cut and paste fun, originally Wed. 11 July

Alright, as I figure I'll want to tell all of you about my first day at my new job at some point, and as I also figure that if today is any indication I'm going to be comatose whenever I'm not on somebody's clock, I'm going to multitask (a word I have decided today that I loathe deeply) and write it all out while (supposedly) guarding the library basement from fiends.
I knew that going from jobs at a bookstore and a university library to a pharmacy/convenience store retail environment would be a drop of some kind in the, shall we say, intellectual calibre of my colleagues. But never have I been more disheartened than I was on finding that the note on the breakroom cupboard read "No one store is to use anything in store unless approoed by manager." At least, I was never more disheartened until I turned around and found that the corporate company newsletter had twice as many mistakes in the opening paragraph. I can get past this, I told myself, being a grammar nazi is no way to endear myself to my co-workers.
Photo lab training was minimal, as today was shipment day, and all of the regular cashiers were putting up stock. As a result, I know next to nothing about the 15 or so photo orders I "helped" with today, and I know even less about most of the people who share my shift. However this is compensated for in the fact that it seems I am shortly going to be well acquainted with all the brands and types of cigarettes, and will no longer have to ask the customer to just point to the one they want. Why are there three different kinds of Marlboro lights, in varying sizes, colors, and packaging? And why did every person who purchased them look at me archly and ask, "you don't smoke, do you?" I didn't even get that kind of condescension from literary snobs at the bookstore!
As a side note, CVS claims on every piece of training material they threw at me to promote giving their customers "A Longer, Healthier, Happier Life." I find this to be completely at odds with the fact that I'm selling cigarettes and alcohol ALL DAY LONG. Maybe someone's getting happier because of it, but I suspect they just want to make sure they've hooked their customers into a lifetime of trekking to the back of the store for prescriptions to correct the lung and liver failure, and for diet pills to counteract all the chocolate they cram into the front aisles.
I don't mean to be a snob here, I understand that all those non-English speaking construction workers today have 70 times more money than I do, and I can't be picky about someone willing to pay me, but there was a reason I applied to work in the photo lab and not as a regular cashier. I don't mind helping out, but I doubt being able to grab the correct box of Parliament Ultra Smooth blindfolded is going to turn out to be a majorly marketable skill.