16
So I had a great interview for a job I didn't care about getting, a
grocery store job. I'd been there and done that, but
apparently my not caring and not 'dressing up' for the job interview
made all the difference and four months later they called to let me
know I was hired. Add to this that I had just gotten a job, at
least tangentially associated with my chosen field of computer
programming, as a computer room monitor and tutor at my local
Business College... But that job was only one day a week and rather
than turn down the new job, I decided to accept on the phone and then
let them know when I arrived in person that I needed room in my
schedule for my other job and evening classes.
If the first grocery store I had ever been to in Colorado had been
half again the size of the only two grocery stores I had worked at,
combined. Then this new ''warehouse sized'' grocery store was twice
the size of that, including height, not just floor space. Think of a
modern day Lowes or Home Depot store in size except with aisles of
groceries instead of tools and supplies, in a green with white color
scheme. This was near a decade before either of those two hardware
stores had even thought about opening a branch in Colorado. When
interviewing for the job at a small new building next door, I knew
this grocery store was to be built in the empty field next to it, but
I had never thought it would be built using the whole frigging field!
Awe struck as I saw this new huge building for the first time at the
far south end of town, I pulled up to the front of it and entered
through one of its two large archway like doors. I drifted around a
bit before I discovered and walked-up to the customer service desk.
As the store was not yet open, the hired employees were assigned to
drift into the building in groups on the hour and my group was going
to be the dairy/frozen food crew. Six of us were sent to wander over
to the department head, 'Butch' and discover our jobs.
The 'Svenson' family were originally from Minnesota and had moved
into town and taken over the lagging grocery store, oddly enough,
right next door to my old Radio Shack that I had gone to in my first
years in Colorado. In the three years in between they had turned it
around and had now won a franchise license of a new grocery store
chain. If all went well, they'd earn the chance to get another
license for a second store at the far North end of town. While the
seven male members of the family had been the right size to
personally handle the smaller store, for this giant store, they'd
split-up into two shifts, three for the morning and three for the
evening with the patriarch father now taking a presiding role for the
company, drifting in and out as he felt. Thus a series of department
heads had been hired as the direct reports to the family members and
then each department head assigned the pile of employees it was
deemed they'd need.
When I walked up to Butch with the others and we introduced
ourselves, I let him know right off the bat that I'd need Saturdays
and evenings free for school. I could tell right at that moment that
if he'd been in charge, he would have passed on me working there and
picked someone else. But as the Svenson family had done the
interviewing and hiring, Butch probably assumed they had hired me
knowing my work hour restrictions and thus said he'd work it out.
This first day was to meet & greet the department heads and be
told the basics of working at the store and tentatively sketch-out
our weekly schedules. Once all that was settled, we were told to
come in this first weekend to work both days filling all the shelves
and the store would open on Monday. I reminded Butch I'd need the
Saturday off and was thus grudgingly told to come in on Sunday.
When I arrived Sunday morning a bit more than half of all the shelves
and cold cases were filled and I realized they must have had semi
after semi pulling-up to the loading docks all day Saturday just to
get in all the initial stock. For this day, we were to breakdown the
remaining pallets of stock which had been put into the dairy cooler
and freezer room and finish filling the shelves. Six hours later we
were done and handed our official schedules for the coming week. I
was scheduled for the afternoon into the evening and once again had
to remind Butch of my night classes. He grumbled, then decided he'd
work the evening hours of my schedule and tweak things by the
following week.
Being the only significant grocery store on this edge of town, it was
a huge success in its first week and that success rolled through the
first few months and the holidays. The six of us, all with around
thirty hours each week, would work whatever was needed for either the
dairy or frozen cases. No assigned places, just go fill what you
noticed was low. By the turn of the year, one of our number was
already gone. I never knew why, but he missed out on the bonus
payments in our end of year paychecks, between fifteen and
twenty-five dollars apiece, mine was eighteen dollars as I
remembered.
Also, by the end of the year, I'd even lost a few pounds, too. Never
a bad thing!
While there was a chance for advancement at the store, with my
stuttering and not wanting to make this my career, I kept to my place
as the others who started with me that first day gradually formed up
into a hierarchy and with the new year the store would reach both its
peak and have its crash...
And I would play my cards just
right.
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