The Absolute Strangest Dream

OK, last night I had this dream that completely weirded me out.

I’m sleeping late on Christmas morning (one of the few days my store is completely closed) and my phone goes nuts with the text alerts so I pick it up off my bedside table and I’ve got four texts, one each from the top four managers at my store, two words:

Broken Arrow

Piss on coleslaw. In my company the "Broken Arrow" call is about a serious as they come, meaning get the hell to the store right the frak now something huge and always bad has happened that is more important than anything else in the world right now. The only acceptable excuses for not showing up ASAP after one of these pages involves a call to your Facility Manager from the White House or your own mortician. Seriously. In my five years as a manager we’ve only had one at my store, and that was pretty bad. A sprinkler pipe broke and flooded the store the day before inventory. Fortunately that only resulted in a fourteen hour day for me and the other managers.

So I pull into the parking lot, and there are like ten fire engines at the store, or more accurately, at the smoking pile of rubble where my store used to be. Oh my. So we wait for the Corporate Emergency Response Team to arrive while we make our plans and figure out which of the hourlies we’ll need long term for clean-up, which ones we can find positions for at the surrounding stores, and who we will have to lay off until we re-open.

Cut to the next day, we’re all waiting in the parking lot for the first wave of employees to show up, and when they do we have a meeting with them, letting each of them know what the plan is and what part they will play in it. Of course there is much sadness, crying, some wailing, people collapsing, etc. So, like an idiot, I look around, find Carla and TreeSap, take their hands and walk over to the flag pole. We stand there, holding hands, facing the crowd and I start croaking out "Welcome Christmas" from "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas". You know the song:

Fah-who for-aze! Dah-who dor-aze!
Welcome Christmas, come this way!
Fah-who for-aze! Dah-who dor-aze!
Welcome Christmas, Christmas Day!

Welcome, welcome! Fah who rahmus!
Welcome, welcome! Dah who dahmus!
Christmas Day is in our grasp!
So long as we have hands to clasp!

TreeSap and Carla both have kids so they can kind of mumble along with me, and strange as it sounds, the other managers and hourly employees gradually stopped the crying and yelling and we formed this huge circle around the flag pole swaying back and forth and singing "Welcome Christmas" just like all the Whos down in Who-ville.

And then I woke up. I swear to you I have not been drinking. I just hope this was just a weird dream and not some sort of portent, as has been known to present itself to me in the past. The only thing I can think of that might have prompted this (or at least my choice of music) is the Glee Christmas episode which aired a few days ago. I hope that’s all it was.

Of course it could also be a sign that I’m going to be stressed as long as I work there no matter what position I’m in. After all, it came without customers. It came without freight. It came without inventory, registers, or dates.

And I’m going to bed now before everything starts to rhyme…