrase I heard a while ago, but was generally said about women. Hate to see her leave, but love to watch her walk away. I can recall a few nice-looking ladies I knew in the before-time that could fit that description. Certainly nobody of that sort around now.
Alright, back to work mindset. Gotta make this look good. Man, I really should have gotten a haircut. Getting long enough to become bushy. At least my hair never falls into my eyes.
I make my way over to Barnyard bargains and take a breath before I walk in. Moving down a few aisles, I search for Cliff Racer. Though while I’m a bit early, I think, I should familiarize myself with the area. Now that I’m actually wandering around properly though, I realize my equating it to a Seven-Eleven was really inaccurate. With the way the shelves, displays and islands are set up... it mostly reminds me of a slightly fancier Trader Joe’s. Not sure how I didn’t make that connection before but... yeah, it’s really similar now that I’m paying attention and have the comparisons in mind.
Trader Joe’s always had a good selection of cheese, maybe I can find some havarti here. I’ll have to find out later. I round a corner and just down the way from where I turned into I identify Cliff Racer by his reddish-peach coat. One more breath and I approach. He notices me before I get too close, probably because I’m hard to miss given my relative height. He shifts his wings a bit and moves to help close the distance. He looks like the type who takes his job seriously but so far I haven’t gotten any ‘hardass’ vibes from him. “Hello, Sir. I’m here for my evaluation.”
“Yep. Well, you’re five minutes early, but that’s not a big deal. It’s pretty slow, so I can start you now. What do you already know about this job?”
“I’m going to be stocking shelves, taking inventory, and probably moving merchandise.” I state simply and hopefully I sound professional enough.
“That’s a good, quick and dirty way to say it.” He says with an accepting brief loll of his head. “And you’ve done this before?”
“Yessir, but only as training. The position I was going to take ended up getting filled before I finished training.” I want to gauge how he’d react to that.
He gives a sort of shrug with his wings. “Won’t have that problem here, if you do well. Not many ponies around here are interested in anything more ‘city’ than the taxi service. Anyways, we do have some stuff that needs to be put on shelves. Mr. Rich said I should leave most of it undone and ready for you, give you a harder time than your actual first day would probably be like and see how you handle that.”
“I’ll give it the old college try.” I say and Cliff raises an eyebrow.
“You been to college?”
I shake my head. “Oh, sorry, it’s an expression. I meant I’ll do my best.”
“Well, that’s what we’re expecting to see.” Cliff grins a bit. “You look like you’ll do alright if you ask me, but we’ll see if I’m right about that.”
We get to a stack of unsorted merchandise on a metal trolley cart. Basically a kid’s wagon but larger and deeper. He grabs the handle in his teeth and pulls it a bit as an example then instructing me to do the same. I look at it for a bit and for the briefest of moments I consider how I could grip it in my teeth before realizing that’s stupid. I grab the handle and pull it along behind me. It’s a little difficult with all the stuff on it, but it’s certainly possible. I move it all the way to the end of the aisle and stop for Cliff’s evaluation.
“I’m not sure what I was expecting you to do, certainly not that, but I can’t argue with results and .That works pretty well.”
I shrug. “I get the feeling you’ll be thinking that for a while.”
“Same here. Alright kid, let’s actually get this merchandise where it needs to go.” I take the handle again and he leads me down to the aisle the stuff needs to go in. I look in the cart and the closest things to me at the top is a few jars of pickles. Not very big ones, but that’s not what I’m here to judge. I look along the aisle and find a spot with other pickle jars. I bend over a bit to grab one from the cart and start turning it over in my hands a few times.
“...Okay, I’ll bite. Whatcha doing there?” Cliff asks.
“Checking it for cracks or dents or whatever, make sure it’s not leaking or damaged.” I say. “Pretty standard practice.”
He pauses. “Well, yeah but... those hands you got there are weird, it’s like you do everything we do but... not our way. Guess I’m just not used to it. Keep going ...and nice initiative.”
I nod and check each jar before putting them up on the shelf. It’s not too short, so there’s not a big issue here. I get to the next item group and keep going. There are some boxes of what look to be some sort of wafer-cracker-thing and they apparently go on the top shelf. Those are a breeze since it’s right at shoulder height and I don’t have to bend at all.
