Saturday, June 24, 2006

Code of Ethics

Recently I came across an old RGIS Auditor's Handbook. I opened up the handbook and printed on the inside of the front cover was a piece titled "Code of Ethics". In reading this Code of Ethics I got a few laughs, mainly because the people in my district violated every entry on that list. For my district it was as though this Code of Ethics never listed. Those amusing principles are listed below.

ACCURACY FIRST ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE: "Like any business, RGIS exists to make a profit but our profitability can never influence the accuracy of our inventories." Okay, so how many of you laughed when you just read that? Of course the above entry is a big fat joke. A lot of us have witnessed Team Leaders and managers ignoring batching in inventories, and some of us have even been told outright to batch by our illustrious managers, all so that RGIS could get out of the store on time or even early, and thus score bigger profits.

NEVER TAKE MERCHANDISE: "Whether or not there's an intention to pay for it later, we regard it as stealing, no matter how small the item." Anyone working the warehouse (back rooms) had ample opportunity to lift merchandise. That happened in my district, as people in the stockrooms would often help themselves to whatever they liked. Usually it was something small and portable, like candy bars or chewing gum.

FOLLOW WRITTEN PROCEDURES: "It's a contract between the client and RGIS, a contract which cannot be broken." Now this one seems to be one mainly for the managers, as the auditors rarely got to see any 'written procedures'. In my district we usually got a few mumbled words of instruction from the TL or manager that was running the inventory. More often we would get no instructions at all, and after we signed the time sheet and grabbed an audit machine and laser we would be shooed out onto the sales floor with nary a word about what to count or how. This was all right for the veterans, but the newbies would be totally lost.

Occasionally we auditors would receive a photocopied page listing the various departments that we were to be counting merchandise in. For the Long's Drugs stores these directions would be on 2-sided sheets of paper. One side would have all the departments listed (from Automotive to Toys/Crafts), with a bar code depicted under each department. The idea with the bar codes was so that ostensibly you could scan the generic UPC for that particular department if you happened across an item that didn't have a bar code (usually from a local independent vendor that didn't have UPC's). Naturally the pictures of bar codes never scanned for us and we would have to key in the 12-digit department numbers by hand. And forget about putting the items in the correct department. A lot of us didn't even bother to learn or look for any department number but one: Miscellaneous. Everything that didn't have a bar code got counted under Miscellaneous.

The other side of the Long's instructions sheet had the cost code on it. In Long's all the merchandise was counted at cost, which was roughly half the retail price. The Long's cost code was 'Charleston'. Each letter in the word Charleston represented one number. For instance, 'C' was 1, 'H' was 2, 'A' was 3, and so on. 'N' was 0, and if we came across an 'X' that meant to repeat the previous number. The cost codes were printed on the shelf labels, just above the retail price. So if we came across something that either didn't have a bar code, or its bar code wouldn't scan, we would enter in a generic department UPC and then the cost price. For instance, if the shelf label had a retail price of $7.99, but we saw a 'RHL' above it, then we would enter in $4.25 as the cost price.

This wasn't too much of a problem unless you happened to have another store called Toyworks on your schedule. Toyworks was the only other store we did that had a cost code. Toyworks cost code was the word 'Pathfinder', with the same rules as 'Charleston' applying. After doing a dozen or so Long's, you might do one Toyworks and really screw up in it, because there were several letters that were similar in the words 'Charleston' and 'Pathfinder'. Many a time we would have to back out several of prices in Toyworks because we discovered that we had been counting in a 'Charleston' code when it should have been 'Pathfinder'. Crap!

Also on the Long's sheet were instructions like: "Different shades, flavors, scents of product must be scanned separately, even if the packaging looks the same and costs the same..." Ha ha ha! (See the blog entry "Batch? Natch." in the May 2006 archives). Another Long's instruction was: "When you run into merchandise that is not on file (doesn't scan), make sure you place one of the item on the salesfloor for the store personnel. They will use this item to update their files." Most of us RGIS auditors actually did follow this one, not that it mattered. I would witness many a Long's employee simply replace the item on the shelf without entering it into their system. I guess they were just as lazy as us sometimes.

NEVER ESTIMATE: "We are contracted to perform an accurate count of our client's inventory." Oh God, these are killing me! It's so fucking hilarious to read over this so-called "Code of Ethics" of RGIS'. "Never estimate"? You've got to be kidding me. I estimated in just about every damn store I did, and I was most definitely the rule, and not the exception. There were countless (no pun intended) inventories where we would estimate how many candy bars there were in a box, how man eyeshadow pans in a display container, and how many boxes of frozen fishsticks in a cold display case (At Food 4 Less it would be quite amusing to witness someone counting the frozen foods. We would just sort of glide alongside the horizontal freezers, called 'coffins', entering in prices (financial inventory) and merely touching the top box of whatever it was. No one wanted to get frostbite of the fingers digging down and really counting how many frozen burritos there actually were). There are only 2 stores I can think of where we didn't dare to estimate (or batch): Best Buy and Comp USA. Those stores had lots of big ticket items and printed out every single area, which would then be gone over by the store's employees with a fine-toothed comb. But in every other store it was Batch City and Estimation Town.

NEVER ACCEPT UNVERIFIED FIGURES: "Pre-listed merchandise and any merchandise not physically present must be verified and documented. Requests for adjustments which either add to or take away from the value of the inventory, after the inventory is complete and RGIS has left the premises are not be granted." Another joke. Anyone who did pre-lists in my district knows that we often would enter in merchandise in amounts just tossed off the top of some store employee's head. Nothing on these 'pre-lists' were ever verified to my knowledge.

