Category Archives: Blog

The End of a Chapter

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My last day at the shop began as routinely as any other. I breezed through my opening procedures and settled in to absorb my final eight hours running that location. I even had a procrastinating flight student show up, looking for a book that was carried neither by myself or any of my distributors and that he waited too long to purchase online and was now unavailable. Just a regular day.

Honestly, I was kind of looking forward to taking that day in fully. This was the first time I had ever given notice on a job. It was not, however, the first time I had ever quit a job. That last day came abruptly, after months of changes to policy and procedure that did nothing but marginalize many of the store’s employees. I’ll run through that really quickly, because I enjoy retelling this story, since it was such a shit-show in the end.

I was a part-time retail associate at a large liquor store during college. I was there in total for a year and a half. I was loyal, hard-working, only late a couple of times. I was young and naive, but I busted my ass. I loved my coworkers, and I genuinely enjoyed working there. About a year in, a large liquor chain from Dallas-Fort Worth came up, looking to get a foothold in our area. The best way, they figured, was to buy some existing stores. So, they bought all the ones owned by our original ownership group for millions of dollars, which was considerably more than they should have paid.

The liquor store general manager got promoted, and the beer store general manager moved up to take his place. He favored female employees over the males, giving them better schedules and better incentives (bonuses, holidays, etc.). I was able to deal with all of that for the most part for a while.

Other changes included digitizing the inventory system (which I now fully understand is a massive pain in the ass), cutting back on employee discounts, and potentially eliminating Christmas bonuses. That last one scared us the most as the holiday season loomed over us. That’s when all this came to a head for me.

When the calendar opened up for us to be able to ask off for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I was the first to ask for those days off. It was 2007, and my grandfather (Paw Paw) would pass the following March. So, figuring this might be our last holiday season with him, I wanted to make sure I was going to be there for it. I was first to sign my name, and I had an excellent reason for getting those days off. I figured I’d get that time.

I didn’t.

I got Thanksgiving, but not Christmas. I was demoralized and angry. How could I not be granted that time off to spend one last Christmas with my grandfather? It was infuriating and insulting, and I think our GM knew what it would do, too.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came a week or so before Christmas. We were all worrying about our bonuses. The previous year, which, I was told, was true of the years preceding it as well, we were given generous personal checks from the owner’s account. No taxes taken out, either. It was a wonderful surprise. After being a part-time employee for only six months, I got a $150 bonus check, which is still my largest Christmas bonus to date.

So, with the ownership change, bonuses might not even be a possibility, and looking back on it, we all would’ve been happier had we not gotten any at all. But we did. They handed out envelopes to all the employees. Excitedly, we ripped them open. Then you could feel the air sucked from the room, and there was no joy the rest of the day. After eighteen months working there, I received a $50 bonus check. With taxes taken out, I went home that night with $38. Adding insult to injury was that I was not only the lowest paid bonus of the group, but also the fact that coworkers who had been there less than a year got considerably more than I did.

I was livid. I was determined. I was done.

I had coworkers coming up to me after they heard about my bonus to express their sympathy and share in the disappointment, which I did appreciate, but after a few minutes of stewing, I marched to the office. I found the GM posting the following week’s schedule and told him (not asked, told) that I was leaving to spend my holiday with my family, explaining fully (again) why I needed to be there. He said he understood and let me go for the holiday, adding that I should let him know when I got back so he could put me back on the schedule.

I never talked to him again.

So, that was the first actual last day I ever had, and there was no enjoyment to be had there since I essentially rage-quit. I was looking forward to taking yesterday easy and just savoring my last time being in that place I had put so much of my life into preserving.

Then that went away in a puff of smoke.

The owner walked in two hours into my shift, tying up some loose ends, after which, he dismissed me. I was kind of taken aback. I could leave? On my last day? I didn’t even have to spend it there? It just struck me strangely off guard. I was expecting a full day to count down the hours. Now, there were no hours to count. He left with a handshake and an invitation to return (HA!), and I shuffled out not too long after that, a box of my stuff under my arm and my bag on my shoulder. I took one last look at the store front and the massive lobby of the building, and I left. And that was that.

Four years, on the nose, had come to a bitter, unceremonious end. Fitting, I guess. You can’t always get what you want. That’s just the way it goes.

So, it’s onward and upward now for me, and I’m just glad to finally be moving on to something better. Here’s to the next chapter!

-The Retail Explorer

Shopper Profiles: Broseph McMoron

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Here’s the second in our series on regulars. Meet Broseph McMoron.

Broseph McMoron

Broseph, as I touched on ever so briefly in our first post, is named so because, well, he is a moron and calls me “bro” every time. If you recall what I said about pet names, we don’t like them. “Bro” is right up there at the top of the list.

not your buddy

I’m not your bro, buddy.

