Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Liquidator

Note: This is a continuation of my last post. I spent the weekend trying to get a handle on what upset me so much after completing my shift on Friday. Now that I have pinpointed the source of my emotional disturbance, I wanted to distill it for posterity. Because I like to read myself talking or some such rot.

Friday morning, we had our morning staff meeting. The café shut down when the doors closed on Wednesday night, the employees charged with packing and transferring as much as possible to the two stores remaining open.

K, a service manager who has worked at the store for 20+ years, since before the build of the location was complete, struggled to remain composed as she announced the corporate office put up the store for bids by liquidators. By the end of the day all the stock and fixtures would be sold to the highest bidder, who would sell it off for whatever profit could be made.

After shelving new magazines, I offered to answer the phones, in order to give the long-term staffers a break from answering the same painful questions over and over again.

The end of day occurred at noon, when a crew of men carrying briefcases and floor plans entered the building. They stalked the floors, studying the shelves and layout, taking notes and making a concerted effort to avoid eye contact and stay out of the way of the staff.

A second man followed closely behind, in search of the store manager, D. He had heard the store was closing and upon locating D began asking information about the general layout and square footage of the space, as he was interested in renting the location.

Finding myself with a few free moments, I headed to the staff room to grab my iPod, so I could show a new coworker some photographs of Toddler Alien. D called to me in the staff room, asking if I was available for a quick task.

The liquidator was in the stockroom, surrounded by several FedEx boxes, addressed to the store, that needed opened. D introduced me, and I put my hand out in a genuine attempt to be professional.

It is now, two days later, that I realize why this man's handshake was so indistinct. He had not wanted to shake my hand.

The boxes contained the “going out of business” signage, which needed to be sorted for use in the next few weeks. Included were a set of walker boards. “These will be used outside” said the liquidator. When D asked if he would need store staff, the liquidator replied “No. Usually we go to the homeless shelter and offer some guys $20.00 to stand outside during the day”.

D continued going through the boxes while I silently stacked placards on a cart. The liquidator held up a set of stickers and said “These are seals for the service door. Every time you open the door, you need to place a new seal and log who opened the door and when, such as when you take out the trash”. When D explained that the service door could only be opened by a service manager and offered to have the staff remove trash from the front, the liquidator replied “No, because then the employees will just hid the books in the trash bags and take them out the front”.

At this point, I was finished stacking placards, all of the boxes were open and I was beginning to actively dislike the man. He had not wanted to shake my hand, he showed not an ounce of empathy for the homeless and assumed that the staff would be out to steal his stock by hiding it in the trash.

Shortly before the end of my shift, K gathered us all together again to update us on the current news. She instructed us to remove anything considered a personal item before the end of the day. When I asked about the collection of ARCs, she said to take them today, as tomorrow they would be sold.

Another service manager, G, checked me out at the end of my shift. I offered to push someone out a window for him. He said “Can you push the liquidator out the window. That man does not have an ounce of empathy in him”. I replied “I suspect there will be a line”.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Back to the Land of the Unemployed

Which is where I will be returning sometime in the next weeks. After trudging through the holiday season, selling calendars like it was something I was born to do, I was delighted to accept an offer for one of the two open part time spots at the major-chain-bookstore, thus delaying any decision about returning to full time work for several more months.

Only to discover when I came in for my second shift this past Wednesday that the major chain was filing for bankruptcy and the store that had so recently hired me was on the list of closures.

I have an emotional advantage over the rest of the staff, most who have spent years working together at this location. One manager was hired the store opened twenty years ago and remembers when the company was building it out. So today I volunteered to spend my shift manning the phones, answering the same set of questions over and over again and listening to the same set of comments.
  • When are you closing? I don't know, a time line has not been set yet.
  • Are all the stores in Pittsburgh closing? No, stores X and Y will remain open.
  • When are you going to start discounting the inventory? No time line has been set.
  • Are you still taking gift cards? Yes, online and at the stores which are remaining open will honor gift cards.
  • This really sucks. Yes. Thanks.
  • I'm so sorry to hear that you are closing. You are my favorite store. Thanks.
  • Channel 4 said you were going out of business this weekend. To quote a coworker after I got off the phone "Channel 4 lies".
  • This is bullshit. I understand.
  • And my personal favorite "I live in Dormont. I don't want to drive across Pittsburgh and the country to use my gift cards". When I suggested he used the online store, he digressed into a rant about Amazon.com and how he still had not received an order he placed for a Christmas gift, leaving me so aggravated that I removed one of my shoes and mimed banging it against a counter while fantasizing that I was aiming it at the caller's head.
The speaker of the last quote also threatened to "call investor relations" and complain because I could not tell him when the liquidation sale would start.

The liquidator came today. He is an older man, blandly dressed in a grey suit, black shoes, white hair. His may be the most indistinct hand I have ever shaken. I relished the snarky thought of him coming down with whatever crappy illness that has been lingering in my immune system for the past two months.

In the very brief period of time I spent in his presence he struck me as a most unsympathetic of men.

To be continued... 

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Back From Hiatus

I've started looking for full-time work. I'm only a couple weeks into my search and I'm already seriously considering a change in profession. Remain a part-time bookseller for the large chain with severe financial problems? Get a paralegal certificate? Go back to my self of 16 years ago and be an administrative assistant?(1) Wait tables?

There is nothing quite like a bad interview. I'm still fuming from the last interview, 50 minutes over the phone(2) with a bad connection, speaking with an individual who asked vague, broad questions and had the nerve to complain to the recruiter who set it up that my seven years of QA experience did not make me "qualified enough" as she would have to invest too much time to "train" me to use the bug tracking system and other (very expensive) testing tools. The fact that it has been a function of my profession to learn how to use such tools on my own completely escaped her. And it was not from the lack of trying on my part either.

I know what the problem is. I am totally unwilling to put up with any bullshit from any interviewer or organization at this point in my life. I would much rather be upfront about what I want and what I think I can provide then go through the rigmarole involved to land a job these days. I know that odds are stacked against me - I'm competing with laid off developers with MIS degrees and tons of experience working on $100,000 defect management systems while I have been trained/self-taught and work almost exclusively with open source tools.

Ugh.

(1) Interesting detail - the wage I am paid now, as a part-time bookseller is the same amount as the wage I was paid in 1996 as a full-time receptionist at a collection agency.
(2) Really, if you are going to waste my time with a phone interview that long and I'm in the area, just bring me into the office.