NEVER ACCEPT GIFTS: "A gift by a client may be misinterpreted." Laughable. This too went on in my district. Psycho Alice told me that when she was running a Kunde Winery inventory the store's manager gave her two bottles of salad dressing, which she of course accepted.

CONFLICTS HANDLED BY RGIS MANAGEMENT: "Auditors are required to notify management if they suspect that an inventory is being misguided by store personnel or even by an RGIS manager." Good thing I'm almost at the end of this comical list. I don't think I could go on for much longer without throwing up. How many of you experienced your TL or AM or DM turning a blind eye to auditors batching? It happened all the time in my district, and it wouldn't have done one damn bit of good to "notify management" since it was often the RGIS managers themselves that knew of and ignored batching. And if you were so righteous as to care and complain about such "conflicts", and did actually notify a manager it (and you) would be ignored (see the blog entry "Shorts (Long's Drugs)", in the June 2006 archives).

TOTAL CONFIDENTIALITY: "You are being entrusted with information that is the lifeblood of our client's business. It could be used by a competitor as a lethal weapon." Virtually every auditor I know of who did a Long's Drugs inventory told their friends and families about the 'Charleston' cost code. So much for confidentiality. Also amusing was to hear people's outrage that Long's would score such a profit with their markup prices. That every retail store marks up their prices to make a profit didn't seem to register with non-RGIS people. Most would be upset that they were paying more than double the price that Long's had paid for the same item.

Well, that's it for RGIS' "Code of Ethics". Hope you had a good laugh!

Wolves In RGIS Clothing

Office romances occur at all sorts of businesses all the time, I'm sure. But at RGIS it seemed to happen more often. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that a lot of us worked these really peculiar hours. Due to my district's difficulty in retaining employees, those of us that did stay on had to do a lot of double and triple shifts. And in doing so, people found themselves making close connections with each other and more than a few auditors (and managers) found themselves paired off after work.



By far the two biggest Casanovas in my district were TL Ethan and AM Jeff. They would hit on any young female auditor newly hired to the district. Of the two, Ethan was the more blatant and obvious pursuer of affection. When a young girl named Eden was hired by my district one summer Ethan fell for her and hard. He made no bones about the fact that he was crazy about Eden. I think it may have been only the second inventory that Eden did that Ethan made it clear he was interested in her. We were meeting at the office to attend a night inventory, and Eden was already sitting in the back seat of a company van when Ethan pulled his car into the parking lot. He popped out of his car and scanned the area for Eden. Someone must have told him where Eden was because he shot like a bullet to the van. He slid open the door, stuck his head in and said, "C'mon, Eden, you're riding with me." She climbed out of the van, smiling, and the two of them drove off alone.



Thus began for Ethan "The Summer of His Fruitless Pursuit." I say fruitless because Eden had confided to several of us that she already had a boyfriend. However, she didn't let this stop her from flirting with Ethan and enjoying the perks of her 'friendship' with him. She no longer had to ride crammed into a company van like the rest of us but instead enjoyed a comfortable drive in Ethan's car. And even though Eden had only been with the district a short time Ethan, smitten, convinced DM Kenny that Eden deserved a raise. He accompanied Eden into Kenny's office and insisted that Eden be given a raise. Since Kenny and Jeff both deferred to their TL on a regular basis Eden was given the undeserved increase in her hourly rate. She knew how to work it all right.



(A side note: AM Dean told me that several young girls within the district had figured out how to get raises from DM Kenny. They would simply wear a low-cut blouse and a short skirt and flounce into Kenny's office, sit down in a chair, cross their legs and presto! Instant raise! Dean was in the office a number of times to witness this happening. He said the best one at it was Nadine. Dean said that Nadine would use the short skirt trick to not only score raises but also to save her butt from being fired. Nadine, the district hypochondriac, would rack up lots of no shows due to one mysterious ailment after another. She often came down with these maladies just minutes before she was due to report at a store for an inventory. Whenever she came dangerously close to being fired, she would just break out the miniskirt and meet with Kenny, and her auditor's job was secured for another day.)



Even though Eden already had a boyfriend it looked like at one point during that summer Ethan might actually succeed in winning her over. Of course that blew up in his face during the infamous van ride from Lakeport (see the blog entry "Ethan is a Psycho(Part 2)" in the May 2006 archives).



A few days after that eruption of Ethan's in the company van, Ethan apologized to Eden at at another Long's Drugs inventory in Santa Rosa. Unfortunately I didn't witness Ethan's mea culpa to Eden (Damn! I would have loved to have overheard that!) but I did see her walk out of Long's on a break carrying one white rose, which someone said Ethan had given her. It seemed to have little effect on Eden though, as she had a rather dismal look on her face and spent the rest of that summer at a healthy distance from Ethan. In late August she left RGIS to go back to college.



Eden seemed a sensible sort, and you would think that a college girl would be smart enough to realize that her best bet would be to stay far away from Ethan, but permanently. However, all that higher education went to waste because when she came back to RGIS a year later on her latest summer break it took her maybe less than a week before she and Ethan were officially a couple. They met one night at the office, with Eden once again getting a ride in Ethan's car to an out-of-town inventory. Apparently she rode home with him too, as her car stayed parked at the office for the next four or five days. Someone said that Eden had been staying over at Ethan's mom's house (he lived with her) all that week.



Ethan seemed to be in seventh heaven during his time with Eden. He finally had his conquest and he was a happy man. Ethan in love (successfully) was a much kinder, gentler Ethan. During the time the two were together he and Eden seemed to get along well. They were very easy and relaxed together, and we would witness them at inventories being very close and cozy with one another.



