Off the Hook

So, my last post had me thinking about a story that happened to me earlier this year.  And it's kind of a fresh one, so I will have to very carefully tip-toe around the details to cover my butt, but it's a classic!

At the beginning of the year I was in a studio and I get a call from my company's HR department.  The guy from HR is always very matter of fact with me, so when I pick up and he says "Hey there, are you sitting down for this one?"  I was pretty alarmed.  And I sat my happy ass down to ask him what was going on.

"Well, it seems that we have a situation with one of your employees.  More specifically one of your managers.  I'm sure you are familiar with Miss Jennifer Jones out of studio 5555? [that looks like a convincing store number, right?]  I just received a call from Miss Jones' host store and they have presented me with some very, uh, unsavory information and video footage."

I was panicking because we had been having a lot of theft in that studio and the company had LP put in some covert camera systems to find out who had been stealing our company's cameras and equipment.  Jennifer was kinda shady, but I didn't think she was that shady.

"Oh no, she isn't the one taking the cameras from the studio is she?" I asked, already pretty upset.

"Um, no," the HR director told me. "That is how we found out what we know now, but that is not what she was doing in her store.  The reason that I was calling you was that Miss Jones was caught on film having, uh, relations of a particular nature in her studio.  Of, um, a...."

"A what?" I squeeked.

"Of a, ahem, of a sexual nature..." he trailed off. 

I was floored!  I was in shock and I just started asking the stupidest questions.

"Where could she possibly have done that?"

"I can't say."

"Well when did this happen?"

"Which time? Uh, I mean, it really isn't important to the situation."

"Oh my God!  She did this more than once!? How many times did this happen and how long has this been going on?"

"Listen, I really can't say anymore, but I can tell you that the host store wants her gone," he told me dryly.

"So when did they want me to go up there?  Like, next week?"  I asked stupidly, the valley girl coming out of my mouth.  I was fucking busy and had over twenty stores and it was always a big pain in the ass to drop everything and just go somewhere at a moment's notice.

"No, like, tomorrow morning," he mocked me. "I have already arranged her final check.  You just have to carry out the term and clean up the mess."  And after he went through telling me what to say to her and giving me a well-worded, rehearsed speech that was super politically correct, we hung up and I had to scramble.

The whole time that this was happening I was in the closet of one of my studios and the manager that was there was starting to worry.  I came out of the closet totally pale and not even able to tell her what was going on.  All I could do was tell her that something came up and that I had to go. 

I called my boss and told her what was going on and after I explained the situation she calmly said "Yes, well, actually I already know about it, but thanks for keeping me in the loop."  Apparently her boss, the VP of the company, had already heard about it from the head of the other company's HR that our stores operate out of.  So basically, everybody and their mom knew about this, including (as I was soon to find out) all of home office and everyone who worked at that particular host store.  And then some.

The whole way driving up to the studio all I could think of was how I was going to let Jennifer know tactfully why she wasn't going to be working for me anymore.  I practiced my damn speech about twenty times in the car and when I got there I was pretty damn nervous.  Jennifer wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world and had been at the company for a long time. Plus she was about twenty years older than I was, which made the whole situation even more unsettling.  I felt like I was about to go fire my mom for having sex at work.

When I got to the studio the girl that I told to meet me there to run the business was waiting and the studio was supposed to open up in five minutes.  I was pacing back and forth in the entryway of the place and just kept looking at my watch.  She was fifteen minutes late and when she finally did show up, Starbucks in hand, she looked like she just about crapped herself.  I told her that we needed to go downstairs and have a talk.  It was an incredibly awkward walk. 

We were about halfway to the office and had just stepped off the escalator when she asks me "Um, am I fired?  If I am, please just let me know now."

"Honestly, Jennifer..." I said trying to grow a pair in about half a second, "Yes. Yes you are. But I really think we still need to discuss the why in private because I don't think it's something that we should discuss out here."

I had noticed that there were already people who worked in the store starting to stare even though we hadn't been loud or dramatic.  They totally fucking knew.  Great.

"It's my numbers, isn't it?" she asked me as we made our way into the private room.  "I thought that my performance had come up and that things were finally starting to go a lot better."  I could hear the tears she was holding back in her throat.  Damn I hate this part of my job.

"No, dude," I said sympathetically [And yes, I really said dude because I couldn't fucking help it.  It's like my word that I have to use to make myself come off as relate-able.  It's not a conscious decision.  It just kinda happens.]  "Your numbers were doing a lot better..."  And five million years later we finally got to the damned office.

