Home Depot Profiles In Courage

New Preface

These stories are the result of some years working on the overnight freight team at a Home Depot. There is much, however, that wasn't written and won't appear in this book. For some things are too hard to write and others you save for another occasion even if you cannot be sure that it will come.

There is nothing of Felicia and her years of crack addiction in Detroit, her molestations and rape while living in the streets; nor of Heather, Doug’s wife, who worked the cash registers and didn’t understand when a customer gave her extra coins in order to receive a bill as change ― she looked at the coins strangely, then thrust them back saying it wasn’t right and threatened to call a manager; nor is there anything about the man in the white Mercedes who parked behind the garden area and shot himself in the face. Corey found him, his jaw and nose shot off, blood splaying everywhere, holding where his face had been, hopping around and moaning ― But he’s got a white Mercedes, Doug said. Why should he want to kill himself? They were still discussing it in the lunchroom when the man died a week later.

Neither is there anything about Robert the Jew, who ate whoever’s lunch he wanted from the refrigerator, one time even offering Puerto Rican Dave a bite of his own sandwich. When someone caught him with their food or there wasn’t anything he wanted, Robert didn’t hesitate to root through the garbage. I once watched him pull up from the bottom of the trash bin a blackened, days-old bagel and quickly consume it.

And what of old Jay the ex-con, who had nubs for fingers on both his hands and was rumored to be the disowned son of the Kraft family. Jay moved slowly on his crutches, coughing, and smoking whenever he had the chance, the cancer slowly destroying him. He told fantastic stories about pointing handguns at sheriffs and beating up train conductors, all of them ending in clever escapes or police escorts back to his home with never any charge. Jay was an alcoholic and disappeared for months at a time into treatment centers.

Nor is there mention of 'Slick' Nick, big and slow-moving, who was run over by a car at 16 and spent two years in a coma. If you didn’t see him for a week he forgot who you were. Slick worked the parking lot pushing carts but regularly disappeared to prune the calluses on the soles of his feet. They grew quickly and required weekly attention, he said, and when they had grown too large or he had trimmed them too deeply, Nick claimed he was unable to work. The sight of Nick in the electrical aisle with his shoes off, hacking at his calluses with a penknife, had caused a number of customers to complain to management.

It might have been a better book if these other characters had appeared in it but this will have to do for now. To some readers the truth of these stories will be manifest, while to others, perhaps too educated and financially fortunate, they will only be regarded as fiction.


Bogota, Colombia

March 2012

Pro-Union

My apologies to Paulie the Pollock, with whom I once argued against unions from 3am to 6am on a cold April morning while fork lifting. You were right. I was wrong. You were a helluva forklift driver by the way.

I am now pro-union.

Yes, I understand and agree with the Austrian position that the end result of unionization is higher unemployment and a higher cost of goods across an economy. But as with many of the Austrian positions, there is an immediate benefit to the group that initiates an economic intervention. A union can improve the working conditions, wages, and benefits of its members. It is the non-union worker, or the unemployed man who would have been hired in that industry at the lower non-union wage, who is negatively affected. Such are the unintended, and often un-attributed, consequences of economic intervention.*

The Austrians make a similar argument of unintended consequences in regards to currency devaluation. In fact one might think of unionization as a bottom-up intervention and inflation as a top-down intervention. Currency inflation effects those in banking and the wealthy less than it does the working class. That is to say, as those standing nearest the cash registers and making commission from an expanding supply of money and credit, the banker's wages will rise first with an inflation. The income of the upper classes will also rise, as the managements of publicly held companies are compensated for the performance of the company’s stock, equity markets being highly correlated to inflation. Their ownership of homes and equity portfolios will also provide them protection.

The last to see his wages rise will be the low paid worker. If he owns no home or stock or precious metal he will have seen his savings eroded by the inflation. Even without a savings he will have seen prices rise in food, energy, clothing, and rent all before his wages have risen. Being furthest from the banking centers from which the inflation originates, the low-paid worker is damaged the most. At minimum a union is necessary to protect a worker’s real purchasing power by tying wage increases to an inflation metric.