I remember a Dean and Deluca inventory that we did in St. Helena. It was an extremely hot summer day and the drive to the store was sweltering. When all of us met in the back room of Dean and Deluca's to sign in and get our machines and lasers, Ethan very jokingly pointed out that Eden had drained the bottle of ice water that she and Ethan were sharing, leaving him only a solid cylinder of ice in the plastic bottle, and no water. Eden was sitting on Ethan's knee at the time, and she giggled when Ethan said this, and the two of them gazed lovingly at one another. Awww.



Eden seemed to have a good effect on Ethan because during that summer when they were dating I only saw him throw one temper tantrum, instead of his customary half a dozen or so. It happened during a Sear's inventory in San Bruno. Ethan was counting nail polish in the cosmetics department when he dropped a bottle, causing it to break and splash a tiny bit of polish onto his pants. Ethan flew into a rage and started swearing loudly. He slammed another bottle to the floor and stomped off yelling, "Goddamn it! I got fucking polish all over my fucking pants!" The Sear's employee that was in charge of helping us with SKU checks was not pleased with Ethan's behavior and said, "Oh, am I going to have to call for Kenny now?" Apparently she did, and told DM Kenny that she didn't want to see Ethan back in her department for the rest of the day.



So that whole summer Ethan and Eden were a couple, and everything for the most part seemed hunky-dory. Ethan was crestfallen when Eden left for college again and sent her off with a big bouquet of flowers. He told us that he missed Eden so much that he even went over to her parent's house a few days after she left and commiserated with Eden's mother.



However, Eden seemed to have felt a bit differently than Ethan about their relationship because about two weeks after she went back to school she sent Ethan a 'Dear John' letter. We were doing an inventory at a Beverages and More store in Santa Rosa when Ethan, who was counting some over-priced candy bars near me all of a sudden said, "Hey, guess what? Eden's a bitch." He said this in a very flat and dejected voice. Ethan then went on to explain about the letter that Eden had sent him. Apparently he was completely taken aback by this rejection through the mail and hadn't seen it coming. I almost felt sorry for the poor guy (almost). He didn't go into detail about what was in the letter, but I heard later from other auditors that Eden had written something about how she never really cared about Ethan, and that he had a small penis, and various other insults.



After this humiliating defeat Ethan was never quite the same Lothario that he had been previously. He made a few half-hearted attempts at romance with girls outside of RGIS, but none ever progressed very far. It seemed to me that he was trying too hard to win a girl over too quickly.



Once at a December inventory for a Friedman Bros. hardware store he showed me a ring that he had bought for a girl that he'd only been dating for a month or so. It was a cocktail-type ring with several tiny diamond chips. It was a pretty ring but I couldn't help but think that poor Ethan was going overboard in his affections. Again. Evidently the ring had little effect on his girlfriend because she too dumped him shortly thereafter (When Ethan showed me the ring he intended to give the girl as a Christmas gift, he also showed me a ruby jewelry set that he had bought at the same time as the ring. The ruby jewelry was intended for his mom, who Ethan seemed to be more attached to than any girl).



Where Ethan was very garish and gaudy in his wooing of girls, AM Jeff was a little more subtle than his best pal. He had to be, given that he was the Area Manager in our district, and it really wouldn't do to be so ostentatious in his pursuit of girls. Also, his live-in girlfriend Ming worked with us part-time as an auditor, and obviously he didn't want her to find out that he was cheating on her.



Which he was, big time. Even though he hotly denied it to anyone bold enough to bring it up, Jeff was as big a Don Juan as Ethan. Unlike Ethan though Jeff seemed more in control of his emotions, even the ones going on in his pants. He managed for the most part to conduct his flirtations and dalliances in a rather low-key manner. Oh sure, occasionally we might see him chatting up a girl during an inventory (see the blog entry "Insane in the Membrane", June 2006 archives), but he never went overboard like lovestruck Ethan.



But a couple of his amorous adventures did stand out. AM Dean's son Mark, an auditor who worked in our district periodically, told me of this one incident involving him, Ethan, Jeff and (you guessed it) a young girl. It seems that all three guys were interested in this girl, and all three chased after her. Mark was the one she eventually chose, much to the chagrin of Ethan and Jeff. They considered themselves the studs of District 414, and I'm sure never thought of Mark, who was a very nice, sweet guy, as serious competition. So when Mark turned out the winner in that contest of intrigue Jeff was irate. Mark said that at one inventory he and the girl had gotten quite cozy together, and Jeff had witnessed it. On the way back from the inventory AM Jeff was driving the company van, with Mark riding in the back. Mark said that Jeff was so upset over having lost out to him that he was driving like a madman. Mark told me, "He (Jeff) was driving crazy, taking these curves in the road on two wheels." And thereafter whenever Mark's name was brought up, Jeff would roll his eyes and always make some disparaging remark about him.



Ethan was no more gracious than Jeff. I guess Young Girl X enjoyed variety because after going out with Mark for a while she started dating Ethan. And of course Ethan, ever the mature one, couldn't resist gloating. Mark said that TL Ethan would come up to him sometimes in inventories and say things like "I guess she got tired of being with you and wanted a real man." And "Now she knows what a real man is like." Mark just shook his head when telling me this. He was a very nice person who had way more class than Ethan and Jeff put together, and merely said about Ethan's braggadocio remarks, "There's no call to act like that, that's not cool."



(With regards to any competition between Ethan and Jeff, as far as I know the two never got upset with each other if one won a girl at the expense of the other. I guess the two Romeos of my district only minded when an 'outsider' succeeded over them.)



At one time Jeff also had an interest in Nadine. Her friend Trina was also an auditor in our district, as well as Trina's boyfriend Dylan, newly arrived from the Vallejo district. Dylan told me that when Nadine first started working at RGIS Jeff became enamored with her. Dylan said that Nadine told Trina (who of course told Dylan) that AM Jeff started calling her up at home all the time (while his girlfriend Ming was out of town visiting her family in Oakland) and saying to her, "Why don't you come over (to his place)? I'll make us dinner, and we can watch a movie." Dylan didn't say if Nadine took Jeff up on the offer.



