(Twenty Years) Part 11: Over The River And Through The Woods ...

November 30, 2007 marked 20 years to the day since I started at Record Den, which has inspired some thought and reminiscing on the person I was then, what the job was like as the years went by, and what has kept me around until now ...

It was the Monday of Thanksgiving week, 1997 when Brian and Greg and I drove to Great Northern Mall to start another Christmas season working at the Den, only this time about 40 miles from home. This wasn't a completely new experience for me: I had worked a Saturday at this location in July of 1989 to help cover for the manager's wedding day, and I had also been stationed there for a week in late October 1995 while considering an offer from our buyer to manage the location. Both experiences had been pleasant enough, but this time we were going to be based there for at least two months, displacing the crew that was already in place at the store (even canning them if necessary), and getting the place back on its feet and in fighting shape for the holidays.

I was apprehensive with this operation right from the outset for two reasons: first (as I mentioned in the previous post), I was not happy to be offering Deak a helping hand after the way the Mentor store had been yanked out from underneath us. Secondly, Great Northern Mall was located on the other side of Cleveland in the southwestern suburb of North Olmstead, and the idea of making a 90 minute all-freeway round-trip to work five or six days a week for two months or more in my already-temperamental Pontiac Fiero was not exactly filling me with optimism. My concerns about breaking down (or more likely overheating) in the middle of I-71 or I-480 in the dead of night competed with the idea of also having to deal with Cleveland's notoriously terrible winter weather. Luckily, the weather turned out to be a total non-issue: aside from a freak October snowstorm that had dumped over a foot of snow on the east side, the rest of that winter stayed remarkably mild (at least into late January).

While the Mentor store was, at the time of its closing, the most successful outlet in the Record Den chain, the Great Northern location was at one time the real jewel in our crown. I'm sure a large part of this success derived from the store's unique placement in the sprawling shopping center, looking out directly into the middle of the food court, located between two restaurants, and within sight of a major mall entrance. During its peak, Great Northern was soundly besting us numbers-wise, but the departure of its original management team followed by years of ineffectual leadership and the collapsing of the Record Den financial infrastructure had left it a shadow of its former self.

I suspect the current crew of the Great Northern store weren't exactly pleased with our arrival, and I'll bet they were even less happy with the way we took over operations and promptly started making the place over in our image. I don't recall many blow-outs between anybody, but there were constant little battles were being silently waged over how to stock product (to mask the utter lack of catalog in the store, the racks were flooded with dozens of copies of the same CDs and cassettes, for instance), how to efficiently merchandise the front counter (this was a particularly amusing battle front as Karen, the Great Northern manager, hated the way Greg front-loaded the counter with product and was constantly undoing his displays on his off days), and the overall lackadaisical, carefree manner absences or below-par work was dealt with there (we canned one person for basically vanishing into thin air for a month after we showed up, only for Karen to re-hire the guy behind our backs).

While Brian and Greg had their hands full dealing with store politics, I did my best to stay out of the way, learn the buying ropes, and place massive daily stock orders in order to rebuild the store's skeletal inventory ASAP. It may not have been what I'd call "fun," but those few weeks between Turkey Day and Christmas week were definitely an interesting challenge in that we were given a time frame in which to make a noticeable difference in the store's fortunes, and we set about our task with relish (and I tell you, it can be a lot of fun learning how to spend someone else's money). Now that the chain was once again flush with cash in the wake of the Mentor sale, we were able to get the Great Northern store into something we considered reasonable in a relatively short time, and we looked at the experience of doing as a practice run for opening our proposed new location in the new year.

While the task of re-creating the Mentor store in North Olmstead managed to keep me occupied most of the time, working with some of the other people at that store had its ups and downs. I didn't really care much for Karen or her snotty assistant manager, and none of us liked Andy The Invisible Clerk very much. Then there was Nick, who the only person at that store who was actually fun to work with, and not even so much for his streaky work ethic as his Spicoli-by-way-of-Suge Knight approach to life. Nothing ever really bothered Nick: he just kinda rolled with the flow and went about his white-boy gangsta existence, occasionally making hilarious observations in that permanently-stoned, laid-back drawl of his. We might have been from completely different worlds, but Nick was a hoot.