But there is a more essential argument for unionization and that is for the workers to unionize and get their share of the company before it is slowly gutted by the Harvard trained, leisure-class managers. The brave entrepreneurs who created companies such as the Home Depot have all moved on. These were the risk-takers and innovators, who thought up new ways of marketing, sales and production. In their place is a crew of MBA men and women who make cost-cutting and efficiency decisions from the top. Alongside them are highly trained accountants, busy at work making adjustments to the balance sheet to best produce the illusion of growing profitability, working to manipulate the stock price higher and bonus themselves and their managers.

But these MBA men and women are economically unproductive. They create nothing new. They have none of the ingenuity and courage of the original entrepreneur and engineer. They are spreadsheet trained and bonus driven. What they call better efficiency and profit is no more than a further cost or sacrifice born by the company’s workers.

The Home Depot, like Walmart, is “proudly non-union”. I watched as they tried to run Old Marvin out. They had it out for Patrick and Dan who were experts in the electrical and plumbing departments. They had it out for Roy too. They had it out for all of the longest tenured workers with wages that had risen over the years, or had been hired at an earlier time for a higher wage (Home Depot jobs were at one time well paid). They were all being fired and replaced by new crop of minimum wage workers. How is this not corrupting and destroying a company? How is this economically productive?

There appears to me to be a company lifecycle where with luck and hard work and sometimes genius a business is engineered and grown. When its growth has peaked its creators move on, giving it over to the Harvard men and women who then slowly begin its destruction, slowly stripping it of its value for their own personal benefit (and the shareholders). Why shouldn’t the workers unionize to take their piece? Why shouldn’t they defend themselves against the sacrifices being forced upon them by management--by a management enriching itself as a result of those sacrifices? Unions are unproductive, but equally so are the leisure class managers. It is as though two parasites were fighting over a decaying corpse. What was economically productive and lively departed with the entrepreneur.**

As I argued above, inflation has less effect upon the wealthy class than the worker. At the Home Depot the average raise among those who received them was $0.10, clearly less than the Fed’s traditional 2% target inflation. The Fed is simply another group of MBA (and PhD) men and women trained in spreadsheets and management efficiencies. Like the wastefulness and corruption the managers reap upon a company, the Fed reaps a similar corruption upon the economy. In both cases it is the poorest who bear the dearest cost. A union is their only defense.

____________________________________

* There is also the Austrian argument that union intervention weakens and destroys a company and is thus counterproductive for its members. My view is nuanced on this point, as you will see below.

** The successful entrepreneurs make up a tiny fraction of the population yet their ingenuity and daring is what drives an economy, is what is productive. The unions and managers (and government) then parasitically fight over what was created. As in all things, only creators matter.

Frank 6

(Frank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 )

After Frank told me about the coming race war he talked to me about fighting. Two guys could take on many, he said, if you and your friend fought back to back and you were both skilled. You had to get that first guy who came at you and beat the shit out of him. Frank demonstrated how he would beat the guy's face, he grabbed him by the hair and kneed him in the head, kneed him again and then Frank pounded on him some more. Even if the other guys are hitting you, Frank said, you need to make sure you destroy that first guy. Because then you can use that first guy as a shield. Frank was now pushing the destroyed guy left and right in front of him to keep the other attackers away. Then Frank would kick at the others, or punch at them, all the while using the destroyed guy as his shield. But you must stay back to back with your friend, Frank emphasized again.

He and Mike Pereira liked to get into fights whenever they could and Mike was a good fighter. One day they were driving and saw 5 kids and one of them flashed a knife. If a Filipino flashes a knife you are a dead man. But if a kid from Mt Prospect flashes a knife you take it away from him and you use it against him. So Mike says, you want to get them? Let's do it, Frank says. But Mike jumps out of the car without putting it in park and the car is starting to roll and Frank has either got to jump in with Mike or save the car. Frank runs back to the car and gets it in park but when he gets back Mike has been destroyed. Mike got the knife away but they leveled him. Oh yeah, said Frank sadly, Mike was wrecked. See, you got to stay back to back.