Dylan was no fan of Jeff's. He said that Jeff had once tried to spread a rumor around RGIS about him. Dylan at the time was still working out of the Vallejo district, which was our nearest RGIS neighbor. We would do a lot of inventories together, and Dylan had met Trina at one of these inventories and expressed an interest in going out with her. Unthinking Jeff had carelessly tossed off a remark during one inventory that Dylan was always trying to, in his words, "hook up" with all the RGIS girls. Jeff mentioned this to 'bedroom slippers' Ellen, who was a friend of both Trina and Nadine (all three had attended high school together). Ellen immediately told Trina, who gave Dylan hell because she thought that Dylan wasn't serious about wanting to go out with her. When Dylan found out the source of the remark he confronted Jeff. What was Jeff's response? "I never said that." Typical Jeff. "Deny deny deny" was his motto.



AM Jeff had many minor flirtations with female auditors over the years, but one in particular appeared to be quite serious. Previous passion interest Nadine had referred her brother's girlfriend to our district. This person, a snub-nosed girl named Dinah, put Jeff in the biggest swoon anyone in our district had ever seen. He was utterly captivated by her, and for the first time made almost no attempts to hide it.



All of us in the Santa Rosa district became aware of Jeff's entrancement of Dinah one night during an Orchard Supply Hardware inventory in San Rafael. This inventory was the first as a District Manager for Doug. DM Kenny having left us (Hallelujah!) to go work for the San Jose district enabled Doug, an AM in Vallejo, to be promoted to the DM spot in our district. Doug was a very pleasant man who would be the only manager in my district (so far) that was decent, kind and hard-working. He had been very popular in Vallejo and those of us in the Santa Rosa District looked forward to working with him.



Because the OSH store was Doug's first inventory as our new DM, you would think that AM Jeff would consider it very important to stay around after all the counting was done, and help Doug with printouts and possible recounts and corrections. The OSH store in San Rafael was a big one, and we had lots of goobers and newbies so there were sure to be some goofs and screw-ups needing to be taken care of.



But Jeff was in the throes of his ardor for Dinah and couldn't be bothered by something as trivial as work. Many times during this inventory that night he was seen standing at the end of an aisle that Dinah was counting in and staring at her. And when all of us were finished counting Jeff had such an itch in his pants for Dinah that he couldn't leave the store fast enough. Normally in a big store like OSH he would stay and help close out the inventory, but this time he left new DM Doug and slow AM Dean to fend for themselves.



Several of us auditors were standing in the parking lot after the inventory, talking and waiting for Jeff to drive us back to Santa Rosa in the company van (he had driven us to the store earlier in the day). We watched as various auditors either left in their own cars or commuted home with others. We laughed as Nadine stood waiting by the front door of the store for Robby to bring his car around (I guess the poor thing was too tired to walk to the car herself). For some reason Nadine's arms were filled with four or five bottles of Mountain Dew. "Guess she must really have some kind of thirst," Dylan observed.



Nadine and Robby left, and a few minutes later Jeff shot out of the store with Dinah. He was holding her hand and practically pulling her along. Dinah could barely keep up with Jeff's fast trot, and went bouncing along after him. The two headed for Ethan's car and hopped in, and with Ethan driving the three took off.



Those of us who had just witnessed this fascinating event stood there with our mouths open. None of us could believe what we had just seen. We knew of Jeff's amorous ways, but we had never seen him so blatant in his desires for nooky. We immediately began to discuss amongst ourselves what we had just seen. "Did you guys see that?" "I wonder how long that's been going on?" "Who's driving us back to the office?"



When Jeff's pet Gunther came out of the store a few minutes later we instantly clammed up because of course Gunther would tattle to Jeff anything we said concerning him. Just before Gunther reached us Moby had been about to tell us a very tantalizing bit of gossip concerning Jeff and Dinah. Moby always mumbled when he talked, and Dylan kept saying, "What? What? What was that?" Moby said, "Ssh! I'll tell you guys back at the office!" So the rest of us had to wait until we got back to Santa Rosa before we got the juicy details.



The van ride itself was uneventful. I found a half eaten Abba Zabba candy bar stuck in the middle seat. I toyed with the idea of offering it to Moby but decided even he wasn't gross enough to eat someone else's chewed candy bar, and instead I tossed it under the seat. Gunther drove fairly well for one rumored to have no driver's license and numerous DUI's, and one hour later we were back in Santa Rosa.



When the van pulled into the parking lot it was pretty late, I think after midnight. We saw that Ethan's Honda Accord was already there. His car was parked at the front door to the office, and inside the office the lights were blazing. We could see Jeff scurrying around inside, and Ethan and Dinah were chatting near the open front door. Gunther parked the van in one of the outer parking spots near the street, and immediately jumped out and headed over to Ethan and Dinah.



As soon as hobo Gunther left the van everyone else in it began to pump Moby for more Jeff and Dinah information. We all got out of the vehicle and stood nearby asking Moby, "So? So? You were saying?" And Moby loved it. The huge oily doofus loved being the center of attention. There was nothing more enjoyable for him than having the goods on someone, especially a manager. By possessing such information and being able to relay it to others I'm sure gave him a real sense of satisfaction and temporary belonging. This was why Moby often broke confidences with others and told us things that he should have kept private.