I told her to have a seat and started to spout out the speech that corporate had told me to give.

"The reason that we are here today having this discussion is that, um... Well, you see, since there had been so much theft in your studio with equipment, home office had to have loss prevention install some cameras and--"

"I swear!  I didn't take anything from the studio!" she cried out pleading desperately as though she thought she could save herself.

"Yeah, Jennifer, I know you didn't take anything," I sighed. "But the thing is that--"

"There might have been that one purse that I had in the back, but I never took it out of the store!  I was just putting it aside until payday!  I will--"

"Dude!" I interrupted her, "I don't know how else to say this, but they caught you having sex in the studio!"

I didn't mean to blurt it out like that.  It just kinda happened.  Her eyes got so big and her face turned so red.  She dropped her purse and just went into shock.

"Oh God...." was all she could muster.  I gave her a minute to collect her thoughts and I handed over her final check.  "This is so embarrassing... How did they find out?  I mean, where was there a camera?"

"I have no idea," I told her.  "The host store's loss prevention just called home office and they said they saw everything..."

"Oh my God..." she cried.  "I can never come back in here ever again!  If those bitches in LP know, then everyone fucking knows!  Oh my God!"

She was so upset.  I know in these situations that it isn't anyone's fault but their own, but I can't help myself.  I work with these people everyday and no matter how shitty they are at their jobs or if they say bad things about how I'm running things or whatever ill-will occurs, they are still people at the end of the day. And I know that people fuck up and that if I was in any of these situations that led to me getting fired that I would be balling my eyes out too.  So I gave her a hug and helped her get her things together.  Yeah, we didn't get along very well in the workplace, but I wouldn't wish this situation on anyone.

As she was leaving she told me that she was sorry for putting me in this position and said her goodbyes, but the last thing she said was "You aren't going to tell my family about this, right?"

I told her that I wouldn't let anyone who didn't need to know, know and she thanked me and left. 

Then I thought about it for a while and was wondering why she would even ask something like that.  It made me feel kind of weird about the whole thing.

I cleaned out the studio when I left and the whole time I was wondering where she could have possibly had even had the capability of having sex in the studio.  They aren't exactly designed with privacy in mind.  None of the rooms even have doors. Then while cleaning out the prop room I looked up into the ceiling and saw where the covert camera had been installed.  It was actually quite obvious that it had been put there.  Maybe she thought that it was fake.  But when I looked around the room for a "base of operation" in sight of the camera I finally saw it.  She had taken a posing platform which is about the size of a full size bed cut in half and covered it with blankets and pillows.  Yuck.

The associate who was helping me in the studio that day who had no idea what was going on tried to help me clean up the back and I found myself saying "Oh! Don't touch that!" quite a few times and getting weird looks in return.

When I went to leave the store someone from the host store came up to me and said "Hey don't you work up there in portraits?  I heard they fired that lady for hookin'!  That's hella crazy!  My buddy works in LP and said they caught her with a few different guys up there and they all gave her money!  What the fuck are people thinkin' these days?"

Dude.

Poo Story 2: Droppin' the Deuce!

Oh yeah, I went there with that title!

So like I said in my intro, some of my favorite retail stories are not things that happened to me, but things that happened to people I know.  When my middle sister was working at Hollywood Video [because yes, I got her a job at a nearby store] she was working in the fuckin' hood.  Straight up, no doubt.  It was in a part of this particular town that the locals all called "Little Mexico" and although, yes, there were a lot of Hispanic people living there, there were other fun things like drug dealers and prostitutes that used to hang out in the parking lot of the store.  And they all liked to offer their many services to the employees there.

And though that adds a colorful background for this one, it isn't totally relevant to the story.

My sister came in to start her shift at the end of the afternoon and asked her fellow shift lead how the day was going and this is what she said:

"Oh my God! The dumbest thing just happened!  There was me and this guy and his kid in the store and all of a sudden he comes up to the front and asks me if I have any paper towels to clean up a mess.  I tell him that I did and he asked me if I could clean it up.  So I was like 'Hell, no' and handed this guy a roll of paper towels.  I thought that he had like spilled his soda or something like that, but it was taking him a long-ass time to clean that shit up, so I went to the Kid's section and this fuckin' guy is sitting there trying to clean crap up off the floor!  Like, literally, crap!  And he is doing a hella bad job with it and he is like smearing it on the floor and I was just so disgusted with him that I told him to take his kid and just fuckin' leave!  It smelled hella bad and was just a hot fuckin' mess!  So he leaves and comes back all offended and says that he wants to talk to the manager and I tell him that I am the manager right now.  And this dumbass asks me 'Well is this normally how you treat a customer in this situation?' and I tell him straight up 'Well, I dunno.  I've never had anyone shit on mah damn floor before!'  And he finally left for good.  Carpet cleaners should be here tomorrow morning.  Dumbass."