Doug 2 (supplemental)

When Doug was 28 an old woman approached him at the bar. She was 65 and she made him a proposition. If he would sleep with her she would buy him anything he wanted. At the time Doug was interested in a fish tank, so he asked the old woman if she would get it for him. The old woman lived alone in the suburbs in a big house with a swimming a pool. After Doug made love to her she said she wanted to see him again and if there was something else he wanted. There was a pool cue made of a special fiber that would last forever and Doug asked her for it. After the pool cue Doug slept with her a third time and, when he couldn't think of anything he wanted, the old woman gave him $100. This made Doug feel guilty and so the next time he asked for another fish tank. He hadn't been able to think of anything else. But he soon tired of the fish tanks. When Doug went to clean them the Lionfish he paid $80 for would sting him. Doug finally killed one for stinging him, and then he stopped cleaning the tanks. He met Heather and he stopped seeing the old woman. He sometimes thinks how his life might have turned out if he had stayed with her. Maybe he would have inherited the big house with the swimming pool. The two fish tanks are gone but he still has the pool cue in his closet.

Gary 2

Ted was at Tool Rental when a woman ran up and said there was a guy laying in the lumber department unconscious and half-naked. Ted hurried to lumber and found Gary spread-eagled on his back in the middle of the aisle with his penis hanging out of his pants. Ted lifted Gary forward and began to stuff Sour Patch Kids into his mouth, slapping him to get him to chew. Gary chews and swallows a couple before he opens his eyes. Then Gary spits them out. “What the fuck is this?” Gary says. “Who the fuck are you?” Ted tells him to keep chewing, he needs the sugar. “I don’t want these fucking things. Get me a candy bar.” Ted tells him he’s going to eat the fucking Sour Patch Kids. He tells Gary to test his blood-sugar with the device he carries on him. “Fuck that thing,” says Gary. “Fuck that thing.” Ted tests him and the device reads 20. At 5 Gary would have been dead. He might have been near 5 before the sugar kicked in. “Why is your dick hanging out of your pants?” Ted asks. “How the fuck should I know?” says Gary. “Go fuck yourself.” Gary chewed another handful of Sour Patch Kids before he zipped himself up.

Doug

When Doug was 4 he tripped over a small dog and clean bit off his tongue. The blood loss almost killed him. Doug has no memory of the accident. Of his childhood he only remembers the beatings his older brother gave him. He beat me the day I was born, Doug said. They brought me home from the hospital and he started beating me.

In school they said he was Learning Disabled. They called Doug ‘retard’ every day. He didn’t want to live. In high school he would sit in his car and put a knife blade against his wrist, but he never did it.

Doug met Heather at the back of a bar in Wrigleyville. He asked why her friends were ignoring her. She was only a little fat then and the goiter she has now was not yet growing. This was 10 years ago. Doug started to see Heather and one day he brought her home and her husband was at the door and he threatened Doug. I’m just bringing her home, Doug protested. I don’t see what’s the problem. Soon after her divorce Doug decided to marry her.

He took Heather to the park with two KFC dinners and a bottle of wine. Inside one of the fried chicken boxes Doug had hidden a poem he had written and inside the folded up poem he put the ring. When Heather was almost finished eating chicken she found the poem and the ring and she agreed to marry him. She found the whole thing very romantic.

They moved in together along with Heather's teenaged son who smoked cigarettes and was mean to Doug’s cats. Doug got into it with him and it was decided that the young man would have to go. Doug sees him on the bus sometimes and they don’t talk to each other. He’s got a job now as a security guard and makes $3 an hour more than Doug does.

The best job Doug ever had was working freight at Wick's Furniture. All the guys were Mexican and didn’t speak English and that didn’t bother him. When Wick's shut down he worked at another warehouse where a night manager named Ken would ride him all the time. He would bring Doug into his office every night and tell him he was stupid. One day Doug didn’t go back. He had enough. The day he quit he was thinking of taking the bus to St. Charles and killing Ken with a machete. But Doug didn't go. Instead he stayed home and beat his wife.