So Moby told us that during a very recent Albertson's supermarket run, he had ridden with Jeff to all of the Albertson's stores in the East Bay (AM Jeff was in charge of those 4:00 am inventories). Moby said that every afternoon on the way back to the Santa Rosa RGIS office Jeff would call Dinah on his cell phone. "Wow," we said. "What did Jeff say to her? What did he say?" Moby said that Jeff was very noncommittal in his talks with Dinah and didn't reveal much in those daily conversations with her. Still, this was some seriously delicious gossip. Jeff had always heretofore managed to be Mr. Cool with his lust interests. Dinah was the first girl that we had seen him literally and figuratively panting after.



Jeff eventually finished up whatever he was doing in the office and drove off in his car with Dinah. The rest of us drifted off to our own vehicles and drove home, our ears still buzzing and our eyes glazed over with all we had heard and seen that night.



Of course, since Jeff was seriously smitten with Dinah she immediately began to get tons of work. The rest of us had to earn our schedules by working hard, showing up on time for inventories and thus proving to AM Jeff (who made out everyone's schedules) that we had a willingness and desire to work. But the F.O.J.'s (Friends Of Jeff) never had to go through this hazing process and always received as many stores to do as they wanted.



Shortly after the OSH store incident, several of us were doing a CSK (auto parts) inventory in the city of Sonoma. Dinah's friend Nadine was counting bottles of motor oil when Jeff walked by her. "Did Dinah call you?" Nadine grinned at Jeff. "I told her that you wanted..." "Ssh!" Jeff hissed at Nadine. He took a quick glance around to see if anyone was listening. He then mumbled something to Nadine and walked away.



How laughable. Jeff must have thought that he was invisible when it came to his skirt chasing. Mr. Slick whispers in girl's ears and holds Dinah's hand during inventories and calls her on his cell phone while driving a van filled with auditors, and he thinks that no one's noticing? Ridiculous.



Another bit of Dinah/Jeff gossip only confirmed their liaison. This one auditor named Melinda told a couple of us that she had given Dinah a ride back to the office one night from an Albertson's in Petaluma (some of the local Albertson's inventories were done at night, usually starting around 8:00 pm). During the ride to Santa Rosa Dinah told Melinda, "I think Jeff has a crush on me." Dinah said that AM Jeff kept calling her all the time, and told her that his girlfriend Ming had found a piece of paper with Dinah's name and phone number on it and had gotten very upset with Jeff.



Also, Jeff had earlier that night given Dinah a ride to the Petaluma Albertson's, and was waiting for her when she got back to the office later that night. It was very late when Dinah reached Santa Rosa, about 2:00 am, but there was Jeff still at the district office. He was right in the middle of that grueling East Bay Albertson's run, which was about 2 weeks worth of grocery stores that were at least a 2 hour drive away from our district and all began at 4:00 am, and usually lasted for hours and hours. It was a horrendous commute to and from those stores, and most of the time Jeff wouldn't get back to Santa Rosa until 7:00 pm (this after having left for the trip at 2:00 am). So, the one day that Jeff has off during the hellish Albertson's run, and he's driving Dinah around late at night? That's love, I guess. Or rather horniness.



However, Jeff's lust play for Dinah didn't last, as Dinah only worked for our district a couple of months and then quit. When questioned about this AM Jeff said that Dinah's life was a bit complicated at the moment (I bet), due in part to her needing to find day care for her young child. And that was the last we saw of Dinah.



(I always found it a bit odd that Nadine seemed to aid and abet Jeff's play for Dinah. After all, Dinah was supposed to be Nadine's brother's girlfriend, and Nadine's brother was the father of Dinah's child. So you'd think that Nadine would be bothered that Dinah was cheating on Nadine's brother, but it didn't seem to bother Nadine in the least. She seemed to find it all very amusing. Weird.)



With Dinah gone, Jeff was again left with his live-in girlfriend, the ever faithful Ming. Ming was a tiny Asian girl who had a full time office job but worked with RGIS occasionally, usually when Jeff could prevail upon her to fill in at the last minute for someone who had cancelled. Ming seemed like a smart girl, so I could never figure out who on earth she continued to stay with Jeff, despite his obvious cheating ways. What a doormat she was. I mean, even when district gossip finally reached her ears regarding Jeff and another girl, instead of kicking Jeff to the curb she incredibly became friends with this girl. How strange.



My guess as to why Ming formed this bizarre friendship with Jeff's newest conquest was that she was just trying to save face: by showing the rest of the district how chummy she was with Jeff's new girl, Margie, she was sending out the message that of course Jeff wasn't cheating on her. If he was, would she be friends with the girl? It was pitiable, how desperately Ming clung to Jeff.



I think the reason that Jeff ran around with all of these girls at work was that subconsciously he wanted Ming to find out he was cheating. Then she could confront him and leave. Jeff had said that it was Ming's idea for the two of them to move in together. He hadn't wanted to but eventually gave in to Ming's pressuring of him. Jeff had probably wanted to break it off with Ming for a while, but he hated being the bad guy and didn't want to tell her, "I don't want to see you anymore." But Ming wasn't going to cooperate with Jeff's plan. She was going to hang onto him for dear life.



After Dinah left RGIS Ming had Jeff all to herself. Well, for a little while anyways. Then tall, scrawny Tina referred her niece Margie to our district. Margie was a very short girl (a plus for Jeff, as he was only around 5'6"), rail-thin with short brown hair and big eyes that she would blink adoringly at Jeff when he was around. And bam! Once again, Jeff was hooked. And of course Margie was all too aware of how Jeff could help her out, and began stopping by the office frequently and having 'lunch' with Jeff in his office.



An all too familiar pattern began once again. Jeff's smitten with a young girl, young girl gets tons of work, and the rest of us get screwed over in our schedules. But this time around more people began grumbling about it, including psycho Alice (see the blog entry "Insane in the Membrane", June 2006 archives). She made such a fuss regarding the whole Jeff/Margie affair that people couldn't help but notice and talk about it.