Shall I list the reasons why?I Hate You (Elzar, Futurama).gif

Okay, maybe only that second reason is accurate. When you use a pet name, we instantly move you over to the bad side of the board. We don’t care if that’s just your personality. We don’t know you, nor do we really care to all that much, and we don’t feel any attachment to you. There are very few of my regulars that I actually like. They don’t even call me names, so why do these other shoppers feel that they have the invitation to do so? Thing is they don’t. We don’t welcome it. We barely like it when you know our actual names. If you must call us by anything, try “sir” or “miss”. (Hell, I’ll even accept “man”.)

So, Broseph got up on the wrong side of the bed to begin with. Not a great start. From there, he just kept digging his hole bigger through general stupidity and laziness, which is par for the course for most of my customers. Honestly, nothing really egregious sticks out in my mind; “Bro” is just what brands him for me.

That, and he would always walk right up to the counter and shake my hand with the most miserable limp handshake. It’s weird enough that you go out of your way to shake the hand of a retail sales associate who’s really not doing much to help you with any major purchase, but to do it with such an awful handshake? That’s a whole new level of blech. That’s almost as bad as sweaty money. Almost. (We’ll touch on that another time.)

IMG_9684

IMG_8854

Oh, Pete, so hopeful.

Those are a couple of my favorite strips. Dell is a rockstar in these. And as usual, both of these things have actually happened in the shop. I don’t recall if Broseph was actually the instigator or not, but I absolutely buy him as having been the inspiration behind these.

Bottom line is this: Don’t call us by pet names. Just treat us with the same level of respect that we extend to you. And as always, don’t be a moron. Use your head. We’ll love you forever.

-The Retail Explorer

TBT: “Why is the Vodka Clear?”

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TBT Clear Vodka.jpg

Ah, the stupid things you overhear in a liquor store…

As I’ve discussed before, my first foray into the retail world was selling liquor back in college. My store was the biggest in the Texas panhandle, and at one point, the third largest distributor of Miller products. So, pretty much, we had everything anyone could ever want, and could get anything else, within reason. (And thank the maker this was before the craft beer boom. I’d have never caught up.)

The layout of the store was fairly simple. It was divided in half, with wine on the left side and beer and liquor on the right. Each section was highlighted by a large, neon-colored sign to denote which kind of booze was which. Without fail, we would daily get questions as to where to find certain kinds of alcohol. (I talked about that in a previous TBT post.)

Alcohol is, apparently, this mystical kind of thing, difficult to understand and magical in its makeup and properties. I’ve reached that conclusion because so often did customers come in with such wild misconceptions. The above sketch was one such instance that really has stuck with me all of these years. I did this sketch about four years ago, back before doing a full webcomic was even a thought. A young woman, college-aged, came in and silently stared at the vodka wall with one of her friends before finally opening her mouth to say, “Why is the vodka clear?”

I do not remember anything else that happened after that as I was so thrown for a loop that I could barely function.

One of vodka’s properties is its clarity. Pure alcohol is as clear as spring water. The only ways it can achieve any kind of color is through an aging process, mixing with other liquids, or artificial coloring. That’s pretty much how it works.

So, vodka, by nature of being a relatively flavorless liquor is almost always clear. I haven’t a clue where the hell this girl got that idea that it wasn’t clear. Maybe it was from one too many cosmopolitans or vodka cranberries, or maybe she had just never handled a bottle herself, having only drunk cocktails made for her by friends and bartenders. That’s all I can figure. But as we say in Texas, “Bless her heart.”

The Explorer’s Recommendation:

If you’re stuck for a good vodka, I’d highly suggest trying Reyka.

Reyka is small batch vodka made in Iceland. It’s made from arctic spring water that flows, and is filtered naturally, through a volcanic field and distilled in a copper Carter-Head still. It’s smooth and delightfully tasty, for a liquor that really doesn’t ever have much flavor anyway. The best part is it’s cheap, yet classy.

(This is not a paid advertisement, as I’m not important enough to get to be paid for sponsored content. That having been said, Reyka, if you’d like to toss a bottle or two my way, I would not be opposed.)

“But, TRE, you’re from Texas. Why aren’t you pushing Tito’s?”

Excellent question. The answer is I just prefer Reyka. Don’t get me wrong: Tito’s is a great vodka, and you will have absolutely no problem finding and enjoying it, especially since it’s another quality, low-cost alternative to Grey Goose or any other top shelf vodka. Plus, it’s a Texan product, so it should receive special mention here. You want a damn good Bloody Mary without all the mixing effort? Tito’s and Zing Zang. Done and done.

So, there’s two suggestions for you, comrades. Enjoy!

-The Retail Explorer