The first time he beat Heather he just pushed her around, pushed her against the wall, and then he threw her down. Doug pushed her around this time too, but then he grabbed her around the neck and he strangled her. She was stupid and lazy and fat and she wouldn't stop nagging him. She didn't work and she just lay in bed watching tv and ate all the food while he was away. It must have been before he was strangling her that the neighbors called the cops because when he was strangling her she wasn’t making any loud noises. Heather didn’t want to press charges but she was so marked up that the cops had to take him away. She was pulling at him and crying to let him stay.

In jail the black guys called him Billy Bob. One black guy called him Slim Shady. There are no doors to the bathroom and you pull the garbage can in front of the stall when you use the toilet. Everybody waits their turn for the shower. Doug walked on the shower floor in his bare feet and got some sort of athlete’s foot. It still comes back sometimes. The food was terrible and Doug doesn't eat lunch meat anymore because of the memory. Doug says he’ll never hit her again because he doesn’t want to go back. I’m not a good person, he says. I hate my fat cow wife but I deserve her. It’s my punishment for hitting on her.

The one vacation Doug took in his life was to see his father in Las Vegas. But it wasn’t a good vacation because his father was dead when he got there. His father had gone to Vegas to drink himself to death 6 months before. Now he keeps his father on top of the TV. When Doug shakes the TV the little wooden box leaks a little of his father onto the carpet.

Doug and Heather are on their second bankruptcy. After their car was repo-ed a man came and told them they owed 20,000 dollars. The bankruptcy people tell them they can’t ever have any property. They want proof of their wages and they want receipts for everything they buy. Doug doesn’t think he will be allowed to buy any more comic books or cowboy hats. They just started garnishing his wages too. The last few days before paychecks Doug has no money for food and doesn't eat.

Last week Doug and Heather pawned their wedding rings. Doug used his money to get a large tattoo of the Gemini symbol on his back. But the tattoo looks more like the pi symbol and there must have been some misunderstanding because the tattoo artist had added wings to it. Doug refuses to show anyone and doesn't like to think about it. It's on his back so he doesn't see it much. Anyway, says Doug, he plans to kill himself when he's 60. He doesn't want to be like that old man he sees at the bus stop. He can hardly get up the stairs onto the bus. 60 is long enough.

Ted 2

Ted was telling us about his previous employment as a secret government agent. He had been at every major conflict of the last 20 years: the first Iraq war, the Yugoslav wars, Kosovo--he was there when the Blackhawk helicopters went down in Somalia. He knew those Delta guys. He was there gathering intel. He was once in Africa on safari and got lost from his guide. Follow the river is what you are supposed to do and that is what he did. Clans of bushmen attacked Ted and he repelled their attacks. He followed the river for days and back to civilization. Did we know that he laid 100 girls during spring break 1992? No, we did not. A young blond with a huge ass walked by us and Ted stopped talking. I laid her when I was in high school, he whispered. But Ted, she's in her twenties and you’re almost 40? What does that got to do with anything, he replied.

Freight Team Update

1. Congratulations to Mauro the hot dog guy who was recently promoted from keeper of the outdoor hot dog stand to a member of the freight team. Mauro has also gone into business as a Spanish-language vitamin salesman for a sort of ponzi-scheme vitamin sales organization. During break time he studies from a large binder containing summaries on hundreds of vitamin supplements. He believes there is great upside to the vitamin business. America is a wonderful place.

2. Ted has been angry now for over a week following the theft of his gummy bears. After confronting most of the daytime staff he now believes it was the freight team who stole them. He glares at each of us when we see him.

3. Frank has stopped tearing out or smudging away the face of Barack Obama in the newspapers left in the break room. Since he was hired the newspapers have had carefully torn holes where Obama's face would have been. Frank was even careful to remove the ears. It is not yet known why Frank ended this practice.

Other Machines: Slip Sheet Forklift

I only recently began driving the Slip Sheet Forklift. Its operation is similar to the Reach Lift as one uses the wheel control in the left hand to turn the machine right and left, while operating the joystick with the right to move the forks. Similar to the Reach it operates using a dead man's pedal, with backward and forward movement controlled with the joystick. Unlike the Reach it does not have feet that protrude or the ability to extend the forks, making it closer to the basic Fork Lift in actual operation (though battery not liquid gas powered). Because the cockpit controls are set fairly close together on the left side of the machine, one needs either to turn sideways in the cockpit or operate it with one's right arm crossing his body, making it awkward to use. I cannot understand what this machine is used for given its redundancies when compared to the basic Fork Lift and Reach Lift. In fact, I would prefer having a second Reach to this machine due to its better maneuverability, fork control, and handling in narrow aisles.

