Oh, it's him again. You've been warned about this guy multiple times, both by veteran employees of the Day Shift and your Manager. His routine mainly consists of loitering around the station's premises, digging through the garbage for leftovers, harassing whoever he encounters with his wayward loony ramblings and using whatever money he has scrounged up to buy cheap booze and tic-tacs (For hygiene, he says) from Gas-Way. Management has attempted many times to call police on him but to no avail. No officer really wants to come out all the way to Nowhere just to stop one drunk homeless dude anyway.
The only mystery about him is how he manages to survive each night in Nowhere.
You can usually find him hanging around near the Dumpsters or the Back of the Gas-Way, either tending to his one-eyed cat, drinking himself to a stupor or drawing strange indecipherable chalk drawings on the wall.
The man chiefly responsible for Gas-Way's expansion into Nosuch County and your boss. No-nonsense, strict and puts customer satisfaction over employee safety first. He mainly only observes the Day Shifts, however. He leaves control of the night shifts under the supervision of his assistant managers. Dismisses all rumors about the anomalous activities in Gas-Way as hallucinations from prolonged isolation. You have to wonder what laundry he keeps behind that saccharine smile of his.
Physical Description: Standing at 5'10", Cletus is not particularly imposing. He is the product of a healthy diet consisting of beer and beef jerky, almost exclusively. Portly, unkempt and shrouded in odor that could make a person suddenly lose their sense of location, Cletus is certainly impressionable when you first meet him. With a wardrobe that includes overalls, 1 of 2 shirts that he rotates around during the week and a cap, it's not hard to recognize this man from a distance. He almost always looks the same as he did the day, the month, the year before.
Applied Position: Pump Attendant
BUCKET LIST
REASON FOR EMPLOYMENT: In Cletus' words: "The beer ain't gonna pay for itself." Not exactly a go-getter, the man took a job at the gas station because no one else wanted him. Despite his efforts in various interview processes to educate his potential employers about government conspiracies including, but not limited to, mind controlling nano bots that are injected into your blood when you vaccinate, how Mark Zuckerberg is actually a member of the Reptilian race and Facebook is his way of creating an index of all living humans, and how ghosts aren't really dead people (just flashes of other humans living in a parallel dimension), it always somehow resulted in him getting passed over or quickly terminated. That was until he came to Gas-Way.
BUDGETING: Cletus' expenditures all involve the 3 B's; Beer, Beef Jerky and Boobs. Despite his dashing appearance and suave charm, Ol' Clete has never been accused of being a ladies man. Instead, his courtship of the fairer sex often involves poles and dollar bills.
LIKES: The 3 B's explained above as well as NASCAR, InfoWars and cat videos
DISLIKES: "Funny Folk", the Illuminati, Reptilians and taxes
TRINKETS: One multi-tool that he keeps in his side pocket, one wrench that he has secured in a loop on his overalls and a nudey magazine rolled up and tucked in his back pocket.
BACKGROUND CHECK
With 2 years out of 4 of a high school education under his belt, Cletus' professional resume is largely undocumented. Realizing he could not sustain a living by solely changing buddies' brakes in their driveway or fixing broken lawn mowers, Cletus branched out to various mechanic shops. While his work was on point, his personality was not which always left him back out on the streets within weeks. Finally he found a home at the Gas-Way where he was kept mostly away from people, telling his stories of impending invasion to the pumps and the refuse.
SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Mechanically Savvy > Put him in front of a computer and Cletus is destined to go crosseyed. Bring him a beater that won't start and he'll have her purring within a week.
Simple, but Obedient > Cletus knows he's not a leader and while he's also not very self motivated, he will perform the tasks he is assigned, typically without question.
Emotionally Impervious > Criticize him, insult him, degrade his station... Cletus, like the honey badger, don't care. His short attention span and lack of empathy makes him emotionally invincible.
Paranoid > Cletus will converse with anyone and, yet, trust no one. Willing to believe any conspiracy theory presented to him, the good ol' boy delights in the mistrust of society and denounces anything that sounds suspiciously like malarkey such as science, the government and glutens.
