I am currently in the basement for the next 10 days or so. When I get back, or if I feel like breaking out the keyboard next week, I will finish up the Workin' for the Man! series. Until then...have a good hot weekend! (If you don't know what the basement is, you aren't listening to enough Jim Rome.) Im out.
To all of the women who read my blog that are Moms, I wish each and every one of your a Happy Mothers Day!
Especially to my dear Mother, who I put through a lot in my 30 years and 9 months on this planet. Thanks for everything Mom!
In fact, my Mom decided to write a blog about each of her children. I encourage you to go and read her blogs about me! You can find them here and here. Feel free to tell her what a pain it sounds like I was! :o)
Once again, Happy Mothers Day!
OK, here we go! Welcome back to my Workin’ for the Man! Series: The Mallrat years, Part 3B.
After gaining the ever so coveted “mall experience” from Eddie Bauer, I was very excited to start my job at The Gap. As much as I enjoyed working with an older mature group of people, I was stoked to go back to working with people more my own age. Also, as proud as I was to wear my Eddie Bauer name tag with my name engraved in it, there was something about The Gap name tag that was even better. For those of you who happen to live in a cave, have never been to a shopping mall, or both, this is what the tag looks like.
Notice how it is a small blue square with white letters that say G A P? That is all they need. This name tag was so cool, that I had a few of my cousins’ request that I get them a Gap name tag so they could stick it on their backpacks.
“But where can my name go?” You might ask yourself. Well, the simple answer is that your name is not important. No one there gives a crap what your name is! What is important is that you are wearing the latest Gap fashions, so the customers can get a good idea of how cool they would be too if they had on these clothes. But Donald, how on earth do the employees at the Gap afford all the latest clothing lines on their minimum wage salary?” The answer is simple. A killer discount of course!
The famed Gap discount was one of the main reasons that I wanted to become a part of The Gap team. Now E.B. had a 30 percent employee discount on everything in the store. That included both regular priced and sale items. One time there I had bought a jacket for 15 dollars that was 85 bucks regular price. I was happy with my discount, and on occasion, I would share it with my friends. But since this was more of an outdoor store, there weren’t too many time someone I knew would come in and want something. The Gap also had the same 30 percent discount on items. See a shirt on the sale rack for 99 cents? Take off .297 cents, and voila! You have a new shirt for .693 cents! But the comparisons ended there.
Every month, or every quarter (I can’t remember) you would get a card with special discounts on it. This is how all of those kids who work there can buy all the new things without having to resort to living off of government cheese. The card would allow you to buy 4 tops of any kind, and 4 bottoms of any kind at 50 percent off the regular price. It was like your own personal share of gold. I loved this card. I did not like to keep it on me, or in my wallet, for fear I would be help up at gun point, and have to give it up.
I loved being a Gap employee. I was getting some great clothes at some unbelievable prices. The only problem was the limited number of hours that were available to go around. On average, I would get between 10-15 hours a week if I was lucky. Why so few you may ask? It is because they had around 40 employees. Some of the employess would only have one 4 hour shift a week. Call me crazy, but it seems to me it would be a lot easier to have fewer employees, and give them more hours. It is because of this that I had to start another job. I might have still lived at my parent’s house, but I had credit card and car payments that had to be made.
I had heard that the information booth in the middle of the mall was hiring. I had a friend who worked there, and he would always tell me all of the fun he would have there. I decided to put my mall experience clout to work, and get myself the job. It ended up being a perfect fit. They were looking for someone to work around 15-20 hours a week. I was looking to work between 15-20 hours a week. It was a good match. I was hired, and after watching a video about how not to piss off customers, I was ready to rock and roll.
Working at the info booth was a lot of fun. We would have parents come up to have us page their hooligan children that had run off, and we had to check out wheelchairs to people. I also had more than one kid come to me and ask what time it was. In fact, I remember a conversation I had with one of these kids. It went something like this:
"Uh…um…I have a question”
“OK, I have an answer. How can I help you?”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Of course I do kid. There is a big thing in the middle of the mall right there called a clock. It tells me what time it is.”
“I know that’s a clock, but do you have one anywhere that has numbers instead of hands?”
“What is wrong with a clock that has hands?”
“Uh…um…dude…I don’t know what it says. So do you have a digital clock around here or not?”
“Nope, just that one right there kid. And if you can’t read it, well, you have problems I can’t help you with.”
“Can’t you just tell me what it says?”
“Yes, I could, but then you wouldn’t learn anything. I will show you how to tell time though.”
“I don’t have time for that, I would miss my bus.”
“Too late kid, it is twenty three past five, your bus left 5 minutes ago. You will have to wait.”
“Uh, OK. Bye dude.”
Part of me felt a little bad about two things. Number one, that I didn’t just tell the kid what time it is, and number two, that it was only 5:11, and if he ran he could catch the bus. But I didn’t feel bad for long. They obviously went over clocks in school still didn’t they? It’s not my fault he didn’t pay attention in school.
Then I went home that day and told my Mom about it. She then informs me that my little sister has no clue how to read an analog clock either! I guess they stopped teaching how to read analog clocks in school. Kind of like how they stopped making kids parallel park for their drivers’ test in California.
A fun thing that I liked to do when I was in the info booth was page people. While sitting there, I would see people walk through the mall that I knew from school, or other stores in the mall. When I would see them, I would get on the P.A. system, and make an announcement along these lines: “Attention mall guests! Could (put name of friend here) please make their way to the information booth in the middle of the mall. Your Mommy and Daddy are waiting for you.”