Howie Blakely (Part 2)

Part 1 here.

“Hey Frank,” says Paulie, “Did you ever get revenge on Howie Blakely?”
Frank smiles. “I did have my chance. We were both at court for probation at the same time.”
“Whatd’ya mean?”
“We both got arrested for the fight. We were sitting next to each other outside the court.” Says Frank, “I thought, I’m gonna take him right here. My face was still really beat up then. I felt humiliated every day. Here I have my shot and right outside the courtroom for our probation hearing.”
“So whatd’ya do?”
Frank smiles. “Right about the second I'm going to jump him, Howie Blakely turns to me. He says he’s sorry. He’s had a lot of issues in the past year. He didn’t mean to do what he did. He asks if I want to go to breakfast with him.”
“He asks you to breakfast?”
“I said okay. Then he says instead of going out for breakfast he’d like to make me breakfast at his place. So after the hearing I follow him back to his house. But his brother is there and I’m ready for shit to go down again. His brother is a wrecking ball just like him. But nothing happens. He makes me breakfast and he does this special thing with the ham. He cooks it in syrup. It's delicious. Best ham I’ve ever tasted. I’ve been cooking ham in syrup ever since.”

Recap 7/27/2010

So Paul the Pollock says, “You told Ken to rob a bank?”

“Where’d you hear that?” I says.

“I hear things,” Paul says. He’s got this big grin on his face.

“Did Ken tell you that?”

Paul just keeps smiling and doesn’t say anything.

Then I explain to Paulie how it really went:

I was sitting in the break room when Ken comes in from the parking lot, and suddenly he starts talking to me. The guy has never spoken a word to me before and I’ve never actually heard him speak other than the mumbling while he’s pushing carts. He starts talking about how life costs money, you got to pay for everything, there’s no way around not paying. I tell him there are a few things that won’t cost him anything. Going to the park, bird watching, maybe going to the beach and swimming and building sand castles. Ken thinks about these things. Then he tells me the government is taking most of his pay. What do you do about that? What would I do? I said I would flee the country. Make them look for you. You can push shopping carts in Mexico. Surely there are lot attendants there. Ken thought about it and responded that he didn’t want to leave. Well, I said, then the only other option is you got to rob a bank. Ken looks at me seriously. I said, That’s where they keep the money, isn’t it? Ken nodded. This made sense to him. Then, without saying anything further, he walked out of the break room.

****************************************************************************************************

Mario says, “Frank, you ever had your ass kicked?”

Frank stops shrink wrapping the pallet. “Yes, I have. Howie Blakely. July 4th, 1986.”

“He remembers the fucking day,” laughs Paulie.

Mario is laughing too.

“Howie Blakely was a big, big guy,” says Frank. “I was into the martial arts then for about 10 years. I had a little to drink and I start telling Howie Blakely that I don’t like him picking on my cousin and I say some other things I shouldn‘t have said. He comes at me and I have never been hit so hard. Blood just gushing from my mouth. [Frank bends over and motions with his hand how the blood poured from his mouth]. So then I kick his nuts up into his throat [Frank demonstrates the powerful straight kick to the groin he gave Howie Blakely]. But Howie Blakely keeps coming at me, it didn't stop him at all. And then his friends join in--and his friends are bigger than all of my friends. Ah, it was a bad day for Capasso. It was a bad day.”

Loose Change

I can do it with dimes too. But for the purposes of these instructional videos, we, the producers and myself, have chosen to use quarters. The video was shot by the Pollock Paul on a cellphone (although he claims vehemently to be Italian).

Great News

I was at the cardboard baler when Frank drove up on the Reach.

"Great news," he said.

"What's that?"

"The weightlifter is dead."