So of course my sister had to call me and tell me what happened and this has become just the quintessential answer to any stupid question that is asked in any of our conversations with one another. 

"So what do I do with it now?"

"Well I dunno!  I've never had anyone shit on mah damn floor before!"

Good times.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

This lady comes into Hollywood Video and says that the copy of Spongebob that she rented wasn't working.  I tell her that I can go grab another copy of it, but she says that she doesn't want another copy because her child didn't want that movie in the first place.  I tell her we can't do that, but then I look and we are out of stock of the Spongebob movie, so she wins anyway.

I go in the back to go test the movie and I come out thinking that my manager had already taken care of her and got her out the door.  The store was dead at that moment and there was no one in the store at all, so I walk out and tell my manager without any kind of volume control:

"That bitch was so full of shit.  This movie totally works!  I hate it when stupid bitches come in here thinking they--"

And then the lady totally cleared her throat in the kids section and a bright red, mortified me crept back into the office until she left.

So awkward.  Plus we ended up giving her another free movie for my stupid mouth.  Lesson learned.

I Quit!

I have seen some dramatic quitting moments in my time.  And of course almost all of them happen in front of mass amounts of customers.  Here are just a few:

"No, fuck you!  He can NOT look at me like that!  Yeah, bitch, look at me again you bald-ass mothafucka!  And she sure as hell can't talk to me like that!  My boyfriend is gonna come in here and kick your ass and your ass AND your ass!  Fuck all of you!  I quit!... " *returning five minutes later*  "You know, I spoke a bit out of turn there and while I feel that I have some differences with my co-workers, I really feel that I have a lot to offer to the company.  Could I transfer to another store?"   "Nope"  "I see... Is there some company policy against that?"  "Dude, you just made a huge scene in front of a lot of people.  There is really no coming back from that.  You quit and I accept your resignation."  "I see... Can I use your phone to call my boyfriend?"

"Fine, I didn't want to be the assistant manager anyway.  I'm just going to go ahead and turn in my name tag."  Then she goes in the bathroom and smears crap all over the walls and on her way out the door of the video store she pushes down a bookshelf of movies in the middle of the store creating a domino effect that levels half of the shelves in the store.

"Okay, Matt.  We know that you removed the cash and product from the store without authorization.  We have you on camera."   "Listen, I know in my heart that I didn't steal anything and I am appalled that you would even accuse me of that.  I just can't work for a company that would spread just lies.  I quit."

"You have changed since becoming the manager.  We never hang out anymore and you are always telling me what to do.  You have sucked all of the fun out of this work place.  So I'm leaving and I'm not coming back.  Don't try to stop me.  I mean it."

"There is no way in hell that I am working for you.  You are going to let all of the power go to your head and I am finding another job."  So instead of giving me a chance, she leaves her job that was paying her $22.00 an hour for a retail job in the middle of a recession, gets another job at a place that said they would pay her more but didn't and then got fired from the new job because of her shitty attitude.  Then a year later she asks to work for the company again. Ha. Nope.

Best Excuses Ever

I can't come in to work because....

"I have explosive diahrrea and I'm afraid I will crap my pants at work."

"I'm in jail. Will you guys be able to hold my job for me?"

"I hate you and you ruined this job because the last manager didn't care if I was late!"

"I am so drunk right now!"

"You know last night was the midnight release of Halo 2.  You can't possibly expect me to come in now!"


I was late because....

"My sister took my kid to work with her this afternoon, and that bitch is a professional ho, fo' real!  She had my five year old waiting outside in the hallway while she was getting paid to fuck!  Then that ho shows up at work in the parking lot!  You know I was gonna be on time, but seeing her there I had to whoop her ass! And that's why I was 45 minutes late."

"I was riding my bike to work and it was windy outside and I swallowed a bee." (Poor kid's tongue was super swollen!)

"I thought today was daylight savings"  (It was January.)


I left work early without telling anyone because....