I do notice that, while there are brand labels on lots of things, there’s not a whole lot of variety. Only one kind of this, only one kind of that, occasionally I find different brands of a given product, but never more than three. Speaking of labels, I notice a few cans already stocked are angled a bit off. “Hold on, I need to face these.” I say and Cliff nods. I go on with grabbing them and rotating them in place so they all show the labels properly and are moved to the front of the shelf. Doesn’t take much more than some quick work from my wrist and Cliff, again, looks interested.
“You know, you make all that look so easy. Usually gotta use wings for that, it’s why most of us Rich hired are pegasi.” He gets on his hind legs and flaps his wings to lift himself off the floor to get up to where I’m facing and he faces a few other jars at the top. I decide to show off by casually grabbing and turning the jar he’d be getting to next and then doing the same to the next jar over, finishing the ‘row’. “Wow, kid. I figured it’d be hard to do all that with a bunch of tinier hooves on the end of yer forelegs.”
“Fingers are pretty useful.” I state as I move the cart over to where the next batch of stuff needs setting up. Cliff just nods.
I move down and... ah shit. Here’s where my looking good stops. The very bottom shelf. I’m definitely gonna have to kneel down. Ah well... I get down on my knees and grab the can of whatever with one hand, ferry it to my other, and place it on the shelf. Even like this I have to keep my arm low, but at least I don’t have to flatten out or anything.
“Okay, now that looks uncomfortable.” Cliff notes.
“Kinda.” I say. “Probably gonna be worse if I have to stay like this but hey, it’s not supposed to be easy, right?”
“Right.” Cliff continues watching as I keep grabbing and bucket-brigading the cans into place from the cart. The floor is wood so it’s a little uncomfortable on my knees, but it's definitely better than I remember linoleum being so it’s not Hell. I keep this going until I’ve finally managed to get everything in the cart stocked and faced, and it takes quite a while.
My back isn’t hurting at all, but it has certainly noticed my bending more than usual. Living with ponies and their tiny doorways and such has basically given me a permanent slouch, but I need to start bending at my knees more or I’ll develop a hunch or something.
“Alright, Anthony. That’s some good work. Hope you aren’t tired though because now we have some bulk bags to move.” Cliff says. “Transporting them is the easy part, at least.” he takes me to a big burlap sack of rice or some other grain. “Just move it into the cart.”
Then I get an idea. “Just a question, where is this going?”
“Right over there.” He gestures to an island where I see some similar bags displayed. “This can take a while since the cart can only carry one bag at a time and they can get heavy.”
“Only one at a time, even with the cart...” I think out loud. “Hey, Cliff. Is it absolutely required by store policy that employees have to move these bulk bags in a cart, or are we allowed to carry them by ourselves?”
He gives me an odd look. “Well, no. We’ve had some of our Earth ponies try to carry a bag on their backs, but they can’t do it alone since they need somepony to load it up onto them. The cart’s just the easiest way.”
“Alright. No guarantees this’ll work but I’ll give it a try.” I say as I crouch down, grab a bag and carefully heft it onto my shoulder and use that to bear the weight. I carry it along on my shoulder and curl up my arm to keep it in place as I walk over to the island. Since it’s grain, it may as well be just like I did with rabbit feed bags a long time ago. All I gotta do is make sure I don’t move too fast and lose my balance from being so lopsided. I get to the island pretty easily though and I carefully shift it to my arms and then into place. A bit of shifting from there and I’ve got it settled in with the bags already there and I walk back to Cliff. “How was that, sir? Is it alright that I do that?”
He looks at me like I pushed over a metro bus with my bare hands but resets back to his business face quickly. “...I’d probably have to ask Mr. Rich about it just in case but... I uh... I don’t see any problems with it. That was quick.”
I shrug. “It'd be a lot easier if I carried two at once simply so I’d have some ballast, but if your policy is only one at a time...”
“Two at once.” He mutters before shaking his head. “You’re something else, alright.”
I shrug. “Eh, it helps that my skeletal structure and musculature is evolved to perform tasks with a bipedal stance in mind, which facilitates-”
“Slow down, there, kid. I don’t really care how ya do it, at least I don’t care enough to hear all the fancy science behind it. But if you can just keep doing that, I don’t think I need to care.”
“Yeah, I can keep doing it, not a problem. Are there more that need doing?”