I stopped wrapping wire around the cube of compacted cardboard I had just expelled from the baler. I remembered this weightlifter Frank vowed to kill by crushing his head from either temple with a pair of dumbells. Frank had hoped to catch him while he was on the bench press. Frank had also said he would bite off this weightlifter's cheek or his nose so that he would always remember him.

"You mean the weightlifter you thought your wife was seeing?"

"Yes," said Frank, grinning broadly.

"How did he die, Frank?"

"Does it matter?" Frank laughed. "He's dead. The weightlifter is dead."

Frank laughed again and drove off. The great news had made him supremely happy.

Forklift Accident

Frank was rushing. That’s what caused it, Frank said. The store was to open in a few minutes and he was on the Reach Forklift, needing to get one last pallet up in the plumbing aisle. Frank turned hard down the aisle and saw old Marvin, the seventy year old, slowly pushing his computer cart. The plumbing aisle is narrow but instead of slowing down or stopping to let Marvin pass, Frank tried to swerve around him and giving too much room Frank smashed the outside forklift foot into the steel upright support in the middle of the shelving. A great boom sounded throughout the store. Victor had his headphones on and even he heard it. Frank’s face smacked into the metal gridding of the forklift cockpit as the machine was suddenly brought to a stop. The wall of tall shelving wobbled and Frank and Marvin looked up and saw the water heaters above them moving. “Oh, God, Frank. Oh God. Oh God,” said Marvin. “Oh, Frank. They’re moving. Oh, God.“

But the water heaters did not come down on them. The steel upright had been clean ripped out of the concrete, the bolts that held it to the floor were sheared off. Frank brought the manager over to show him what he had done. The manager on duty had him remove the water heaters from the shelves and cordon off the bay. The wall of shelving would need to be taken apart, the upright support replaced, and new concrete would have to be laid.

The manager was not happy with Frank and took away his license saying it would take weeks of retraining to get it back. Frank liked to drive and did not take it well. But 2 hours later, when a truckload of trees arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm, the manager re-licensed Frank and sent him out into the gale to pull trees off the truck with the big forklift. The accident wasn’t really that big a deal, Frank said. After all, I’m a good driver.

Ken

Ken works the parking lot with Sam. Ken is slow moving and hunched, with a thick black moustache and bifocal glasses. He speaks little and in a low mumble, though you will often see him walking a cart through the lot muttering to himself. Ken sleeps in his minivan behind the Meyer Grocery. He came into some money a few years ago after being hit by a car while riding a bicycle and he was able to move into an apartment. But the money went fast and not even a year later he was back sleeping behind the Meyer Grocery. Teddy over at Teddy’s Sandwiches gives him lunch for free because he feels sorry for him.

Last year Ken didn't show up to work for 2 months. Nobody knew where he was until his brother called saying he was recovering from a terrific car accident. When Ken returned to work he told Bill Lange there hadn’t been any accident, he had been locked up. It started when his car broke down and because he did not own a cell phone he began knocking on doors asking for help. Nobody would help him. When a woman tried to shut the door on him Ken kicked the door in and walked into her house telling her he needed to use her phone. She started screaming and he told her: Shut the fuck up. Sit the fuck down. Ken called a tow truck and then walked back to his car. The tow truck arrived along with 3 squad cars and they took Ken to jail. No one Ken knew had the money to bail him out and he spent 2 months in jail. When he finished telling Bill Lange this story he asked him for seven thousand dollars.

Ken returning to the parking lot

Ken choosing a snack from the vending machine

Sam

You could hear Sam snorting and grunting from the electrical aisle. In the break room Little Dave, the Puerto Rican forklift driver, had him laughing.

“How about Ricky? Can you whup him, Sam?”

“I-I-I can whup Ricky,” said Sam. “I-I-I c-can whup Ricky up and down the lumber aisle.”

He saw me sit down and went silent.

“Sam, can you take Patrick?” Little Dave asked.

I caught him staring at me and he looked away.

“I can take Patrick,” he mumbled. He was looking at the floor.

“Sam. Show him the Elephant.” Little Dave winked at me. “C’mon, Sam. Do the Elephant.”