I always got a kick out of the person’s reaction to hearing their name blared over the P.A. system. Some would think it was hilarious. Well, the guys would think it was funny. The girls would then make their way up to see who they had to slap for announcing that they were in the mall shopping.
The best/worst part of working at the info booth was Mallperks. Mallperks was a dumb program that they created to entice people to shop at the mall. How it worked was you signed up for a free account. You would then bring your receipts up to the info booth, where the sales would be added up. For every dollar you spent before taxes, you received one point. These points would build up, and you could use your points for discounts at places in the mall, or you could use them to enter contests. This was my least favorite part of the job.
You would have people who would save about 3 months worth of receipts, and bring them to you all wadded up. They would stand there watching you close, making sure that you weren’t going to short change them in any way. I could always tell if someone was a smoker, because you could see how the paper had turned all yellowish colored from being carried around for weeks. I would have people who bring up a stack of receipts from Orange Julius that they had been saving. Nothing like entering 1.79 into the computer 29 times.
But this program also brought some fun into work. My co-worker Tyler and I set up our own Mallperks accounts, and would enter in obscene amounts of points. I believe that at one point we had over a million points combined. And those came in handy after I quit there, because I would go back and redeem the points for things.
The only thing about Mallperks that I liked was a contest that we had for it. For two weeks, every person that you signed up for Mallperks, you would receive one dollar in mall gift certificate money. This was before gift debit cards, and you actually received a printed out check that you could use in the mall. I would always tell people that if you went down to Mark’s Hallmark and buy a pack of gum; they would give you the rest back in cash. I would also tell them to avoid The Bon, because they would try to give you a Bon gift certificate for change instead of cash.
To borrow a phrase from my favorite book as a kid, I set my great brain and my money loving heart to work. During that contest, I would flag down anyone who came within 10 feet of my booth, and have them fill out a Mallperks registration. When people would tell me they didn’t have time, I would ask them if I could have their name and number, and I would fill out the paperwork. Anybody from school that I even remotely knew I would get their phone number and sign them up too. In the end, I signed up 258 people. The mall gift certificate machine would only print the certificates for up to 50 dollars, so I had a stack of them. And for the next few days, I would go into Mark’s Hallmark, buy a pack of gum, and get the 49.75 back in change to spend anywhere that I wanted too. Much like when I was younger, I found a way to make an easy buck and exploited it.
Now, back to The Gap. I had been working there for about 3 months when friends and family started to make their way into the store and see that I worked there. That is when the trouble came. It started innocently enough. A cousin or friend would come in, and admire a shirt. I would proceed to tell them how I had a great discount, and if they gave me the money, I would buy it for them. I didn’t think too much of it. After all, it was just one shirt here, one pair of shorts there. Soon though, just about every day I was buying something for someone else. I liked the feeling that I was helping others get the good deals that I had. I justified it buy telling myself that the company is still making money, which they were. But my bosses didn’t quite see it that way.
One day I get to work to start my shift. I am out on the floor for about 5 minutes, when I am called to the back room. Sitting there with the store manager is the district manager. I had no idea what it was all about. Maybe it was performance review time, and it took two of them. But just like when I was working at Hubby’s, I had misjudged the situation.
They sat me down, and almost immediately the interrogation was on. About the only things missing were the two way mirror, and the bright light in my face. She started off by saying, “On May 6th, you purchased a pair of dark khaki shorts, size 42. Then, three days later, you purchased the same pair of shorts, but this time in size 34. Then, on June 2nd, you bought a size small white button up oxford shirt. Three days later, you purchased the same shirt, but this time in size XL long….
They had about 3 pages printed off of all the purchases I had made. And while about 75 percent of them were things for me, the other 25 percent were not. They tried to get me to say that I had used my discount for other people; I countered that I was a giving person, and I was buying gifts for people. I had some great excuses lined up for most of the offenses they had down, but at one point, I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
I had to stop the madness. I told the two ladies that if the point to all of this was to fire me, then I was quiting.
My manager says to me, “You can’t quit. We are firing you.”
I replied with, “You have not mentioned anything about being fired; all you have done is try to accuse me of abusing my discount. I don’t like that you are doing that, so I quit!”
“No Don, you are fired. When you leave this back room, just leave. You don’t have to work your shift today.”
“Of course I am not working my shift lady! I just quit. Why would I work a shift at a job that I just quit?
This went back and forth a few more times. I think The Gap wrote down that I was fired, but I stood by my quitting first. The word “quit” escaped my lips before the word “fired” escaped theirs. Game. Set. Match. Donald wins. I walked out of the back room, said goodbye to my co-workers, and headed down to get a Cinabon.
Now that I had only one job, I decided to ask Simon malls for more money, and some more hours. The girl that was hired with me had just quit, and instead of hiring someone else on, they gave me her hours. And I even received a .25 cent raise. It was nice to have only one job again, and not have to juggle schedules. But there was a strange wind about to blow through the mall….and it was on a collision course with me.
Since I worked the most hours in the info booth, I had things running the way I liked them. My boss did not care in the least, as long as the customer was happy. And then my boss up and quit. I was really bummed, because I had good chemistry with her. I wish that I could say the same for the lady who took her place.