Cliff nods. “Yeah... just a few bags of oats over there.” He points to a different pair of burlap sacks near just aside of where the one I just moved had been. “They go to that raised circle spot with the sign just left of the front door.”
“Island left of entrance, got it.” It takes a little bit of difficulty but once I have bags on both shoulders and I don’t have to worry about losing balance from weight disparity, I feel comfortable with moving. I move on and get up to the front where the cashier mare gets a disbelieving look on her face upon seeing me come up with both bags of oats. I give her a nod in passing and with a touch more difficulty I get both bags down carefully at the pedestal with a sign sticking up that said OATS and I return once the bags are properly settled.
Cliff smirks in approval. “Well, even if we don’t take you on full-time, it looks like we can at least use you if one of our carts breaks.”
“Good to know I’m roughly equivalent to a simple machine.” I snark. “So what’s next?”
“Some more carts worth of regular merchandise and then... that’s about it. I’d say after that, I just need to get you familiar with what stuff goes where. I’ll lead you around for now until you got it.”
“Yeah, alright.” I agree.
A few hours later, I’m all done with everything they had for me and... okay, now I feel like I could use a sit-down. Really running out of steam in my legs, and my arms argue if I try raising them up past my torso. Whoooooo. But I think I retained most of the memorization tour, at least I didn’t have to carry or pull anything during that.
“Great job, there.” Cliff praises. “If I’m being totally honest, I’d say Mr. Rich would have to be a bit strange if he passed up on you. We gave you a bigger workload than a regular employee and you got it all done.”
“Thanks... but I think I’m ready to go home now.” I admit. “I may have pushed myself a bit harder than is healthy for one day.”
“And you know what, I believe you completely.” Cliff says. “You’re really something. Maybe I’m starting to get why so many ponies around town talk you up as much as they do.”
“At least if I ever run out of chances to be the town monster-fighter, folks can still find some use for me, eh?” I snark. “Well thanks for the votes of confidence sir, but if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to head home and not move for the next eighteen hours.”
Cliff chuckles. “I’d say you’ve earned it. I look forward to working with you, Anthony.”
We share a fist/hoof bump, which works way better than a handshake, and he gives me leave. I give a small wave to the cashier as I pass and she returns it along with her usual smile. I’ll learn other employees’ names eventually but for now I’m ready to find a nice comfortable corner to lay down in and liquefy.
The walk back to the library isn’t painful, but it definitely gets me close to it by the time I reach the door. Boy, what a day...
“Hello, Anthony. How did your tryout go?” I move over and sit myself down in a chair before answering Twilight’s question. It’s still too small for me but at this point, I don’t mind nearly as much.
“Great things were accomplished...” I state, taking the chance to slump back and stretch my legs out.
“That’s good to hear!” She replies happily. “I’m glad it went well. I was wondering if you’d put much thought into my suggestion earlier.”
I can’t remember jack shit about any conversations I might have had before. “Which suggestion?”
“Of me trying that spell on you.” she clarifies.
“Completely slipped my mind... tell you what, if nothing comes up for me to do tomorrow, eh, the day after tomorrow, we can give it a try.”
Twilight nods. “That’s easy enough. I’ll put it in my schedule. Also, you look like you could use something to eat. I think there’s some food left over from when Spike made lunch earlier.”
I sigh and close my eyes before deciding that I probably should eat. I should also make it a point to remember to eat before going in to work in the future. I give myself a few more minutes before I push myself up to get to the kitchen. There’s still a sandwich and a half on the counter and I grab them. It doesn’t occur to think what kind of sandwiches they are until I’m already eating, and thankfully it seems to be some form of egg salad. If they were those gross daisy-based sandwiches Twi likes, I’d probably just spit it out and trash the rest.
I finish the half-sandwich and take the whole one back up to my room with me. Guess there’s another good thing about all this. If I really did put in twice a normal pony’s work today and I only have to shoulder a fraction of today’s effort from here on out, then by the end of any future workday I should only be half as tired as I am now. If it pays well, then I have nothing to really complain about. I also note how absurdly lucky it is for me, that the very first job I applied for is such a good fit for me. Shit like that never happens. That, and at this point I feel like I’m owed at least this much of a break... I’m just surprised I got the break. Unless it turns out that the job actually pays really shit. I’m not expecting that to be the case but I’m not going to be fully surprised if that's how it turns out. Always a grey cloud with the silver lining.