Physical Description: July is a tall glass of water that upon being ordered to the table is revealed to be poured straight from a warm tap, served with no ice, and in a dirty plastic cup with a bug drowning just below the meniscus. His dark brown hair is trimmed down on the side but wavy and wild on the top, catching in the breeze when not shoved flat under a wool knit cap. His skin tone is reminiscent of mildew, and his smile is tightlipped for a reason. He has some scruff on his face, but it’s less of a five o’clock shadow and more of a midday shade. July dresses in snug, black clothing, regularly paints his fingernails black, and bristles when people call the eye makeup he wears “guyliner”. The only splash of color is the red Gas Way cashier vest he wears, often with the wrong name tag. Despite looking mostly like he has just been exhumed, July’s brown eyes are large, lively, and warm. Plus, there just seems to be a general air of chipperness around him.
Applied Position: Cashier
BUCKET LIST
REASON FOR EMPLOYMENT: Why, society gave July so much that he felt like it was his time to give a little back. After all, who would be there for any other reason outside of altruism and a dream to peddle Pabst Blue Ribbons to teens with fake IDs and fight the spread of botulism in long-haul truckers by replacing the old hotdogs every other shift? Surely, July wouldn’t get a job just because his mom threatened to kick him out of the basement if he didn’t have one. Likewise, July most certainly would be able to get a job in a place more exciting than Nowhere with all of his past work experience that doesn’t exist. Yeah, believe him when he says that he just chose the spot because he liked looking out over the Expanse and its expansiveness.
BUDGETING: First he pays the government for the pleasure of working for the man, then he pays his mom for the pleasure of not being homeless because of the woman. Then there is his car loan for his sick, nasty, totally tricked out, forty mpg on the highway, broken six CD changer in the trunk, matte white 2006 Honda Civic. After that a majority of the rest is put into July’s avant-garde project that is very, very, very important to the future of music, film, art, and humanity itself. Whatever is left is broken down into American Spirits, Four Lokos, and McDoubles.
LIKES:
Artists (such as himself).
Experimental music that is more challenging or interesting than actually enjoyable.
Thought provoking films that are either pointlessly meandering along and end abruptly or ruthlessly jump between unrelated segments of visual dread.
Debating for the sake of debate, but really just to prove people wrong.
Telling tall tales, spinning long yarns, general bullshitting.
Being a voice of reason.
DISLIKES:
Posers (such as himself).
His individualism and creativity slowly being crushed by the reality that neither might actually exist.
Customers and coworkers who won’t engage him in meaningless hypotheticals.
Being proven wrong, especially when he is wrong.
Literally just about anything else anybody likes solely because they like it and therefore it must be lowest common denominator bullshit.
Being the only voice of reason.
TRINKETS: July is armed with a weapon of mass destruction: the Polaroid Camera. One bad photo is all it takes to ruin someone’s perfectly good day. July claims his Polaroid doesn’t just print instant photos. In his hands, the Polaroid Camera can capture a moment so embarassing or a look so unflattering that it practically shreds the subject’s soul. Okay, really it just gets their dumb photo put up on July’s Wall of Shame in the breakroom where his muses will forever be subjugated to torture/light teasing until management takes them down.
July is defended by the most nano-y of iPods. The bitesize device is reinforced with nearly two whole gigabytes of music so obscure that he sometimes forgets that he had ever heard of them in the first place. The wall of sound that emits from his large, chunky headphones shields him from the terrifying sounds of things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately, July has recently invested in a speaker dock so he can subjugate his coworkers and customers to the terrifying sounds of his music taste, often bumping it throughout the night.
BACKGROUND CHECK
July Welch's latest occupation is listed as an Artist and, yes, he did capitalize and bold it in his application. Technically he still is one since he is currently exhibiting a performance art piece titled The Life of an Abject Failure. The piece was incubating inside of him for several years before fully becoming realized this fall. Before art, July was a Musician. Fittingly enough, his music career died on his 27th birthday because he had to sell his guitar and his keyboard to pay his mom rent. The woman failed to realize that she had just cost her son his dream, much like his ex-bandmates failed to realize that the funeral doom genre was just too commercial and drone was where the music was at. After that, July has listed Independent Film Actor, Independent Filmmaker, Independent Film Critic, Essayist, Author, and Student (GED) in that order.
SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
The Quickest Study in the Pacific Northwest ► Despite being an absolute utter failure of a human being, July isn’t useless. He’s actually rather fast on the pick up and easily learns almost anything after being shown it once. This can be something as utterly benign as how to properly wrap the microwaveable sandwiches or unjam the cash register with a Slim Jim to life (and more importantly, job) saving like properly using the AED paddles on someone who actually ate the personal pizza or remembering to burn sage at the start of every shift.
Actually, There is a River in Egypt Named Denial ► July claims to be a master of many things, but just about the only thing he is actually any good at is lying. The first part of being good at lying is to never get caught, and the easiest way to never get caught is to never admit it. It’s impossible to be certain when July crosses the point of speaking frankly and from the heart to joking and spouting out complete and utter bullshit. Convincing people to believe what he says can actually be quite powerful, although it’s also just as difficult to tell if July is telling the truth. Still, it’s probably for the best to believe him when he says tulpas do not exist.
The Tempter of the Norns, or, Telling Dracula “Suck It, Vampires Aren’t Real” ► Look, it’s fun and all to pretend that Bigfoot ate out of the dumpster or that the drifter yelling at the moon is the Wolfman, but c’mon, July isn’t an idiot. Everything, and he means everything, about the night shift at Gas Way can easily be debunked with logic. July intends to prove this to his coworkers, and so he’ll happily go tell the drunk guy shuffling around in the parking lot moaning to beat it or go check out whatever the hell was that noise coming from the Behind.
"The laws of chivalry are very strict on this matter..."
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Adaline de Beaumont
Gender: Female
Age: 23
Physical Description: Perpetually covered in grime and spots of cleaning solution, Ada somehow manages to look heroic despite her self-styled haircut. Tall enough to be a reasonable goalkeeper, Ada is built like a competitive climber and if she wasn't so busy chasing down the Holy Grail she'd make a great recruit for a budding NCAA Division I Women's Basketball team.
Unconcerned with fashion, Ada wears a rotating number of Gas-Way Custodial Staff Overalls (tm) regardless of whether she is on or off the clock.
Applied Position: Stock Clerk
BUCKET LIST
REASON FOR EMPLOYMENT: Ada freely offers that she applied for a job at Gas-Way Express Co as part of her quest to find the Holy Grail. She further elaborates that a wielding a mop is not all that different from wielding a sword, so her job at Gas Way Express Co allows her to keep her knightly skills sharp.
BUDGETING: Having taken a sacred vow to forswear material possessions Ada has a remarkable talent for donating her pay check in record time or spending her hard-earned cash on others. Beyond supporting a nearby children's hockey team, called the Landsharks, Ada claims to be bankrolling a minor chapter of Hospitaller knights in Poland engaged in an endless conflict against the forces of the undead. Lacking any disposable or discretionary income following her acts of charity, Ada lives with her brother Roger and his seven interdimensional cats.
LIKES: - Quests - Quests for the Holy Grail - Tea - Cleaning and Cleaning Solutions - Honour with a u - Shelves - Lifting things onto shelves
DISLIKES: - Cowardice - Dirt - Injustice - People who spill slushy drinks - Waffles without the appropriate amount of strawberries
TRINKETS: In her civilian life, Ada keeps a sharp sword sheathed on her hip at all times. However, aware that Management would be less than pleased to see an employee armed with a sword, Ada has reluctantly taken to hiding her sword in the Dry Goods section of the Stockrooms before the start of her shift. Discreetly retrieving it when she clocks out, she has thus far avoided undue attention. When asked, Ada happily explains that she received the sword from some lady she met in a lake many years ago.
BACKGROUND CHECK
Written entirely in medieval French, Ada's application to Gas Way and her CV betray a remarkable talent for cursive and writing with a feathered pen. Through judicious use of Google Translate, it appears that prior to her career as a professional knight and custodial engineer, Ada completed a two-year vocational degree in chemical engineering at the nearby Galahad Technical High School. A native of the small town of Camelot, location unknown, in her application Ada mentions being recommended by one, Sir William Marshal, to apply for a position within the honorable Gas-Way Express Company.
Since her hiring, Ada has been a model employee and despite frequent unfortunate incidents entirely outside of her control, the floors have never looked so clean. With hygiene in mind and the flow of stock, Management has elected to ignore that Ada's habit of engaging in long sword duels with imaginary beings, her frequent conversations with long dead knights about matters of chivalry, and her steadfast belief that she is a knight-errant tasked by King Arthur himself with finding the Holy Grail.