For the first time Jeff experienced the unfamiliar sensation of being unpopular in the district he had once ruled. He began to experience troubles in regards to other aspects of his AM job (more on that in future blog entries), and would eventually be fired (I witnessed him leaving the office shortly after his dismissal. Since his car wasn't running he needed to use someone's car to transport his stuff from the office. So who do you think helped him out? Best pal Ethan? Friend Robby? Girlfriend Ming? Nope. It was Margie who helped Jeff load his things into her car). So egregious were Jeff's mistakes that he was told he could never again work for RGIS in our district, not even as a lowly auditor. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Monday, June 19, 2006

Days Of Our RGIS Lives

At times it was like a soap opera in my district. There was so much personal turmoil going on, with everyone hating everyone else, and people saying the most terrible things about one another. It was sort of funny to observe, how a manager could be pleasant to an auditor's face, and then the minute that auditor turned around and left the manager would make fun of that auditor unmercifully. The managers also held each other in contempt, and would say mean and biting things about each other. And of course the majority of auditors couldn't stand the managers. Or each other, for that matter. There was little loyalty, as friends would gossip and mock other friends. It made for a fascinating study in human behavior.



Take the managers. DM Kenny was so bland and uninteresting in regards to forming opinions of others that he's hardly worth mentioning. I can't even recall him saying anything about his two Area Managers, Jeff and Dean. Occasionally he might make a denigrating comment regarding an auditor's counting ability, but that's about it. Once he remarked that since brothers Moby and Leo became Team Leaders they hadn't had to purchase batteries for years. He was implying that they took home boxes of the AA batteries that we used to run the audit machines. I don't know what his feelings were regarding Jeff and Dean. At times Kenny seemed like a cardboard cutout of a human being, with little emotion expressed about anyone.



AM Dean was similar to Kenny in that he didn't have a whole lot to say about anyone either. He was one of the few people though who actually made a formal complaint about Moby's disgusting body stink. Dean told us that he had complained to Kenny about Moby fouling the air in yet another inventory. Not that it did any good to complain, of course. Such grievances were duly recorded and filed away in Moby's personal file and immediately forgotten.



Of course, one thing that Kenny and Dean both seemed to agree on was Jeff's error in becoming too friendly with some of the auditors. I think a lot of people in my district privately shared this opinion of Jeff. We could see evidence of it because the F.O.J. (Friends Of Jeff) were accorded privileges like taking their own breaks whenever they felt like it and practicing haphazard attendance at inventories, with no repercussions from AM Jeff. Kenny and Dean didn't like it, but naturally didn't do anything about it.



Now, AM Jeff on the other hand was a completely different case. Jeff seemed to hold everyone in the district in contempt, DM Kenny and AM Dean included. Jeff felt that Kenny was basically a waste of space in the office, because he couldn't seem to get anything accomplished on his own. He had no respect for Kenny's ability to run an inventory and would often make disparaging remarks regarding this to various auditors. Kenny couldn't even handle the responsibility of making out the master schedules of stores and so passed that duty on to Jeff. Because of this Jeff felt that it was he who was really running the district, and would often comment on how he would make a much better DM than Kenny.



Jeff also used to make fun of Kenny's personal life too. At the time he worked for our district Kenny was married with a young son from his wife's previous relationship. When he and his wife split up Kenny was upset at losing the little boy. Jeff mocked Kenny's distress and would say things like, "Kenny's stupid for caring. That kid's not even his." He had no sympathy for Kenny's pain and only found it amusing.



And when Kenny eventually left our district Jeff was thrilled. Kenny had gotten an offer to run one of the San Jose districts. The district was in pretty bad shape, even worse than ours (My God, is that possible?). The Ops Managers basically told Kenny that if he went down to San Jose and straightened the district out he would be the Golden Boy in this division. Kenny was there in San Jose for about a month before he fucked things up royally. Of course our district gossip Moby told everyone all the gory details.



At first it started out okay for Kenny. He was put in charge of running the Home Depot inventories in our area. This was a big responsibility and rather a prestigious assignment. It was very important that the person in charge do a good job because at the time Home Depot was a brand new client and RGIS wanted to make a good impression and thus retain Home Depot as a continuing customer. So why they put Kenny in charge I'm not sure. One auditor in my district, a guy named Dylan, said that it seemed as though the Ops Managers were setting up Kenny to fail from the start. I'm not sure that Kenny had any real time to make an impression on anyone from Home Depot as he was only there in San Jose for about a month before he was fired.



According to Moby, one night Kenny went out drinking with a friend, and of course overdid it with both alcohol and drugs and wound up in the friend's hotel room, alone. He locked his friend out of the room and proceeded to tear the place apart in a booze and coke-filled rage. His friend had to call the police in order to enter the room. Kenny ended up fired from RGIS and entered a rehab program, possibly with community service required. Moby used to joke that maybe someday we might see Kenny on our way to an inventory. Every time we passed a work crew picking up trash by the side of the freeway Moby would yell out, "Everybody wave to Kenny!"



It was Moby who also told everyone that right before Kenny's hotel rampage he went out drinking one night with Carol, the San Francisco DM, a very short, very plain-looking woman, and woke up the next morning in bed with her, with no recollection of what happened the night before. Party!



When Kenny left our district Jeff was thrilled. He felt nothing but contempt for Kenny and had no problem letting other people know it. In fact, when Jeff told me that Kenny was leaving he said, "Well, one down (Kenny), one to go (Dean)." Jeff said it with this big smile on his face, like he was so happy to see Kenny go.



