Monday, I posted about how I got hired to work at two clothing stores owned by Mr. E. I had no idea at the time the negative impact this job was going to have on my life.
A week after school let out for the summer, I got to go to Boys State. (More on that in a future post.) After I returned a week later, Mom told me that Mr. E was not very happy with my job performance and was thinking about firing me. She told me that getting fired was the worst thing I could have happen to me. She said she had never gotten fired from a job in her life, and if I got fired, no one would ever want to hire me.
Years later, I would find out just how WRONG she was. If she had ever gotten fired from a job, she would have known it wasn't that big a deal. I truly wished I had realized that at the time and allowed myself to get fired. It wasn't like I didn't already have a job. I was still working at the Racquet Club. Mom just didn't want me to get fired because she pulled strings to get me that job and it would have been a bad reflection on her if I'd lost that job.
When I went to work the next day, he had a talk with me. He didn't like me missing work for a week to go to Boys State. (What?) He didn't like me taking a break during a two-hour shift (which he had told me I could do when he hired me). He felt like I was being lazy and not getting the vacuuming done in an efficient manner (which, as I explained yesterday, practically could not be done quickly because there were always customers in the store).
With me making less than minimum wage, this really was not an ideal place for me to be working. My Mom made me feel like I had to make the best of it and stick with the job. So that's what I did.
It turned out to be something I regretted. Despite my dark passage my junior year, I had a blast during that time in my life because I was able to run around after school and do stuff. Rushing to work after school cut down on my ability take part in a lot of the activities that I enjoyed. It prevented me from getting bigger parts in plays and the choir's musical because I wasn't able to show up for the audition. When our choir went to Festival, I had to drive there and back alone in my car because Mr. E wouldn't let me have the day off. I wasn't able to socialize as much as I did the previous year. Also, working before and after school made my day 11 1/2 hours long. That really was too much for a 17-year-old boy to handle.
Even though I was making money, all I would do was spend it. I had a pretty severe arcade video game habit that summer. It was so bad that one month, I actually spent more money than I earned. I was shocked when I got that bank statement. I realized I had a problem, but didn't really want to deal with the consequences.
Add to this that Mr. E just was not a very good boss. There was one time when, without any warning, he made me stay after work to clean up the men's store room where he was clearing out space. (I got paid for that time, but I didn't have an opportunity to tell my family where I was or when I was going to be home.)
And there was one time when he made me work off the clock. Every year, the music boosters held a cake walk in the middle of the street next to the store. It took place on a Saturday. He told me to come in on Sunday and clean the wall. I would not get paid. Mr. E also didn't like that I was in Choir (although he always thought I was in Band) and that it sometimes took me away from work. Dad came and helped me out with that. We worked for three hours cleaning that wall on Sunday. We thought we did a good job. However, when I was at work the next day, this woman came up to me. She was part of the family that owned the building that Main Place was a part of. All she did was gripe about the lousy job I did cleaning the wall. She kept running her finger along the wall and showing me the dirt that rubbed off. She took me away from my store work to rant about the wall for 15 minutes. She told me I had to do it all over.
I went in and told Mr. E what happened. This was probably the only time he came to my aid. I don't know if he talked to her or what, but I didn't have to clean the wall over again.
Every year, the store does inventory on a Monday. He told me on Saturday that I didn't have to come in that Monday. However, Monday came and I forgot and showed up at the store. I walked up to the front door and saw all the employees counting stock. I then remembered that I didn't need to be there and turned around. However, Mr. E saw me and called me to come inside to do some work. I should have kept walking.
Soon after I graduated from high school, I had made plans to go the International Theatre Arts Conference in Muncie, IN and after that, I was going to the DECA National Conference in Chicago. I asked Mr. E if he wanted me to go ahead and quit before I did those. He said it would be a pretty good idea. That was a rare good day for me.
The rest of the summer, I just had to worry about working at the Racquet Club and getting ready for college. I was relieved that I did not have to spend in misery under the employ of Mr. E.
A couple of years later, I was in college. I received a copy of the Artesia Daily News in my mailbox every day. One day, on the Letters to the Editor page, someone had written in about an incident that took place at a clothing store downtown, but did not mention which one. Apparently, the writer was there with her small child. A woman was decorating the window with balloons. She gave the child one of the balloons. When the writer tried to leave the store, she was told that she needed to pay for the balloon. She blasted the store for doing that when the employee had been so kind. A few days later, the woman doing the decorating wrote a letter to the paper and explained that the child was bothering her and she gave her the balloon so she would go away. The woman said that the writer should have been keeping an eye on her child and not let her bother people who were trying to do their work. I went home that weekend. I noticed that none of the clothing stores downtown had any balloons in their displays. I have a feeling it was Main Place because the tone of the second letter sounded very much like the person who did the displays there.
I would continue to run into Mr. E from time to time over the next few years when I went home. He moved Main Place across the street and got rid of the Mr. E's store. He eventually stopped running the business.
But as bad as that job was, it was far from being the worst place I ever worked. You'll see that much later on.
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