The stock room is a fiefdom of its own and few pay any great attention to the mysterious stock clerks that navigate the labyrinth of passages dedicated to frozen and dry goods.
SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Cleaning Chemist ► A true student of the craft of cleaning, Ada has not just mastered the way of the broom, mop, and bucket, but also learned how to combine the endless number of cleaning solutions that Management gives her into new, far more deadly concoctions capable of melting an entire Panzer IV in three minutes or less.
Hardihood ► Physically resilient and gifted with an aptitude for medieval warfare, Ada sees herself as the epitome of a medieval knight. Warrior, bathroom stall poet, and scholar of discarded magazines, Ada does her best to live her life as if the current year is 1228 and she's getting ready to fight in the War of the Lombards.
Martial Arms ► Convinced that ability with a sword is the height of civilization, Ada spends much of her free time practicing with her trusty sword and an assorted collection of medieval weapons she is rumored to keep hidden in the Stockrooms.
Chivalric Code ► A proud knight-errant, Ada lives her life by the chivalric code as laid forth in the Livre de Chevalerie by Geoffroi de Charny. As such she is unwavering in her dedication to the principles it dictates. In her unceasing conflict with the giant rats of the Stockrooms, this has caused occasional difficulties when Ada has insisted that the vermin be allowed the right to trial by combat.
Edited Code of Chivalry scribbled on a Gas-Way receipt that Ada keeps in her pocket:
To fear God clean the gas station and maintain His Church the spotlessness of the floors To serve the liege lordGas-Way in valour and faith To protect the weak and defenceless especially from the giant Stockroom rats To give succour to widows and orphans To refrain from the wanton giving of offence To live by honour and for glory To despise pecuniary reward To fight for the welfare of all employees and customers To obey those placed in authority management positions To guard the honour of fellow knights Gas-Way employees To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit To keep faith and the shelves well-stocked At all times to speak the truth To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun To respect the honour of women Never to refuse a challenge from an equal Never to turn the back upon a foe
Physical Description: When The Night Shift starts, Rory comes in looking almost exactly the same every time. A solid color button up shirt, buttoned all the way to the top and tucked into a pair of matching pants, all tied together with immaculately well-kept belt and shoes, usually being either shiny black or brown leather, whichever would clash less. No matter what color he wears, it always seems to match perfectly with his necklace, one of the few things that never changes about his outfits. Well, something about it changes, but no one can ever tell what exactly. After all, colors clashing is never an option for someone of such an esteemed leadership role.
Along with his well kept clothing and accessories, even his personal hygiene is impeccable. A normally shaggy mess of orangish-red hair is always professionally styled, slick with expensive hair pomade and always smelling of something pleasant. Pale in some spots and pink in others, even Rory’s skin is well kept, always seeming to feel unbelievably smooth and babysoft. Or, if you prefer your men to feel more like a football that’s seen just too much summer sun, it can feel like that, too.
By the end of the night shift, his appearance of complete elegance is usually a bit rougher. Shirt wrinkled and half hanging out of his pants, hair loosely hanging in front of his eyes and over his ears, everything seems to have been ruined a little bit. But, for some reason, it still works? None of it really works to ruin his aura of confidence or perfect corporate leadership.
Applied Position: Assistant Manager
BUCKET LIST
REASON FOR EMPLOYMENT: After losing his last job in such an unprofessional, absolutely embarrassing fashion, not many places would accept him as their employee. Having a secret, passionate relationship with a subordinate is a huge no-no in the service industry, and a no-no you don’t usually get to live down. Gas-Way was literally his last option to find a new job, and either they didn’t bother to call previous employers, or they just didn’t care, so he got hired. Rory’s not complaining. At least he finally has a job.
BUDGETING: First things first, all of Rory’s most important costs of living are covered when the check rolls in. Once his lights are kept on, all of his money is thrown hand over fist on trying to find a dominatrix willing to finally treat him like the disgusting animal he really is. At least, it would be, if the bastards would ever accept it. What started out originally as simple pleasure seeking has morphed into a strange sort of obsession. Why does everyone he hires refuse to demean him? It’s been so long since he’s tasted the sweet sting of a leather bullwhip on his buttocks, or the miserably delectable burn of hot wax dripped on his bare chest. It’s driven him nearly mad, and he’s ended up saving up a respectable amount of money since all of his potential Sirs or Madams refuse to take money from such a nice, upstanding young man.