"I told you I was gonna crap my pants, but you didn't believe me!"

"I threw up on a customer."

"My shoe was filling up with blood."

"I sneezed and I figured that you wouldn't want me here if I was sick."


I gave that customer free/discounted stuff because....

"She looked like if I didn't she was gonna eat me."

"You just don't understand how mean she was!"

"That's my boi!  He hooks me up with free shit all the time and I had to return the favor!"

"You could bounce a quarter off of her ass.  I mean, seriously, damn."

"They asked me if I could give them a discount."

"They were black."  (/facepalm)

Incommunicado

As a district manager, it pisses me off to no end when you have a manager who is supposed to be in constant communication with you and with their staff members and they say they don't have a cellphone.

You know that their happy ass has a cellphone and they just don't want to give you the number.  Everyone and their grandma has a cellphone now.  And I hate it when people that you know have a cellphone give you that crap line about "Well if I'm supposed to have a cellphone then the company can get me one."  Fuck you!  At least have the decency to tell me "Yeah, I have one but I don't give the number out because I only have a limited amount of minutes." or something!

Anyway, I had this older guy working for me and he was adamant about the fact that he did not have, nor was he ever going to get, a cellphone.  And he said I could get the company to get him one if it was that important and the whole song and dance, and it was just really stupid.  Every time I needed to send a mass text out to my team I had to send out the text and then call his house phone and maybe someone would pick up.  Irritating as hell.

One day there was an emergency at his store and I needed to get a hold of him.  His wife picks up the phone and says "Oh gosh, he isn't here right now, but let me call his cellphone and I will have him call you back as soon as possible!" 

Arrrgh!  Okay, fine, lie to me.  I will call your ass at all hours instead of sending you a text that you can view at your leisure.  Whatever.  I confront him about it and he says that his wife must have been confused and that she was thinking of his son's cellphone.  Uh huh...

Then a few months down the road he calls me all up in arms and I ask him what happened and he says "I was at the front register and a customer went into the back room and stole my Palm pilot and my cellphone!" 

"So, you didn't have a cellphone and now suddenly you have a Palm pilot and a cellphone?"

"Well, um, I just got them both last week for my birthday," he tells me.

His birthday was actually four months earlier.  He is lying to me again.  You've gotta be kidding me.  So he files a report and never hears back from anyone because frankly no one cares.  Especially me.

So a few weeks later I call him at his store and ask him if I can get his new cell number and he says he didn't get it replaced.  He had just finished telling me how his store was really slow that day and that no one was there except him.  So of course the damn phone goes off right while we are on the phone.

Unbelievable.

Poo Story

'Cause hey, who doesn't like a good poo story?

So, the most fucked up shit--no pun intended--always happened to me at my fast-food job when I got out from behind the safety of the front counter.  I went to go clean the bathroom in the ladies restroom because the person on janitorial duty was a dude and couldn't go in there while it was so busy, but it had to get cleaned because some lady told us that it was gross.  I really, truly wish she had given us details.

I get in there and it isn't so bad.  The mirror had a little lipstick kiss mark on it [Yuck!  Why would you kiss the mirror?], there were a few rogue paper towels and it smelled like a bathroom, but I didn't see anything horribly wrong.  I cleaned up stall one and stall two and then when I got to the handicapped stall, that's when I saw it!

 Right next to the toilet was a steamy hot puddle of liquid doody.  Oh yeah.  I don't get how you could get that close to the toilet and just leave that for someone to clean up, but yeah, liquid poo.  And, yeah, I was really grossed out, but more than anything I just couldn't believe that it was happening.  So of course I did what any respectible sixteen-year-old would do and I had to go tell everyone.

I get up to the front and I have tears welling up in my eyes because I am all giggly and stuff.  And like six people working gather up at the front and just watch me standing there cracking up and all I can manage to get out is:

"Hahahaha!  Someone... Oh my Gawd!  They... Someone... Psssssh!"

And that's when some little girl comes out and yells, "Mommy there's poo all over the floor and I stepped on it!"

And I look and sure enough there was this little trail of poo prints for about five feet out of the bathroom and we all just lost it!  The kid was all upset because she thought we were making fun of her and I felt all bad, but it just made me laugh even harder.  The girl's dad didn't think it was funny at first, but then it got hard for him to keep a straight face because the kid was so upset over something so dumb.  I was laughing for a little bit longer, but then the gravity of the situation hit me.

Dammit.  I still had to clean it up.  Poo tracks and all.