She was also LDS, and expecting her first child. Her and her husband had moved here from either Idaho or Utah. And she drove me insane. Now, I knew that working in the info booth wasn’t the most prestigious job in the mall, but it was one of the more entertaining. And other than having on my Mallperks shirt and a pair of khakis, there wasn’t really a dress code either. They didn’t even require a tucked in shirt, which appealed to me greatly. For some reason this annoyed the new lady. (I have chosen to leave her nameless. Last time I tried to name a boss I didn’t remember the name of; I chose a nice name for a mean person. I won’t make that mistake twice! ) The first thing she did was lay down a law saying that all shirts must be tucked. You had to go before her at the beginning of the shift for shirt inspection. I always looked nice for that, but as soon as I was in the booth, the shirt tails came out.
After about 2 months of working under her, I had had enough. I informed her that I was going to quit. And I was going to too, until they offered me more money. I decided for 6 bucks an hour that I could put up with her a little more. That “little more” lasted until the end of the month.
After I had threatened to quit, I knew that we could not co exist for much longer, so I went job hunting again. The mall was starting to wear on me. Not only did I work out there, but it seemed that I was out there every day off too. The allure of being a mall employee had worn off, and I wanted something different. So I went over to my Uncle Bill and my Cousin Bruce’s print shop to see if they had any use for me there. And as luck would have it, they were in need of someone to work in the bindery department. I promptly put in my two weeks at the information booth, and was getting ready to start a new job.
The last day of my job at the info booth was upon me. I went and clocked in for the last time. I had decided that since it was my last day, I was going to wear a pair of khaki shorts, and one of my nice Gap button up shirts. The day before I had gotten into an argument with my boss, and I could tell by the look on her face that she was still thinking about it.
As I approached her, she saw that not only did I have on non regulated information booth employee attire, but I also had my shirt tails out. In her most snotty tone, she told me that there was no way she was going to let me work without my Mallperks shirt on, and that I had to go home and change. I had had enough of her bull crap. I told her, “You know what lady? I am going to go home. But I am not coming back here. I am tired of you always harping on me and the other people here. Oh ya, and have fun working in the booth by yourself this morning. Good to know ya!”
I turned around to walk away, and she said something to me that just burned me up. She said, “Don, we are both Mormons, and you shouldn’t treat a fellow Mormon that way. You should be ashamed of yourself for acting this way.” WHAT??? A FELLOW MORMON??!!!?? What did that have to do with anything??? I told her, “Lady, I don’t care if you are Jewish, Catholic, Hindu, or a Devil Worshiper. Us both being Mormons has nothing to do with the situation. Don’t ever try to use our church as a means to get your way!” I then turned back around, and walked out.
The mallrat years were at a close. The print shop boy years were about to begin. Stay tuned next week to part 4 of my Workin’ for the Man! Series: The Bindery Boy Years.
Thanks for reading, and have a good weekend!
***I did forget to talk about one other mall job that I have for about 3 months(Thanks for the reminder Mom!). It was at the Sunglass Hut. I was working there at the same time I was at The Gap and the information booth. In those 3 months, I learned more about sun glass frames and lenses then I ever thought possible. At about the two month mark, our manager transferred over to a position at Broadmoor Outlet Mall. The lady who was hired in his place was the weirdest person I ever worked for. Not weird in a sense like my boss at the info booth or even Ming Won at E.B. Weird as in me and every other employee was convinced that she was either high on cocaine, or had done so many drugs earlier in life that she had Ozzyfied herself.
This job did not end well for me. We had one week where employees were entitled to 50 percent off a pair of glasses. I bought myself a great pair of Maui Jim sunglasses. They had a 7 layer lens, and were a wonder of the sunglasses world. The last day of our sale, my manager came in to work, and instructed me to sell some sunglasses to this lady that had a temporary booth set up next to us. I asked my manager if I was supposed to be doing that. She acted very annoyed that I questioned what she was telling me. Against my better judgment, I did as I was told. The lady purchased 4 pairs of Revo glasses, and 2 pairs of Maui Jims'. She ended up saving over 500 dollars.
Two days later, I came into work, and my manager was there waiting for me. She looked like she had been on a 3 day Jim Beam and LSD binge. She came running up to me, and told me that I was in big trouble with the district manager for selling the glasses to that lady. She also said that the D.M. had plans to fire me, and possibly press charges. She said that I needed to quit, and lay low for awhile.
Now I was scared. I should have listened to my gut. I did what she said, and I quit. And about a week later, I found out more of the story from one of my old co workers. It turned out that our manager had a drug problem. Didn't see that one coming did you?? She had been caught by the assistant manager taking money out of the till, and selling glasses to people, and then filing stolen item reports. The whole reason that she had me sell those glasses to the lady that week was to try and cover up her misdeeds, but make me look like I was in on the missing items. She was fired, and had charges presses against her by the company. I heard a while later that she had left town, and hadn't been heard from again.
OK, now my mall career is covered. All four jobs at the mall are explained. Some moments there I do regret, and others, I don't regret them in any way. I had lived the dream. I was a mall employee.
OK, I left out a story from my Workin' for the Man! post about Eddie Bauer. It is the best story I have from there. I can't believe that I forgot to include it! So here goes.
As I stated before, I was working at Eddie Bauer as a seasonal employee for Christmas time. One day, who is to walk into my store, but the sportscaster that was well known in town, and is now on the morning show for KVEW, Mr. Kevin Uretsky.
Now, I had always half way enjoyed his sports casting. For a local hack, he wasn't that bad. He always seemed a little smug to me on the air, but I figured that it wasn't as bad as I thought. I mean after all, he is a LOCAL sportscaster. How cool can one of the local news guys think they really are anyways?