LIKES:
Being Insulted, Struck, or hurt in any possible sort of way
Disrespect from his subordinates
The threat of being killed
Horrible junky drinks and snacks
Most music, so long as it’s played loud enough to hurt his ears a bit
Power
Pleasing Others
Cats, because they’re wee furry dickheads
DISLIKES:
People constantly treating him with kindness
All the Dominants in his life refusing to mistreat him
Most movies in general, except action movies and smutty erotic films
Talking about politics
Dogs, because they’re too nice
TRINKETS: No matter the day, week or month, Rory can always be spotted wearing an effortless, lustrous necklace of fancy, chunky chainlinks. Even being that he wears it everyday, and just about everyone at the Gas-Way has seen it, no one can ever agree what color it is. No one ever really pays mind to the fact that it seemingly changes colors to match Rory’s outfit, as they’re too caught up in complimenting him on how well the necklace brings his whole ensemble together. Really, anytime he wears his chain, which is everyday by the way, Rory’s coworkers seem to respond positively not just to his appearance, but to most of everything he does, much to Rory’s dismay.
Little do they all know, Rory’s chain actually doubles as a literal choker. With a hoop and fob in the back, whoever wants to can just pull the fob and start constricting the life out of him, but, alas, no one ever does. Instead of strangling the man to near death, as he would hope, they usually spend the Shift either complimenting him or simply enjoying his company, much to Rory’s intense dismay.
There’s just something lovable about him, ya know?
BACKGROUND CHECK
After getting his degree, the allure of service industry leadership had fully enraptured Rory’s attention. With a heart for the customer and an award-winning smile, Rory was bound to go far. His only mistake, though, was not realizing that being this good at his job meant he’d receive very little in the way of insults, disrespect, or even constructive criticism. It was even worse then he could’ve ever imagined, everyone loved him. It didn’t make any sense, no matter how hard he tried to upset the customers, insult his bosses or anger his co-workers, nothing seemed to matter. It was almost as if they literally couldn’t hear anything he said if it was anything other than cordial and comforting.
It was absolute bullshit. Rory didn’t give a fuck about the customer, workplace satisfaction or any of that nonsense. He didn’t get into the service industry for some bullshit “rewarding job experience” or “life skills that he would value for years to come” or any of that horseshit. Rory got into the service industry because he was lied to. He was told that it was a constant barrage of Karens and Kyles screaming deliciously obscene insults in his face for even the most minor of mistakes. He was told he would be stuck in a miserable concrete shithole with other downtrodden deadends and dropouts that would hate him as much as they hated themselves. Where was the bullying, the harassment? He couldn’t even get punched if he was standing in the middle of the Black Friday stampede. Everything that could go right did, and it drove him mad.
He even went so far as to make up a lie just to get fired from BigBox Corps. Even after he fabricated his confession to having an inappropriate relationship with one of his younger subordinates, they almost didn’t even punish him. And when they asked Ricardo if it was all true, the young man was eager to corroborate the whole story, seemingly honored that Rory would even entertain the idea of sleeping with him. The plan was working out even better than he wanted, but it still took three days and a few more embellished details about steamy rendezvous in the breakroom to finally get them to fire him. One of his bosses even broke into tears as he signed the termination letter. Even in success, Rory could derive not even an ounce of satisfaction.
It was all absolute bullshit.
SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS
Natural Leader ► Whether it’s the strange aura that follows him, or his God-Given skills, Rory has a keen ability to think through problems quickly and intuitively, placing his subordinates in the places where their strengths would lend themselves the most. He’s an easy person to put trust in, and when he tells someone what to do, they usually agree that it’s the best decision or that it will net the best results in the long run.
Natural People Pleaser ► Due to his strange curse of sorts, there are certain things people will never hear Rory say. If he tries to say anything even mildly negative or critical of another person, they plain won’t hear it. It will be as if Rory said nothing at all. It can sometimes lead to strange pauses in conversation, and can be especially awkward when Rory can’t think of anything nice to say in a particular situation. Oddly enough, the only time anyone ever heard Rory say anything negative is when someone surprised him by yanking the tab on his necklace back and choking him when he wasn’t expecting it.
