Work Stories: Episode 72: Scanners

Previously on Work Stories, I wrote about a taxi driver who got out of his car to take a selfie in the middle of the street.  That was a few weeks ago.  I’ve been slacking off with the Work Stories.  I know that.  You’re probably disappointed that I haven’t been writing these more often in the past few months.  Oh well.  It happened.  I can’t undo that lack of effort on my part.  All I can do is give you some Work Stories.  So how about we get down to a new one?  I think it’s damn well about time I gave you one.

Obviously I’m going to go to the museum that I currently work at because it’s the place with most of the stories of weird people and things.  If I want to give you guys a story, I’m going to likely pull it from that job because of how many odd things I’ve seen there.  I hardly go a day there without seeing something that makes my jaw drop.

When you pay money to go inside the museum, you get handed a ticket.  You then have to scan the ticket to unlock a turnstile which you will then walk through.  It’s a pretty simple procedure that many people do not understand.  They often try to scan the ticket in the wrong place or don’t even scan it whatsoever.  It always ends with them walking into the turnstile, it not moving, and them glaring at me because I didn’t unlock it for them.  Not that I can make the turnstile move anyway.  If they scanned the ticket properly, then the turnstile would unlock.  It’s their own fault for not listening to me when I explained what to do.

Sometimes things get a little bit odder when it comes to people trying to get into the museum.  There are the people that don’t listen and end up walking into an unmoving object.  Then there are people who listen, but don’t completely understand what you say and end up trying to do something so strange that I tilt my head and raise an eyebrow in bewilderment.

Here’s what I tell the people.  “Here’s your ticket.  There is a barcode right here on it.  You scan it under that little black box” *point at box* “and then walk through the turnstile.”  It’s simple.  You take the ticket.  You scan it under the scanner.  You hear the turnstile unlock.  You walk through.  At least, I think that’s fairly easy to comprehend.  Alas…

I had this one guy a few weeks back.  He came up and bought a ticket from me.  Obviously.  I mean, my job is to sell tickets to people.  I handed him a ticket and explained the black box to him.  He walks out of the entrance area and into the lobby.  I thought that he was going to take some pictures in the lobby before going in.  A lot of people do that because they don’t know where the exit is.  They think they will never find our lobby again, so they have to take their pictures while they still can.  Okay.  Whatever.  Take your pictures.  This guy wasn’t taking pictures.

There are four television screens in our lobby.  The guy walked over to the screens and began waving his tickets around in front of the screens.  For a few seconds I was confused.  Then I realized that the guy thought the televisions were the black box I had told him to scan his ticket at.  The guy was trying to scan his tickets at a television.  After nothing happened, he looked at me.  I walked over to the scanner and tapped on it.  He walked over, scanned his ticket, and went inside.

Never before had I seen someone so misguided on where to scan their ticket.  I’ve seen them try the wrong part of the scanner, or the turnstile.  I had never seen someone walk out of their way to the television screens to scan their ticket.  It was a truly astonishing sight.

That’s it for this week’s Work Story.  I’m not going to guarantee anything about future installments.  I’ll try to get something up, but I don’t know if I’ll actually get around to it.  I’ve tried promising before and didn’t post any.  There will be another one at some point though.  You can count on that.

Until then, you raped my sister, you murdered her, you killed her children.