I received my answer about 5 seconds after he walked into my store. This man must have thought that there was a crowd of paparazzi following him into the mall. He came in with his shades on, and acted as if we should be giving him free duds just for walking through the door. I am not quite sure, but there is a good chance that he had some 5x7 glossy photos of himself pre-signed to hand out to any lady, and I mean ANY LADY that happened to look in his direction.
I approached him with a smile, and said, "Hey, how are things going today? Is there anything I can help you find?" The reply I received came with the tone of a king speaking to a lowly servant. "Probably not. Unless you know how to read minds." Now, I have encountered rude customers before, but this was pure arrogance. I continued. "Well, I am not a mind reader, but if there is something in the store that you are looking for, I am quite sure that I can find it for you." He then replied with: "Fine, if you insist on bothering me, I am looking for a present for my Mother. She lives in Florida, and her birthday is in a couple weeks." Now as you know, E.B. carries a large selection of winter wear at wintertime. After all, they are an outdoor store. Trying to joke with him, I said, "Well, if she lives in Florida, I won't direct you over to the parkas, since they won't do her any good."
Like I said, from dealing with customers in the past, I expected some sort of response to what I said along the lines of, "He he, yes you are right, a winter coat wouldn't suffice would it?" Followed by, "What would you suggest?" But that is not what came out of his pie hole. He said to me, in a rather angry tone, "Of course she doesn't want or even NEED a WINTER COAT! Did you not hear what I SAID? She lives in Florida! Why do YOU people ALWAYS try to sell things to me that I DON'T NEED!?!"
Now at that point, I had two options:
#1, Excuse myself, and go find someone else that might be able to help this fat, double chinned, angry, can't hack the big time TV stations so he stays here, conceited, in love with himself, fat, worthless chunk of an old pork rind of a customer, such as my manager,
~OR~
#2. Punch the fat, double chinned, angry, can't hack the big time TV stations so he stays here, conceited, in love with himself, fat, worthless chunk of an old pork rind of a customer right in the head.
Of course, since I valued my job, I begrudgingly chose option number 1. I turned to walk away, when right at that moment my manager Carol, whose husband was the sportscaster over at KEPR (The nice personable one who I would talk sports with) came over to help Mr. Uretsky. As soon as she came up, he morphed into a different person. He put a big warm smile on his face. It looked EXACTLY like the one that was on the TV every night at 5, 6 and 11. They walked off, and Carol helped him find a nice gift.
It made me think of that part in the movie Back to the Future, when Lorraine's Dad back in 1955 said about Marty, "The kid is an idiot, his Parents are probably idiots too." I do not know Mr. Uretsky's dear Mommy, but she did raise the jerk.
So that is why ever since the Winter of 1996, whenever I go to any high school sporting event, and I see Mr. Uretsky, the fat, double chinned, angry, can't hack the big time TV stations so he stays here, conceited, in love with himself, fat, worthless chunk of an old pork rind of a human being, I stand up, cup my hands to my mouth, and yell, "KEVIN URETSKY SUCKS!!!!" Or something to that effect. On more than one occasion I am sure he heard me. And yes, I know that 12 years is a long time to hold a grudge, but someone has to try and knock the pompous ass down a few notches.
So there you have it. My Kevin Uretsky story. May he rue the day he ever crossed my path. Happy Wednesday everyone.
To anyone that has tried to view my blog for the last day, I am sorry. I have no idea what happened. I had Lisa post my last blog, and it was up for a day. Then for some unexplained reason, something was not showing up. Music? Check. Links? Check. Book I am reading, and have finished reading? Check. Verbose warning? Check. Actual blog itself? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!!!
I think I have fixed it, but not before I changed my background and lost all of my sidebar stuff. And can anyone tell me why the little caution triangle in the bottom left hand corner shows up on my blog? I thought it would go away once I changed my background, but like some sort of virus, it just flares back up again.
Lisa and I get our backgrounds from the same web site, but she doesn't have the caution shield on her blog. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Oh yes, and be sure to check out my 3rd instalment of my Workin' for the Man! series if you haven't seen it already. And if you are new to my blog, you can click here and here for parts 1 and 2. Part 3b should come tomorrow!
Once again, sorry for the messed up blog!
Welcome back for part three of my Workin’ for the Man! Series: The Mallrat years. This part of the story cannot be told in one post. I worked four different jobs at the mall, and there is no way I can fit all of them here. So I guess you could say that this is part 3A.
After 3 separate stints over two years of working in the exciting and fast paced world of the Fast Food Industry, I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted to find the kind of job that wouldn’t leave my hands with a pickle and onion smell. A job that didn’t require an apron and non slip shoes sounded really nice. Maybe a job that had a food court nearby, so I could look back on my past, and see how much better I had it. What kind of job has all those elements? A job at the Mall of course!
I remember being a kid and going to the mall, and thinking how cool it would be to work there. I could be one of those guys at Foot Locker that dressed up like referees, or even work at Zumiez, which at the time I thought was the Mecca of all mall jobs.
Even though I had a good idea of where I wanted to work, I still went into every place that looked half way appealing. After getting about 27 applications, I headed home so I could start the process of filling them all out. Do you have any idea how long it takes to fill out that many applications? Trust me, it is very time consuming.
After about a week I had all the applications filled out. I dressed up in my Sunday best, and headed back out to the mall to turn them in. This is when the frustration set in. It seemed as if every place I went too, they gave me the same story about how they don’t need anyone right now, but they will be sure to file away my application for future consideration. Translation: We aren’t hiring, leave us alone, and your application is going in the trash.