Sam glanced at me and I smiled at him and he smiled back weakly. He wasn’t sure he should do it.

“Do the Elephant, Sam.”

Then he stood up and extending a hairy, bulky arm as a sort of trunk, he cupped his mouth with his other hand and began to trumpet like an elephant. He raised and lowered his arm as he trumpeted and then he bent over and dragged the knuckles of his trunk along the floor. Little Dave and I were laughing. Sam was smiling broadly.

“I-I-I got another one,” he said to me. “I-I can do the Turkey Dance.”

“Do it, Sam. Do it,” said Little Dave.

He stuck out his head, and with his eyes opened wide he shook his head violently from side to side while flapping his arms. Shaking his head had the effect of swinging the flesh of his double chin like a turkey wattle. He stomped one foot as he flapped and shook. He performed the dance for almost a minute before collapsing in his seat in exhaustion.

We were still laughing when Sam said to me: “Ron, he says--he says, I’m the best lot attendant he--he’s ever seen.”

He also said Ron the Store Manager had made him Department Head of the parking lot. He was proud of this appointment and I congratulated him. After Sam left to retrieve shopping carts, Little Dave explained that the parking lot was not officially designated a department and could have no Department Head, but that Sam was not to know this. What Little Dave told me next I was not ever to speak of either.

The previous summer Romanian Cris had invited a few co-workers, including Sam, to his bachelor party at a strip club. It was Sam’s first time around strippers and he had been very nervous until after a few drinks, and the attention of one stripper, Romanian Cris had paid to send him to the champagne room. No one saw Sam after that and the party ended without Sam turning up. Sam did not return to work until the middle of the following week and he refused to talk about what had happened. Sam avoided the break room and would not sit down. Jim Bondi from millwork noticed Sam was walking more slowly than usual and with some prodding, and Bondi’s promise to tell no one, Sam explained what had happened.

In the champagne room the stripper told Sam to take off his clothes. She put a blindfold on him and had him get down on all fours and told him not to move or make any sound. The stripper then inserted an extra large black plastic vibrating dildo inside his rectum. Sam let her work the dildo on him even though he wasn’t sure about it and it hurt. She used it on him until he had to leave the room and afterwards he went straight home. For days he couldn’t walk or sit down without pain. Jim Bondi recommended the next time Sam insist upon some sort of lubricant. Lubrication worked wonders, Jim Bondi said, and he encouraged Sam to try it again. Sam did not seem convinced.

George and Lester

I was on the forklift bringing down a pallet of topsoil when a hefty man wearing glasses stopped me.

“You’ll need to bring that pallet down. Then you’ll need to bring down these others.” He was holding a clipboard and read off the SKU numbers to at least 25 different products.

“Yes,” I said. “I know.” I found it interesting he believed I could recognize which products he was talking about from just their six-digit SKU numbers. There were approximately 45,000 individually SKU-ed products in the store.

“Then you’ll need to replace that pallet of Moisture Control at the sliding doors,” said the man with the clipboard.

“Yes,” I said. “I do that every night.” I had never seen this man before.

This guy with the clipboard then called out to a thin older black man who had been standing in front of the wall of decorative urns since I had come to work. The old black man he called Lester and he motioned him inside. I watched the black man shuffle off after the man with the clipboard and I went back to bringing down pallets.

Later on Paul told me who the man was: “Oh, that’s ‘Clipboard George’. He’s a daytime manager. He just walks around with a clipboard telling people to do things. He’s useless. He always has that clipboard.”

During the night Clipboard George would call over the loudspeaker for Lester to meet him at certain parts of the store. They would stand together looking up at a wall of shelving and Clipboard George would check his clipboard and point. Lester would nod his head in agreement. When Clipboard George left, Lester would move a few items on the shelves and then he would wander off. Clipboard George would return later and look at the shelving and look at his clipboard. He would call Lester back over the loudspeaker and do more pointing at the shelving. Lester would nod in agreement. Then Lester would do a little more work and wander off again. Clipboard George and Lester were working together.

