Kerry McGuire

DumBeautiful.

newyorkfromthebottom:

Duane Reade Training Manual

Welcome to Duane Reade! We’re excited you decided to join our dynamic and exciting company! We know that you are excited too, and ready to bring your energy, enthusiasm and intelligence to your work here at New York’s finest Drug Store. This manual has everything and anything that you need to know to be a member of our Duane Reade team.

What should I do first?

First thing’s first, get that excitement out of you. Shake off your joie de vive. Reach deep down inside yourself to find the well of despair and anger that resides there and pull it to the surface. Now you’re a Duane Reade employee, unhappy, angry, and other types of angry. Don’t have attitude? Well, get some Sister/Brother! People want to know that you have a beef with life.

What should I wear?

You will be issued an official Duane Reade polo shirt. This is your uniform, and you are expected to wear it with a plain pair of khakis during all your shifts at Duane Reade, New York’s finest Drug Store. It is your responsibility to make sure that you are wearing your uniform during all of your shifts. It is also your responsibility to make sure said polo shirt is never laundered. We repeat: It is also your responsibility to make sure that said polo shirt is never laundered. You might be a neat-nick outside of work, but at Duane Reade you are expected to be crusty and somewhat smelly. What should you do if your shirt is accidentally washed? Take the initiative! Throw it on the subway tracks, climb down, get it and put it on! NOW you look like a proper Duane Reade employee.

How should I handle customer service?

Before we can talk about customer service, we have to talk about the long and extended conversations that you must be having with your co-workers at all times. Talk about your kids, your pets, your boyfriend/girlfriend whom you hate. Now, never, I repeat never, let a customer interrupt your conversation. Make them wait until you are done discussing whatever you need to discuss before you ring them up/tell them what aisle the hemorrhoid cream is in. The customer should always know that whatever you’re talking about is more important than whatever they need. They’re in Duane Reade! They expect to wait!

What time do we close?

This is very important. Our customers depend on knowing what time we’ll be open until. So the answer is: whenever we choose. We want to teach our customers a lesson in the dangers of procrastination. If the sign on the door says the store is open to 6pm, stop letting anyone in at 5:40. Twenty minutes is barely even a unit of time, and we can’t be bothered to help people who show up for tampons a mere third of an hour before closing time. Don’t let them in. In fact, if you ever want to decide to close the store, do it. We should teach our customers a lesson about the ephemeral nature of life and they can only learn that lesson by knowing that Duane Reade might not be open even though they say that they are going to be.

Am I read now?

You are! Go out and sell some over the counter medicine and toiletries! You are now a part of Duane Reade, New York’s finest Drug Store. If you have any more questions about what your should be doing or how you can be a good employee, just remember our motto: A Duane Reade employee always does less.

Now go out and do it!

PS: We now sell homebrew. Why? I don’t know!!!!!!!!!!!

chrisgriswold:

The only potential danger of the new #UCB office.

Chris! Just say no! They’re not burgers, they’re just squares of grilled cat food on a square bun!

newyorkfromthebottom:

On the corner of 28^th and 7^th Avenue, someone threw out Spring.

Whomever owned these beautiful branches of cherry blossoms decided they didn’t want them or need them, or whatever- and threw them away in the corner trashcan. It’s at the edge of the flower district, so it was probably a flower merchant who decided they were unsalable and didn’t want to tote them around anymore. This beauty, this sign of spring, life, growth, went right in the garbage, and the city moved on. People piled their own trash on top of the flowers. Starbucks cups, pizza plates, plastic bags, the flotsam of city life was piled high of the pink blossoms. And the garbage, too, was a sign of life. We’re outside, we’re on the streets, we’re enjoying our city, one of the greatest cities in the world. And it’s Spring.
NYC Forever.