But there was one store that was willing to take a chance on someone with no mall experience. It was a little store that was started in Seattle in the year 1920, and it went by the name of its founder. Eddie Bauer. And even though I took a pay cut to work there, it was at least a foot in the door of the mall world. After all, everyone knows that once you are in, you are pre qualified for any other job in the mall. You have “experience.”
I started work there in September of 1996, and was hired on as a seasonal employee. I soon found out that at a retail place, they are very big on you wearing their clothing. I remember once I had on a button up shirt, and they made me change out of it since it was a shirt that they were selling down at The Gap. I didn’t have time to run home, so I had to buy one. But it was because of working in this store I gained a love of clothing.
Before starting at Eddie Bauer, I was strictly a t shirt and shorts kind of guy. The only button up shirt I owned was my dress shirt. But the nice 30 percent discount I received help change all that. For the first time in my life I had access to high quality threads at reasonable prices. My closet went from weasel teenage boy to classy young adult in about 2 months. I was never one to think that clothes made the man, but this job changed that.
One problem that I ran into more than once while working at Eddie Bauer was the fact that I was now working with adults, and not kids. While at Burger King, the oldest person working there was 25. Crude language, juvenile practical jokes, and other nonsense were the norm. But it was way different there. First off, other than the guy that was hired with me (more about him later) I don’t think anyone was younger than 30. Most of them were in their late 30’s, early 40’s. Things like throwing hot pickle slices on someone’s neck, or letting a big gasser rip when you walk up front by the cashiers weren’t as funny to this crowd. On more than one occasion, my Manager pulled me aside to tell me that I needed to grow up. It is funny how when you are 19, you think that you are mature, but in someone else’s eyes, you are nothing but a kid.
I really loved working at Eddie Bauer. I worked with some great people, and some others that were not so great. All of the mangers were awesome to work for. One of them, Carol, was a lot of fun. Her husband Matt was the sportscaster over at KEPR at the time, and I liked talking sports with him when he would come in on occasion. The guy who ran the stock room, Louis, was really big into the band Phish, and was always playing their cd’s in the back room. And then there was Steve Landoni, who was hired at the same time I was.
Now, if you have ever read Amy’s blog, you might have seen the blog that she did about connections. It was about how all of these people that she knows, and how they are connected to other peoples she knows too. Steve fits into this nicely.
Not to rehash her entire blog entry, but I knew Amy from high school when she was dating my friend Shane. She always thought for some reason that she was older than I was, until at a football game I was able to convince her that I was in fact as old as she was. After Lisa moved into town, she and Amy were roommates for a while, and now Amy and her husband Jason are in our ward. Now that you have a little background on the matter, I will continue.
Like I said, Steve was hired at the same time as me. At first I pegged him as a serious guy, and I thought he was going to be a bore to work with. But that all changed in a matter of days. In fact, I think that Steve was my first sign that just because you were older, (well, keep in mind that he was 23 or 24, and to me that seemed old at the time) that didn’t mean you had to become a boring person. He was the one who taught me how to joke around at work, but make it look as though you were working. (Ha! It was a lesson that I still dwell upon to this day!) Whenever I came to work and he would be there too, I knew it was going to be a fun day.
Well, one day Amy came into the store. I said hi to her, and started to talk to her. At the same time Steve walked out, and was surprised that I knew his sister. She then in turn was surprised that I knew her brother.
On the other side of the employee spectrum, there was one of the most boring and rigid people that I have ever had to work with. Her name escapes me at the moment. Let’s just call her Ming Won. Ming Won was, or liked to think of herself as, the model Eddie Bauer employee. Once I asked her why the company didn’t donate slightly used clothing that was returned to the store instead of destroying it. She launched into this speech, that I have no doubt been rehearsed, in case some day she was approached about the subject, about how if Eddie Bauer was going to donate things, they would be new and of the highest quality. Because E.B. would not stoop so low as to donate used clothing. She really was a piece of work.
There was one time when we were closing up, and I had folded a pile of turtleneck long sleeve shirts. We were getting ready to head out the door, when she decided that she needed to do a walk through to make sure that everything was up to Eddie’s standards. She saw my pile of folded shirts, and called me over. She then went on to tell me that the folding job I did was below par, and that if Mr. Bauer were alive, he would fire me on the spot for such shoddy work. She then proceeded to knock the stack onto the ground, and had me redo them. When I finished, she still wasn’t satisfied. At that point, she didn’t think that I could do them the E.B. way, so she did them herself. And you know what? It didn’t look any different from mine.
Another thing Ming Won loved to do was talk about her car. It was not just a Ford Ranger; it was an Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Ranger. She loved to tell me that when you are a valued employee, you have the privilege of purchasing such high quality items such as her truck at a discount. Once I needed a ride home, and she offered to drive me. I remember thinking at the time that I would rather be having my old Hubby’s manager, wine cup and all, driving me home instead of this nut job. It was 10 of the most awkward minutes of my life. After the talk about her beloved truck died down, she started to tell me the proper procedure to shampoo your hair, and how the only way your hair gets clean is if you wash it twice. And while shampooing, you should only use a dime size of shampoo, and no more. I would have never thought that someone would have such a pitiful life that they would think shampoo talk was the way to pass the time.
By the time January rolled around, E.B. had to decide which seasonal employees were to stay on, and which ones had to go. I really wanted to stay on. Not just so I could keep my discount, but also because I really enjoyed working there. But alas, it was not to be. I was notified that I had until the end of the month to work there. I was sad, but I understood. I started to look for another job right away, and before too long, had another one lined up at The Gap.