Gary

I’ve never spoken to Gary in millwork and I was advised not to. Gary is a big, long-haired biker who recently had a his Harley repo-ed. He is also a diabetic who does not manage his sugar intake very well. Often you will see Gary standing and staring blankly, totally unresponsive. If you are male it is best not to approach him when he is in this state as any effort to help him will result in him punching you in the face. He assaulted a policeman once and has slugged 3 other employees and 1 customer. But if you are a female he will respond quickly and with a big grin and will accept any assistance. He has a thing for women and will follow after any female employee with his arms open, trying to hug her.

There is an often told story of one of Gary’s most serious diabetic attacks. Gary was helping a long line of customers when he felt it coming on and with it the powerful urge to go to the bathroom. He assisted all the customers but one and as he was helping this final customer his bowels began to give and he abruptly ran across the store towards the bathroom. Just before the bathroom door Gary’s bowels gave way and he stripped off his jeans and underwear right there, leaving a brown trail into the toilet stall. Next he tried to flush his shit-stained jeans and underwear down the toilet and flooded the bathroom. He came out some time later wearing only a shirt, naked from the waist down, his legs smeared with feces. He walked slowly through the store to the front desk and told the manager: “I fucking shit myself. Look at me, I’m covered in shit. I’m going home and you can't fucking stop me.” The manager on duty did not protest. Patrick from electrical volunteered to clean up Gary’s shit. They gave Patrick $50 for it.

Dan

Dan is the burly bearded guy in plumbing. If you’ve ever talked to him you know who I’m talking about. Dan addresses everyone, including women, as “little buddy.” Hi Dan, you’ll say. He’ll say, “Hey there little buddy,” or “Little buddy, I can’t wait to get this day going!” I remember his concern when the store hired an older guy actually named Buddy. I never did find out how Dan addressed him. The other thing about Dan is his enthusiasm. You’ll say, “Dan, how are ya?” And he will stop and hold out his hand to stop you, make a dramatic pause, and then say: “How am I doing? You wanna know, little buddy? I’m doing spectacular. Little buddy, I can’t believe it! Unbelievable is how I’m doing! Wow!” I went through this a couple of times with Dan and watched him respond this way to others. I no longer ask Dan how he is doing.

A Car You Don't Drive, A House You Don't Live In, A Girlfriend You've Never Kissed

Joe said he had a black Monte Carlo Super Sport. None of us had seen it and his parents drove him to work. Joe said he had a home that he bought out of foreclosure, but the home was still being worked on 5 years later and Joe lived with his parents. Joe said he was going to marry Elise, who worked the paint aisle, and he was going to take her to Italy. Italy was his homeland and he had family there who would welcome them. But Elise had reported him to management for harassment and asked to be moved to the other end of the store.

Joe said he had been strangled by the boss at his last job, by a Mexican named Augie, and that very soon he was to receive a large settlement. Despite the litigation he was calling daily to get his old job back in the meat department. Any day now he would have it. Augie and he could work things out. “But what we need ‘round this place is a union,” Joe said. “So that management will give us some respect.” Respect was worth paying a union, he argued. And Hoffa was a great man.

Joe was short and round and his bald head was smooth and polished. Joe’s hands were soft and very white and stayed that way because he did not like to work. Through the night you heard Joe cackling in the paint aisle and doing broken English impersonations of the Mexican Augie. Steve liked to get on Joe in the break room. Joe would be telling Victor about how this or that was going to happen for him and Steve, not even looking up while reading the paper, would grunt, “No, it’s not. No. Joe. It’s not.” Joe had these sties growing on his eyelids and they seemed to get larger and redder every day. He had them for months. Joe was always talking about what the doctor was proscribing and Steve says, “Hey Joe, maybe if you washed your hands after you go to the bathroom you wouldn’t have that shit growing on your eyes.”

They finally fired him for getting into it with Phil from the flooring department. Joe tried to get his job back, calling the store manager every few days. This went on for a few months until Joe realized it wasn’t going to happen. He called the police and tried to have assault charges brought on Phil for flicking a paperclip at him. Joe also filed a lawsuit against Phil for assault with a paperclip. That put Phil out of work too, which was too bad. Phil was a good guy.