And with regard to Dean, Jeff felt nothing but disdain for him as well. Jeff thought Dean a useless fool who couldn't run an inventory to save his life. Many times he would complain that AM Dean had fouled up something that should have been very easy to do, like assigning people areas to count in a store. Dean once ran a Pier 1 Imports store, and had Dylan, one of the fastest counters, work one on one with a store employee, counting all the big ticket items like furniture. It was a silly waste of a fast counter. If AM Dean had been thinking clearly he would have assigned Dylan to quantity count densely packed areas like table linens, glassware, napkin rings and the like. You don't put someone like that to count areas that just have a bed and a nightstand for one whole ticket, or maybe a table and four chairs.



Jeff also used to complain that Dean always had to be told what to do, and that he couldn't think for himself. In bigger inventories like Target or Sear's, where all three managers would be present, Jeff would grumble that Dean would follow him all over the store like a little puppy, instead of going off and doing things on his own.



Jeff's pal TL Ethan used to mock Dean's slowness all the time, and told me once that he resented Dean being an Area Manager and being bossed by him because he (Ethan) had trained Dean himself. Ethan desperately wanted to be an AM, but could never secure the job because he had about a million traffic violations. Both Jeff and Ethan felt that they would make a terrific DM/AM combination, but that never happened and so they resented anyone else who held those jobs.



That the auditors loathed all the managers in my district and gossiped incessantly about them is a matter of fact. People felt an aversion to DM Kenny because of his stinginess with raises, and also because he projected an air of phony friendliness to your face, while behind your back it was something else entirely. Auditors had little respect for Dean because he seemed so empty-headed. And Jeff was disliked because he played favorites. TL Moby told everyone that AM Jeff sold weed in our district. He also told us that our new incoming DM, a guy named Dan, was gay. Moby at times claimed to be gay himself, so he said he was happy that there would be at least one other gay person in the district.



More gossip: TL Helen told us that another auditor, Susie, had told her that AM Dean (married) and an auditor named Bernice were having an affair. Susie said that she was at Bernice's house one day and Dean stopped by. He seemed really embarrassed to see Susie there, and left shortly thereafter. After Dean left Bernice told Susie about the affair.



TL Ethan used to say quite often that he and AM Jeff never listened to anything Team Leaders Moby and Leo had to say. Moby and Leo were always full of ideas on how to improve the district, and how to run inventories better but Ethan and Jeff couldn't stand the brothers and had zero respect for their opinions, so it was in one ear and out the other in regards to anything Moby or Leo had to say.



And of course auditors felt scorn and would ridicule each other as well. Everyone made fun of Moby's morbid obesity and putrid smell. They mocked Leo' pompousness and self-congratulatory air. Ethan was ridiculed for his childish temper tantrums and blatant skirt-chasing. Alice of course was jeered at for her obvious craziness. Alice and her friend, another auditor named Tami were also referred to by a number of people in the district as 'white trash'. They were very common in their behavior and manner of speech. Tami especially was guilty of such crude behavior as telling us that she called her young son a pussy for refusing to ride a roller coaster, and while riding in the company van on her way to an inventory she once flashed another car in just her bra.

Team Leader Jeb, like AM Dean, was made fun of for his stupidity and uselessness at running inventories. Slow counting feebs like Elaine and Kate were ridiculed for their incompetence. Erin (not the one who wore the bedroom slippers) was also disliked because when her boyfriend Jamie was made an AM, she herself was made a TL even though she was completely unsuited for the job. She was a horrible auditor and couldn't count to save her life, so naturally she was promoted to Team Leader. This was the kind of warped logic that went on all the time in my district.



When Elaine became a TL she put on all sorts of airs, like "Oh look at me, I have a grey shirt on, I'm carrying a portable and running inventories so I must be someone important!" It was ridiculous. People laughed at her behind her back because in reality she didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground, and couldn't run an inventory to save her life. Someone was always having to bail her out, and correct her mistakes, which were numerous. People also felt an aversion for her friend Kate, the two reasons being: 1. She was as lousy a counter as Elaine, and would spend most of her time talking during an inventory. For people like Kate and Elaine it was impossible to count and talk at the same time, so of course their scanning of clothing tags would come to a dead halt as they discussed various guys that pale, pudgy Kate had crushes on. And 2. Kate was AM Dean's daughter, and any person related to Dean was automatically rendered unlikeable. Dean had three of his kids working as auditors in our district, and both Kate and Stan were as disliked as Dean. Their brother Mark, on the other hand, was a very pleasant guy who had a friendly, sunny personality. The fact that he was Dean's adopted son, and Kate and Stan were Dean's biological children made sense, as Mark was the only one of that family anyone could stand.



Kate was yet another one of those auditors in my district that had a hopeless crush on a fellow RGIS employee. Kate spent one Barnes & Noble inventory counting books next to this guy named Maverick. Because Maverick was an amiable sort who would talk to anyone when he was bored, Kate mistook his generic friendliness for some true amorous intentions, and in the company van on the way home from the inventory went on and on to Elaine about how much Maverick was in love with her, and how she was going to slip him some kind of love note at the next inventory they would work together. I mentioned this later to one of Maverick's friends who also worked in the district and she had a great laugh at Kate's delusional behavior. This girl told me that Maverick had been complaining to her that Kate kept pestering him during inventories. He would try to slip off and count in other sections of stores to get away from her, but Kate kept following him around and yakking nonstop around Maverick, which he found incredibly annoying.



Also, most of the veterans couldn't stand Jamie, who was Elaine's boyfriend and was promoted from auditor to TL to AM in a short amount of time due to the district's desperation for anyone to fill those positions. Anybody who was upright and breathing was given a chance at being a TL or AM, even someone like Jeff who hadn't been working at RGIS very long and was mostly inefficient at running an inventory. His arrogance rubbed everybody the wrong way, especially as it was so misplaced. He wasn't one-eighth as talented as he thought he was. When he left the district (after getting another auditor, his girlfriend Elaine's best friend pregnant) everyone was happy to see him go.