Before I left, I had one more run in with Ming Won. It was my last night, and I was closing. When it came to my lunch break, I decided that I was going to take a little longer than my allotted 30 minutes. I was going to go on a farewell tour to the other stores I had made friends at. I ended up taking almost an hour off, and when I walked back in, Ming Won’s face was red. In fact, it was burning red; I didn’t think that it was possible for an Asian person’s face to turn that shade of red. As calmly as she could, she asked me to come to the back room.
When I got back there, she had a disciplinary form all filled out awaiting my signature. I had a strong feeling that she had it written out ever since the turtleneck episode, waiting for the right time to spring it on me. She went into this monologue about how disrespectful I was to the company, and how no one, not even the store manager, was entitled to almost an hour break. And while a part of me knew that I should respect her, and just sign the paper, and apologize, I just couldn’t do it. It was my last day after all, and I wasn’t going to sign anything. So instead, I laughed at her. Ming Won was not expecting this kind of reaction. I told her that there was no way she could get me to sign the paper. And when she wouldn’t let up about it, I decided to sign it. I wrote these letters in the signature line: D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K.
The anger inside her short round body exploded in my direction. She started to write up another sheet, but I just walked out of the back. I had another job lined up, and there was nothing this two bit assistant manager could do to derail it. And how do I know this? Because when I was in my interview for The Gap, they had asked me how on earth I could work in the same place as Ming Won. They weren’t fond of her either.
So that was the end of my E.B. career. Later on the next week I went into the store to talk to the store manager. She told me that everything was OK, and that she took everything Ming Won told her with a grain of salt. She thanked me for being a good employee, and told me that she wished she could have kept me on. And with that job behind me, I was ready for a new challenge, and a new discount. In fact, an even better discount than I had with Eddie Bauer.
That wraps up part 3A. Be on the lookout later this week for part 3B, “The Gap and the Problem with the Killer Discount.” Thanks for reading, and have a good day.
Welcome to the second part of my Workin’ for the Man! Series: The Fast Food Years. When we last met I went over my early years of money making. From my picking and selling fruit to the adventure that is working as a paper carrier, I did what a kid could to have a little spending money.
I was 16 years old when I severed ties with the Tri-City Herald. I had finally reached a point where I had enough. The one problem with having a paper route in the Tri City area is that you have to collect all the money yourself. I tried at one point to get everyone on my route to pay by mail, but most did not want to. They said that they didn’t want to have another bill to mail off each month. But looking back on it, what they really meant was that it is much easier to dodge a kid trying to get his money at the door then it is to dodge a company calling them up to get their money. You wouldn’t believe some of the stories I would hear from people because they didn’t have the $8.50 to pay me. From, “Oh, I don’t get paid till next Tuesday, not this Tuesday” to, “I had the money yesterday, but now I don’t.” Now I knew that the area I lived in wasn’t the most affluent area in Kennewick, but c’mon, you can’t afford 8 and some change?
Also, I pretty much had hit a wall. I felt that I had already climbed as high as a paper boy could go, and I was ready for my next challenge. So I stepped down. The route was never the same after I left. I would ride my bike down the old streets I delivered, and old customers would tell me how in the past 6 months, they had had 3 different carriers. It was hard for them to swallow after four year of dependable service.
But like I said, it was time to move on. For awhile I went back to selling baseball cards to neighborhood kids, or I would weed the occasional garden for someone. Then, in the spring of my junior year, I started my first real job. A job that I filled a W-2 form for. A job that had set work hours, and a time clock to punch. A job that I had to wear a pastry hat for. Yes, that is right; I worked at Hubby’s Pizza.
It was the spring of 1995, and I was ready to earn some REAL money. I am talking about minimum wage, 4.95 an hour money. Since Zips was not interested in me (after all, I wasn’t a high school drop out, a stoner, or pregnant, so I didn’t really have a shot there. You have to be at least 1 of those things to get hired on at Zips) I heard through the grapevine that Hubby’s was hiring. I went in for an interview, with my PBOY plaque in tow. Needless to say, they fell in love with my charm and hired me. It worked out great, because it was close enough for me to ride my bike to work in case I couldn’t catch a ride from my parents, and it wasn’t McDonald’s.
I started out working in the back washing dishes. After about two weeks, I was bumped up to pizza maker. Now, there are a couple things you need to know about Hubby’s. They aren’t the kind of pizza place where you see a guy toss the dough up in the air. They pre made all the dough circles earlier in the day. And they also made their own sauce. Not just anybody could make the sauce either. You had to be at least 17. Why at least 17 you ask? It was because the sauce had a special ingredient. Wine. Yup, that is right, a few cups of wine. And in the state of Washington, I guess that you have to be at least 17 to dispense wine into a glass. (In fact, the guy that was hired the same day as me was fired after a month, because while making the sauce, he was getting sauced.)
OK, getting back to me making pizzas. When I worked there, I believe that Hubby’s had about 13 specialty pizzas that you had to memorize. They sent me home with 5 by 7 cards that listed the names of the pizzas on them, and another set of cards with the ingredients of the pizza. I was not allowed to use these cards while I was making the pizzas, but I could sneak to the back room and look up on the board where they had them all listed. It didn’t take long until I had them all memorized.
