37
Why not, I thought in the Summer of Nineteen Eighty-Seven. By
the latter half of the eighties, more and more guys were getting
their ears pierced, so why not me? Perhaps it was because
Rochelle had given me a reputation for 'liking the girls', even
though nothing of a sort had happened, that I felt I could get
away with piercing my ears and not having people in my life 'suspect'
me for it. Or perhaps it was my ever continuing weight loss and
other physical issues that lead me to want to defiantly show that I
controlled this body, not nature. Whatever had triggered the
interest, I decided to pursue it and gave Ilda a call asking if she'd
come along for moral support. She was surprised by the idea but was
more than willing to echo my ''Why not?'' sentiment.
Off to the mall first thing in the day, it turned out the ear ring
place didn't open up until an hour after the mall and Ilda and I
shared a food court meal and mall walk as we waited and talked about
what sort of ear rings I was thinking of. I debated about getting
double piercings in each lobe and then I could have my two favorite
colors as over lapping discs in each ear, orange and violet. I could
have the orange one over the violet edge on one ear and dub it moon
rising and have the violet disc over the edge of the orange disc for
the second ear and dub it sun rising. While Ilda admired my
enthusiasm, I believed, she may not have been in sync with the
thought.
Once the ear ring place opened up, the clerk felt I was too
enthusiastic and said we should start with a single piercing and let
that heal before I decided on a double piercing for each lobe. Also
their piercing technique required the initial set to be studs before
looking into other choices. So Ilda and I looked the choice of studs
over and settled on a basic gold set. As longer hair styles were
still acceptable for guys in the eighties, my hair would cover the
studs and thus it wouldn't be a problem at work, I believed, as
management and customers wouldn't see them.
The following day the local science fiction club had its summer
picnic and I got to show off my new studs to the other members there
as a conversation piece. Sure enough work didn't notice, but I felt
the need to show off my studs to a couple of my coworkers anyhow so
the cat was quickly out of the bag. My mother didn't notice until a
week and a half later and when she discovered them she said, ''Oh my
God, you're going to get beaten up!'' She then questioned my mental
health and so I then questioned hers back, giving examples from my
years spent with her. She didn't like that at all, but as I
was already on my way out the door to visit Jeff that evening, I
didn't much care and didn't get back home until after she had already
gone to bed. The subject wasn't brought up again.
I don't know if it was because of the piercings, my stuttering, my
mixed race background, or a mixture of it all, but the grocery store
decided not to promote me. I didn't even know I
was going to have the chance. Once our group of four
employees had been cut into the Dairy and the Frozen Food pairings, I
got to see my frozen food coworkers much less, typically as we passed
in the back room to get more stock for our various display cases.
The least experienced of us became the head of the dairy section and,
as I was committed to going to College at the time, I was his
assistant at fifteen minutes less in weekly hours. When he had gone
on vacation for a week I took over ordering for the area and many
coworkers were surprised how well things had gone with me in charge,
apparently thinking I wouldn't be able to 'stay on top of the
ordering process' given my stuttering and thus presumed I.Q.. My
department boss was happy too as, when he returned, everything was in
shape and I'd even gone ahead and worked out the next order sheet as
well for him. Then a few months later he was gone and the frozen
food head was working the dairy case when I got into work one day.
I was surprised to see him there but, as we had been direct coworkers
during our first two years at the store together, I was happy to have
a chance to chat with him as we mutually filled the dairy case from
the morning's truckload. But oddly enough, the one thing he didn't
want to talk about was why he was there working the dairy cases
rather than the frozen food cases he had been exclusively assigned to
do when the new owner took over in the previous year. Eventually he
explained to me that he had been explicitly told not to explain
anything to me and finally said we could talk about it off the
main floor when break time came. When it did, we went to the rarely
used back office and made sure no one else was around. Our coworker,
who had started the same day as us in the Fall of Nineteen
Eighty-Four and eventually became my lead in the dairy section, had
been found taking kickbacks from the suppliers in return for stocking
various items over more popular items in our display cases. This had
actually been a routine practice under the original owners who all
shared in the gifts it got them. But in the case of the new owners,
it was a fireable offense and the head of the dairy department was
gone and they had called in the head of the frozen food department to
take over, rather than promote me.
Was it the piercings, the stuttering, or the mixed race
background? I suspect it was mainly the stuttering with the
piercings being an added reason as to why I had been passed over
despite my greater years of experience and recently proven ability to
handle the department on my own.
So the frozen department head was now my boss, but he was to remain
as the frozen department boss as well. I asked if this meant we were
once again back to being a unified department but he told me No,
he was the boss for both, but I was the dairy-only assistant and his
original underling in frozen foods would remain as that department's
only helper.
It was just a couple of months later that this coworker friend,
and now new boss, was apologizing to me. While I had been away
for two consecutive days off, the store management had decided I
''needed to be written up for something'' and they had lead my
coworker/boss on a two day end to end check of the dairy
department in search of something to be wrong in my work. By the end
of the second day, they had found a cup of yogurt that was expiring
that day and thus they had written up a report on me and I was to
sign it my first day back. ''Really?'' I asked as the only way of
avoiding this occurrence would have been for me to start pulling
stock from the shelves two days before it went out of date. Was
this a new standard? I asked. No, we were still to keep
the stock on the shelf until the day it expired I was told. So
then I was supposed to have come in after my first day off and
checked the stock during my second day off for expiring items on my
own time? Yes, was the answer and as I hadn't I
was supposed to sign the report stating I had been negligent at my
job. I declined.
When my coworker/new boss returned from letting management know I
wouldn't sign it, he told me that they had been shocked and didn't
know what to do about it, finally deciding to put the report in 'my
file' anyhow even though it wasn't signed. He said he would have
fought that too but, honestly as he had just been promoted to be the
boss of the dairy department, he didn't feel he had the clout to
argue. I didn't blame him and just made a mental note that my days
at the grocery store were numbered.
In this case, I believe it was the pierced ears that prompted the
store management to write me up. As it wasn't against store policy
to have pierced ears, I had to 'officially' be written-up for
something else. I was actually proud of the fact that they had spent
two whole days trying to find something to write me up for and
couldn't find anything legitimate...!
The silly thing is, we never checked the dates of the
existing stock until the next day's truckload arrived when then we
checked the dates before putting the new stock behind the old stock
on the shelves. As we didn't have a truck on my first day back, they
could have easily waited until the end of that day and 'found the cup
of yogurt', then. It would have been outdated on a day I was
actually working and I couldn't have denied it, but clearly
they wanted to make the whole thing as transparent as possible so
even I would understand why I was being
written up.
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