“… but what he does have is a particular set of skills…”
above are pictures of two men. One is Rick Grimes, ex sheriff turned post end of the world throat biting, machete swinging, six gun shootin’ bad ass. Next to him…is an assistant manager at a Walmart. Given the choice of who to lead your team of survivors in a walking dead world, most of you would pick Rick…and you would end up miserable and eventually probably dead. If you are a black guy your odds of survival drop way off, and if you are a blonde female, forget it, you are as good as worm food. I can only imagine the snotty blonde cheerleader who gave the writers such a brush off so harshly years and years ago that each season they have some blonde ( or several) die a horrible death. Hey, guys…you are big time TV writers now, you can get all the blondes you want, in fact if dating a blonde won’t ease the past sins of hot blondes , you could probably even kill one or two and just pay to make the whole incident go away.
Back to my point. Does the Walmart assistant manager have any fire arms training? probably not. has he dealt with violence on a regular basis ? probably not. I could throw a joke in here about him having dealt with slow moving , dim witted , moaning , smelly shells of humanity on a regular basis, but that is not what I am getting at.
Let’s just break down what he learns / does as middle management in a retail store. First off, he knows where everybody is and what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t like you manager circling your desk every time you step out for a minute? Well guess what, in the Walking Dead World that guy is going to end up saving your ass from being kidnapped and having your leg eaten off.
Second, he has to train employees. Not just on using a cash register, or pricing gun, but on what seem to be formalities in our current safe world. You know when you get hired at some big company the first day is “training” which includes watching a bunch of asinine videos like “the walmart way” or “welcome to the Target family” or “so you are part of the K-mart team!”, these are propaganda mixed in with protocols…some of them protocols in the event of …whatever. For instance, making sure everyone knows where all the EXISTS ARE IN CASE THERE IS A FIRE, OR SOME REASON YOU WOULD HAVE TO EVACUATE THE BUILDING. Not only does he make sure everyone knows how to get out, he makes sure everyone knows where the MEET UP POINT IS! A MEET UP POINT RICK! A place where everyone goes to after an evacuation for a head count, to make sure everyone is out and safe. Ah fire drills…what a silly waste of time, why would we need to all go to one place after we exist the building? This annoying middle management exercise…let’s all count the times, THAT would have come in handy. If ole’ Rick had bothered to do what even a middle management cog in the Wal mart store chain knows to do, give everyone the meet up point, A few miles down the road maybe. How many deaths, how much misery, how much time wasting could have been avoided if instead of Rick, they had a Walmart assistant manager as their leader?
Another useful thing the other guys knows and usually has one video on is “in the event of an injury” you know… BASIC FIRST AID, and letting people know WHERE THE FIRST AID KIT IS…AND MAKING SURE IT IS EASILY ACCESSIBLE. This saves you from say..dragging a 300 pound black guy AWAY from a clean sink and towels, into the woods, into your truck…and eventually into a grave. First aid Rick….after the doc got saved from a bite as few seasons ago it might have been a good idea to make sure everyone one you are around knows that procedure. That’s what the Walmart guy would do.
What else might the Walmart guy know…oh I know..where all the walmarts in the area are. Ah, but those would no doubt be picked over. More important than that though, he would know where the Walmart distribution centers are, and shipping hubs. Big nondescript concrete buildings that you would never suspect would be filled with FOOD, AND CLOTHES, AND BLANKETS AND TOOLS. He would also know where the employees hide their booze, and cigarettes. Anyone who has been in a walmart has probably noticed a drunk employee…well, they don’t just keep that in their back pocket. They stash it somewhere you wouldn’t think to inspect. One of those nit picky middle management types would know though, and then you would have alcohol…not just to drink, but to oh… clean out wounds.
But, lets just go back to the basics of managing. The manager would organize people, who is good at what, when will they do it, how long… so that every day isn’t some pointless random clusterf*ck full of arguing, people getting bent out of shape, lost, angry, or wandering off because they feel left out. Did I say “who is good at what”? Because figuring that out is the difference between going in with the right personnel, killing a few people and leaving the hospital with the blonde alive…and leaving Michone and a clearly bloodthirsty kid behind and instead attacking with a big black guy who doesn’t want to kill anyone and his dumbass sister…who is so stupid as to turn her back on a hostage.
Last but NOT least, an assistant manager hires people. That means he looks over job applications, and resumes and often has to weed out applicants and spot obvious exaggerations of qualifications of said applicants. Maybe if you have someone like that…YOU WOULDN’T HAVE MADE LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS BASED ON SOME ASSHOLE YOU NEVER SAW BEFORE WHO WHO IS DRESSED LIKE A BOWLING ALLEY ATTENDANT WHO IS CLAIMING TO BE A SCIENTIST CAPABLE OF CURING THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Call me foolish, but should a walking dead scenario come, while you are all looting the sporting good section of Walmart for guns you never shot before, maps you can’t read because you’ve been using GPS for the last ten years, and whatever else seems like a good idea as you run past it. I will be in the managers office trading him simple protection in exchange for his already well polished skill set and formulating a five year plan.
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