I distinctly remember the first time I went to place a pizza in the 600 degree oven. I had the pizza in place on the wooden serving board, and I had to put it in the top oven in the number 2 position. That was the hardest place to put a pizza, since it was in the back of the oven, in the middle slot. You had to clear the pizzas in front of you, and not hit the ones on the sides. I was doing fine until I went to pull the board out from underneath the pie, when I felt a horrible burning sensation on the back of my arm. Yes, that is right; I touched my arm to the lip of the burning hot oven. I just about severed my co workers’ head off with that wooden plate. I dropped the plate, and twisted my arm around. It looked like a grill line on a Salisbury steak. And I was now christened an official pizza cook. I went on to do that 4 more times during my tenure there. I even still have a faint scar from one of those times.
I knew it was time to leave when one day I went out to start work at 4:58. I went downstairs, donned my apron and pastry hat, and went to go head upstairs for another night of fun and frivolity. As soon as I made it up the stairs and into the kitchen, my manager came over to see me. He wanted to talk to me downstairs. Not knowing what he wanted, I was thinking the best. He must want to tell me how proud he is of me and how he wants to give me a dime raise. I would be over 5 bucks an hour! Oh the things I could do with the extra money! But I was wrong. He asked me to sit down, and went on to tell me how I didn’t get up to the kitchen floor until 5:02. I was 2 minutes late. He said he did not have time for workers that did not respect the schedule and that if I made that mistake again, he would fire me on the spot.
At first I thought he was joking, but when I looked into his eyes, I could see he was serious. I would have never thought that two minutes would have slowed the pizza place time continuum down to critical levels.
This was not the only problem that I had with my boss. He also happened to be the owner of Hubby’s, so pretty much whatever he said, goes. Also, one night when I wasn’t getting off until almost 10 o’ clock, he offered to throw my bike in the back of his truck, and give me a ride home. I was down with his idea, so I put my bike in the truck, and waited for him to come out. While I was waiting, I noticed him going over to the wine station, and filling up a soda fountain cup with it. I didn’t know what to think. Was he really going to bring that along for the ride? At first I figured that he was going to lid it up, and just take it home for the night. But when we got in the truck and he started to drive off, he stuck a straw in it and started drinking away. It was right then and there when I told myself that I was going to find another job, and fast.
I started my search the very next day. As luck would have it, I wouldn’t have to look far. I was out with my mom one evening when we decided to stop by Burger King. While in there, I saw that they had a now hiring sign up. Also, my good friend Tony Carrillo, who I had known since my elementary school days, worked there. Now, I had always told myself that I didn’t want to work at McDonald’s, which is why I started working at a pizza place. But this was Burger King, the home of the Whopper! (Please note: I have nothing against McDonald’s. My brother in law put in a lot of time there, and they do have some of the best fries in the fast food world. But nothing on their menu can stand up to that Whopper goodness.)
At the time, Whoppers were forever on sale at 99 cents, and I would get two of them every day for lunch. The thought of actually being the person in the back wearing the blue polo stained by mustard and pickle juice was very appealing. Oh ya, and every girl who worked there was hot. Never underestimate the girl hotness factor when you are a teen boy looking for a job.
So I turned in my application that night, and within two days I was called in for an interview. I went in all dressed up in my Sunday best, ready to wow the pants off of the manager. I was hired on the spot, and was told to start work the next day in the evening. I was so excited that I was able to go back and tell the manager over at Hubby’s that I was done. And the best part of it all was that I was going to be rich. Yes, that is right; I was going to be rich. I was going from making a measly $4.95 to an astounding $5.25 and hour. Thirty more cents an hour! I was so stoked.
The first day of work at any place is normally a lot of orientation, filling out paperwork, and watching training videos. The kinds of boring stuff that you have to get out of the way before you start performing. But this day was different. They were shorthanded in the kitchen. I was immediately thrown into the kitchen. The first thing that I did was be in charge of dropping down the fries. Now if any of you have read my mother’s blog about French fries, you will see that I left a comment about the fry guy at a fast food place. Usually the person in charge of the fries is doing them because they can’t be trusted with anything else, and there is already someone at the sink washing dishes. Actually, that is being unfair to dishwashers. Even fry guy is below them. So anyway, I am thrust into this position, and I am doing well. Fries go down, I push the number 2 button, ding fries are done, and fries go under heat lamp. Fries are served to the customer, and the whole process starts over again. I was on the fries for about an hour, when the manager must have seen something special about the way I did them, for he switched me over to the chicken/fish station.
I was now in charge of what I like to call the mid level of the fast food kitchen. You move up above the fry guy, but are not quite up to par with the hamburger makers. I stayed at this position for the rest of the night.
When I went in two days later, I figured that I would move back into the chicken sandwich station again. But I was in for a surprise. I guess the night manager saw something in me that first day. He saw a hamburger maker. The hamburger makers are the rock stars of the fast food kitchen. Back in the day when I worked at BK, there was no fancy computer screen for you to read the order off of. No, we didn’t play that way. There were little squawk boxes that the cashiers would call the orders back on, and you had to listen to what you had to write down on the wrapper over all the different noises that were going on in the kitchen. You then had to reach over, grab a burger out of the warmer, take the top off, slather mayo on the top part of the bun, give it some lettuce and tomatoes, and then pass it off to the guy on your left so he could finish it off with the pickles, onions and ketchup, and then wrap it up and place it on the chute for the cashier to bag it. And of course during this whole time orders are still coming back, so the guy in the first position has to remember incoming orders.
My manager placed my in the second position that day. I must admit, it was intimidating after watching these burger gods work the night before. But I was ready for the challenge. After about an hour, I had my system down. I was like a machine. I could hear the crowd out in the lobby singing my praises when I would slide their custom made slice of Whopper heaven down the chute.
