Working at Dollar Bargain. Last week I talked about working at the Gimbels in the now defunct Eastland Mall. Things hadn’t gone well. It was a year later and I was, once again, looking for summer work. I returned to the Eastland Mall and found work at the Dollar Bargain store.
Dollar Bargain was another union store. I was annoyed that part of my pay was going toward union dues but it was work.
The work
I was hired to stock shelves and occasionally work the cash register. The stock work was enjoyable. The cash register work was terrifying.
The manager asked me to put prices on a bin filled with product. This Dollar Bargain was ‘dollar’ in name only. Things had various prices and we used a pricing gun to mark the product with a little sticker.
I was a competitive person, so I set the price on my gun and started going through the bin quickly. How fast can I get this done?
There was another guy working the bin with me. He looked over and said, “Slow down.”. When I gave him a puzzled look, he explained, “If we get this work down fast, the manager will send someone home early and I need the money.”.
The same guy told me not to walk by the front desk. Avoid going anywhere near the front of the store. That is where the managers hang out. If they see you, they’ll give you work. Stay in the back of the store and maybe they won’t think about you.
Add that to my lessons:
- Don’t do the job that is assigned to another department. (see my former blog)
- Don’t work fast.
- Avoid the managers. They’ll give you work.
Got it!
Cash register
Occasionally they would get busy and call me to the front of the store to work cash register. I’d pray that we wouldn’t get busy. I hated working the register. People want to get through the line immediately. They have no patience for some college kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Why should they? Most of our customers were people who were financially hanging on by a thread. College was something out of their reach and I’m sure that my very presence reminded them of what they didn’t have.
I was ringing up an order and responded to the customer with, “Yes ma’am.” She became indignant.
“I’m no man!”
What???
“No, I said ma’am.”
“I’m no man!!”
It was patently obvious that this large woman was not a man. And, it was also evident that she could beat the living crap out of me. I apologized profusely and eventually she left the line.
Terrifying!
When you work the register you have to count your cash drawer. This I loved. I’m very good at running basic math in my head. The cash register ladies would offer me a calculator and I would decline. I ran the numbers in my head and was irritated if I was even a penny off. The store allowed you a nickel discrepancy. If you went further then that you would eventually be fired.
The Union
The union contract was up for renegotiation. (How did I keep finding these places?)
I was working on a bin with one of the managers. He looked at me and casually said, “You know, if the union goes on strike, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs.” Why in the world was he telling me this?
Well, I was a member of the union, which meant that I had a vote. He was trying to influence me to vote ‘yes’ on the new contract. I understood what he was saying. Gimbels had gone on strike the year before and I watched as the store went out of business. The empty husk of the Gimbels store was a stone’s throw away.
The meeting
You will be tempted to think that what I’m about to describe is an overexaggeration. But, I assure you that this is what happened.
We had a mandatory meeting of the union. Everyone needed to be present in order to vote on the new contract. We met in an Italian restaurant somewhere in the Pittsburgh suburbs. I remember the red and white checked table cloths and the red glass candles flickering in the dim lighting. (Just picture something from the Godfather or Sopranos.)
The restaurant was crowded. I sat at a table with three other guys. A guy that I had never seen before moved to the front of the restaurant. It was obvious that he had some level of authority. When he began speaking, his words came out like punches.
“This contract is an offensive to everyone in this room!”
“Anyone who votes ‘yes’ on this contract is voting ‘no’ to every family in this room!”
I sat there thinking, “How in the heck do I get into these situations?” and “What does the contract offer?”
He never gave any details about the contract. He was there to guarantee that we voted in the way we were told. And, I wasn’t stupid. Now was not a time for dissent. I got the impression that no one would ever find my body.
All of this at a store that sold ‘dollar’ items!?
The vote was unanimous. We were on strike.
Striking
I walked the picket line with my sign. “Dollar Bargain unfair to employees!” The union gave us some money and food.
It took a few weeks before Dollar Bargain went out of business and everyone lost their jobs.
At this point in my life I was beginning to wonder if I was bad luck. Two summer jobs, two strikes and two businesses closed.
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if these stores might have stayed in business if their unions would have allowed some flexibility during difficult economic times. You can only squeeze so much juice from a lemon.
Eastland
Eastland Mall no longer exists. All of the stores went out of business. It became a flea market for a brief period and then went completely under. The buildings were razed and they now have an Amazon distribution center on the property.