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| Wednesday, August 15, 2007 |
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They Thought They Had Me (IV)
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 When we last visited this series I detailed being accused of losing various items at my corporate video internship/job. And they were wrong all three times! Now fast forward past time in Cartersville, where I got laid off four years and four months later, to Worldcom, where I was laid off in three months, to a brief temp stint at the IRS, and now to...Kinko's.
Upon arriving at Kinko's I learned that the company, and particularly the store I had been hired at, was in dire financial straits. The boss, a real nice guy, informed me this store was down $500,000 in sales from the year before. He moved to a corporate sales job in the company within a month or two of my arrival, and we lost many of our big customers who had loved him. Kinko's then fired 75% of it's corporate sales force, but luckily he dodged the bullet.
We back at the "branch," as it's called in Kinko-speak, were dodging bullets of our own. The new manager came in and strode right up to me and said, "So are you looking to make this a career, or is this just something to do until something better comes along or what?" I sensed I was being sized up right away. Are you kidding?! I was born to bleed blue!...or...what's our cornball motto at this company?
After signalling a new day had dawned by moving the Pepsi machine from one corner of the room to the other, the new manager set about getting us in line. I well recall trying to push a cart of about 15 reams of paper through the back door. A ream of paper had to be 25 or 30 lbs. at least, and I had over a dozen of them on this cart, and there was a big hump at the back door I was floundering to get over. When he walked in the stock room door and saw me struggling, did he offer to help? Of course not! He said, "Don't leave that door open."
I said, "If you have an idea how I can get these reams of paper from the outside of the building to the inside without the door being open I'd love to hear it." (It remains one of my favorite lines of sarcasm ever.) How about a helping hand, you douchebag?
He sent me to Office Depot to buy some stuff with the store credit card, and I remember he sent me off with, "And if you don't bring a receipt back with that it'll be coming out of your paycheck!" and a real stone face. Like I'm some kinda fucktard! In the evening I was consorting with a writer for the Village Voice and the host of The Grateful Dead Hour radio show about approaching XM radio, and in the daytime I was being treated like I was too dumb to make a purchase at the store.
Attention, managers: moving a Pepsi machine will NOT bring you good luck as a manager. That guy failed to get us ship-shape and within just three months he was off to...uh...try something different! Yeah! Like work for his in-laws, where his "job" was basically to sit in an office and babysit his kids. Manager #3 was coming, and this guy would prove to be a turd the likes of which our toilet had never seen.
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Posted by Art | 8:30 PM EST |
4 comments
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And do you know that David Gans *will be* hosting a show on the new Grateful Dead channel on XM radio? I think it debuts full-time on August 28th if memory serves. That fucker stole your idea dude!
Viva Lesh!!