Over the course of 6 months I perfected the skill of burger making. I was now making 5.40 an hour. I even was allowed to be in the number one position from time to time when we weren’t busy. But there was rarely a time when we weren’t busy. The Burger King that I worked at is the one on Canal in the old Kmart parking lot. You know the one by the mall? Yes, that one. And when I worked there, there wasn’t an Arby’s down the way, or a Wendy’s up the way, or even a McDonald’s up on Canal and Kellogg. We were the only fast food place in a two mile radius. Because of that, we were one of the busiest Burger Kings in the state of Washington. I mean on Saturday and Sunday doing over 1200 bucks an hour during peak time, which was like from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There would be times when we would have over 40 whopper wrappers piled up waiting to be made.
Around this time I was promoted to store opener on the weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday I would arrive at 5:30 to set up for the day. It was fun because my friend Tony was the other person who opened with me. Some of my best memories at BK were when I was a weekend opener. There was one time when I saw two cute girls at the counter. They ordered Whoppers with cheese, and I thought that I would hook them up with some bacon. I declared to Tony that they would then sit down, taste the bacon, and look to the back to see who the generous employee was, and want my number. And if he was lucky, I would let him tag along. But instead, they came back up mad that their Whoppers weren’t the way they wanted. Tony never let me live that one down.
But I would have to say my most memorable time opening was the day I discovered what happens when you put ice in a vat of boiling hot oil. It started out innocently enough. I threw in a piece of ice, and watched it chug along in the oil, spitting grease this way and that. I was entertained the way a three year old boy is when he sees a big lump in the toilet bowl. (Or in Kristi’s son’s case, give yourself a swirly) And since part of my responsibilities for opening was to change out the old oil, I had a great idea. Since I didn’t want to screw up the new oil, I decided that after I emptied the old oil into the vat we used to dispose of it, I would take a big scoop of ice out and dump it into the oil, and see what would happen.
Now I was only a little boy when Mt. St. Helens exploded, but I imagine that it must have looked something like what I witnessed with that vat of used grease. All you could hear was the churning of oil being spit this way and that. Keep in mind I put a pretty hefty scoop of ice in there, so it went on for several minutes. Once it stopped and I went to dump the oil into the container outside, I noticed that in the bottom of the vat, there was all of this hardened grease mold. It looked as if ice cubes had fallen to the bottom and been trapped in the grease. This was not something that I expected, nor did I think at the time to be that big of a deal. So I went back in and set the vat up so I could empty out the next fryer. What happened next was something I did not see coming. As soon as the hot oil from the fryer hit the hardened oil in the vat, I was engulfed by a large plume of smoke. And I am talking about nuclear warhead mushroom cloud kind of smoke. It filled up the whole kitchen. It filled up the managers’ office. It filled up half the dining room! Good thing we didn’t open for another hour. Tony, I, and our morning manager Crystal tried to decide if we call 911, or wait it out to see if there was any real damage done. We decided to wait, and the smoke ended up dying down, and cleared out of the kitchen. The smoke hung around in the dining room for a while though. And hey, I learned a lesson. Playing with grease and ice is fun. That is until someone dies from smoke inhalation.
I ended up working at BK for over two years. I would have been there longer, but I made a critical error. You know that manager that I was talking about earlier? Crystal? Well, I kind of hooked up with her while she was on a break with her boyfriend. At the time, I thought it was so cool that I was dating an older woman. (She was almost 19, and I was only 18) But the allure soon wore off. After about a month, she decided that we were done. Was it because I bragged to my friends about going hot tubbing with her? Who knows, maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But the fact of the matter was that she was done with me.
Now I must say, it is a very awkward situation going to work and having your ex be your boss. Especially when you don’t let it bother you, and you act all Joe Cool about it, which just made her mad. So mad in fact she hatched a plan to get me fired. My cousin Karen was getting married up in Seattle, and I wanted to go. I didn’t have a copy of my schedule, so I called work and Crystal answered the phone. I asked her when I worked next, and she told me that I had the weekend off, but I had to be back for a Monday night shift. So I went up to Seattle, and had a fun time. When I arrived to work on Monday evening, I was pulled aside by the store manager, Shaun. He informed me that I was supposed to be at work on not just Friday, and not just Saturday, but also on Sunday. I tried to explain what had happened, but Crystal had gotten to him first. I was told that anytime an employee misses three days of working without calling in and giving notice, it counted as a quit. I tried to plead my case, but he said rules were rules. I left that night shocked. As I walked out of the kitchen that I had made 100’s of whoppers in, I looked over at Crystal. She had a sly smile on her face. A “Mission Accomplished” smile. There was nothing I could do. Oh wait, there was something. I flipped her the bird. It was the only thing I could think of.
I ended up working at that Burger King two more times, but nothing compared to my first tenure there. I worked with a great bunch of people. Hard working people. From the guys who fed the broiler with burgers, to the hot cashiers. Heck, even the incompetent fry techs weren’t that bad once you got to know them, and you made sure to not use words with more than 2 syllables. Even 3 of the 4 managers were great. I still am in contact with several of the people that I worked with there. And I am glad to say that I can still enjoy the food.
Well, that about wraps up part two of what I have now decided to be at least a 3 part series. Up next: The Mall Employee Years. Thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it. And to all the nice people who left the nice comments about my writing, I say thank you. And to the people who made fun of the mullet, well, all I can say is that it was the early 90’s, and I wasn’t the only one. Business in the front, party in the rear. The 7 cut. The NASCAR cut. The Mississippi Mud Flap. All of these are appropriate names for the Mullet. Have a good weekend everyone, and stay tuned next week for part three!