Now comes the really bad part: within a couple of weeks of starting at Great Northern, my worst fears going into this season were soon realized as the Fiero started behaving erratically. I'd tried car-pooling with Greg or Brian when possible, but the way the schedule worked out didn't always make that solution workable, and eventually the Fiero started to make getting to and from work into a daily cliffhanger. Finally, one frigid Saturday night close to Christmas, the god damned thing chose to not start at all.

I was supposed to give Nick a ride home that night (he lived a few miles up I-71 from the airport, which was on my usual route), and after the Fiero proved completely unresponsive due to some kind of electrical/ignition issue, he called up an alternate way home while I sat in the office at the back of the store, fuming and wondering what to do about this situation. Going home was definitely my desired option, but it was already nearing 11:00 P.M. (we closed at 10 that night), I'd have to be back there again at 10 A.M. the following morning and any ride I might be able to get back home would take nearly an hour to get to me, then nearly another hour to get back home, and then another hour to get me back here nine hours after that. It wasn't worth the effort. I was stuck.

With a furious sigh, I called home to report my situation and set about spending a cold winter's night stuck at work. To ease my fury a bit and make some constructive use of the evening, I put on some music at low volume and set about doing some cleaning up and arranging of stock for an hour or so until I figured it was time to duck out of sight, retreat into the back room (I didn't feel it would be a good idea to call attention to myself as I had no idea how mall security might approach this situation) and try to get some sleep.

This was going to be the hard part: the carpet in the store was nearly flat and had no padding underneath, so I threw a bunch of old t-shirts down on the floor and tried to make some kind of bedding that at least approached the idea of "comfortable." My shoes would have to stay on, since even with the heat going, the floor of the office was cold thanks to the shipping door not being flush with the ground (I stuffed a couple more shirts along the bottom to get some rudimentary insulation going). For a blanket, I would have to use my winter coat ... and I wasn't wearing a long coat that year. Figures.

Now, what to use for a pillow? My gaze fell on the display of stuffed animals lying by the office door and I selected the Tasmanian Devil, which at least looked like it would offer some comfort and support ... that is, until I lay down, rested my head on it and it growled gibberish at me in a shitty approximation of Mel Blanc's voice. Oh, it talks. Of course. Jesus F. Christ. Exasperated, I tossed Taz across the office, removed some more t-shirts off the rack, rolled them up into a pillow-like shape, and used them instead. Zzzz.

Needless to say, I slept pretty horribly that night, with every toss and turn bringing me fully awake thanks to my then-bony shape poking uncomfortably through my makeshift nest. At 5 A.M. I awoke and realized I had made the terrible strategic mistake of forgetting to use the public restroom in the food court hours before (and this was probably the one Record Den in the whole chain that didn't have an employee loo). I tried my best to go back to sleep and ignore the pressing need to take a piss, but that window had already closed. I got up, irritated and wondering exactly what the hell I was going to use as a makeshift urinal. A quick scan revealed only one option: an empty Taco Bell cup standing on the desk. I then learned a bit about human bladder capacity: a medium-sized soft drink cup ain't enough for an early morning leak, folks. Luckily, by the time the cup was full, I had relieved myself enough that I could get back to sleep and worry about the rest when the rest of the mall was open.

I was awake for the day by 9 A.M., and shortly after I had covertly disposed of the Taco Bell cup in one of the disposal units outside in the shipping dock, Andy The Invisible Clerk actually showed up for a change, which was a nice surprise. Despite my absolutely evil mood, I had to smile as he took an extended look at my bleary-eyed, disheveled countenance while he punched in and said "Jesus, man, you look terrible."

Oh, it gets better: I made a few phone calls that morning and managed to set up an appointment in the early afternoon to get my car looked at by a local repair shop. Before I called for a tow, I walked out to the Fiero and decided to give it a whirl just in case, feeling an odd certainty that it was going to start up with no problems at all.

Guess what? It fuckin' did.