An auditor named Gunther was disliked because he was an F.O.J. (Friend Of Jeff), and was the most blatant at taking advantage of this. Every inventory that Gunther did would see him take at least a dozen or so smoke breaks. He would just wander out of the store whenever he felt like it, without asking permission or waiting for an official break to be called. He would also show up late for practically every inventory, but never be chastised about this because of his exalted position as an F.O.J. Once Gunther didn't show up for an Albertson's inventory at the 4:00 am start, and on a break 3 hours later AM Jeff called him to find out what happened. I overheard Jeff cooing on the phone to his friend Gunther, "Hey, buddy, what's going on? Are you okay? What happened? Did you sleep in?" Oh, sickening! If that had been any one of the rest of us Jeff would have called us 5 minutes after the inventory began and chewed our asses out for being late. Once I was 30 minutes late to a Border's inventory because I had a flat tire and had to wait for the AAA car service to come and help me change the tire. Even though I called Jeff immediately to inform him of my situation and shot right to the store as soon as the spare was on my car, I still got written up by that asshole. That's the way it was in my district. The F.O.J.'s got the royalty treatment and the rest of us got the shaft.



Gunther was also scoffed at because he was a notorious cherry-picker. He was so lazy at inventories that at times he moved down an aisle counting at the speed of a sloth. He hated doing anything that would require him to physically stir the air by keying in lots of items in a store, so instead of taking the next available aisle he would skip over a few and do something really easy like diapers. Gunther also was the biggest moocher of rides in the district. Boozy Gunther had no car of his own, and this forty-something man who still lived with his parents would often prevail upon auditor Robby or AM Jeff for rides to and from various inventories, even though his parent's home was way out of their way and auditors were supposed to provide their own transportation.



Gunther was yet another one of those auditors who had a ridiculous crush on someone much younger, à la Moby and Alice. Gunther had the hots for Nadine, a pretty young girl in her twenties. Being that Gunther was a white-bearded, disheveled man in his late forties meant that of course he could never get anywhere with Nadine. But that didn't stop this hobo-looking old man from flirting with an out-of-his-league young girl.



Robby was another one of the F.O.J.'s, but that didn't prevent Jeff from making fun of his friend. Robby was another guy that had a crush on Nadine, and as with Gunther it was a hopeless one. Robby too was in his forties, and was even more physically unattractive than Gunther. Robby was short, round, and had a face that only a mother could love. He was so far out of Nadine's league that it was laughable and more than a little pathetic to see him chasing after her.



Robby was so desperate to win over Nadine that he would do things like pay her cell phone bills and lend her cash, all in the hopes that that might cause Nadine to see him in a different light. But it didn't work, as seen in any light Robby was much too homely for any girl to want. Robby at times too seemed to recognize the hopelessness of his situation and once remarked to TL Ethan, "If only she (Nadine) would give me a chance." That Ethan was Robby's friend and would share this confidence of Robby's with the entire district only went to show how there was no loyalty between the F.O.J.'s, even by Jeff himself.



Once during a Kmart inventory Robby became upset that Jeff had assigned Nadine to count an area far away from him. Even though we were less than an hour into the inventory Robby was so despondent that he decided to leave abruptly. He came over to say goodbye to Ethan, and when Robby left Ethan came over and told me the reason why Robby had gone. Jeff came over too and the two of them had a grand time making fun of Robby and laughing at him with Jeff saying to Ethan, "I thought I was going to have to baby you," because Ethan's girlfriend Eden had left for college a few days earlier.



Poor Robby. I often wondered if he realized how much his 'friends' Ethan and Jeff made fun of him. I too wondered why he would hang out with those two. I mean, Ethan and Jeff were handsome young guys in their early thirties, and it must have been hard for Robby, a short, round,  unattractive man in his forties. Perhaps he thought that by hanging around Jeff and Ethan, he could maybe pick up whatever girls that they cast aside. It never happened though.



Saturday, June 17, 2006

Shorts

After doing many inventories, one after another, sometimes several in one day, most of them tended to blur together and it was hard to tell one inventory from another. But actually when looked at in some detail, a few of them stood out for various reasons. Some that come to mind:



J.C. Penney's: A very memorable batching incident occurred at a Penney's in Fairfield. This store was in a neighboring district, and a couple vanloads of auditors from our district went over to bail them out. Richard, a blowhard, was assigned to scan a wall full of official Major League Baseball caps. Richard was unsure if he should scan these caps individually or if he could quantity count them, so he made the mistake of asking an even bigger blowhard, Team Leader Moby. Moby didn't know about the caps either, but he wasn't about to admit that to Richard. So he told Richard that he could just scan one and quantity count the whole bunch. Richard did so, Ops Manager Kerwin caught him doing it, and asked Richard, "Who told you this was okay to do?" Richard ratted out Moby, Ops Manager Kerwin got on our AM Jeff for it, and Jeff sought out Moby and proceeded to chew him out. "Why the fuck did you tell Richard to batch those caps?" Jeff screamed at Moby. Moby of course was too chickenshit to stand up to Jeff and defend himself in any way (as if he had a defense) so he did as he always would do when confronted by authority. He merely stared at the floor and mumbled something unintelligible. Several of us auditors witnessed this dressing down of Moby and enjoyed it thoroughly. Oh yes, and thereafter Moby always bore a grudge against Richard.



Long's Drugs: Batching was a bit tricky to do in this store. Some areas would be printed out as requested by the store's manager, but you were never exactly sure which areas the store's personnel would want printed out and gone over. Some areas you could assume would run a high risk of being checked out; areas that would have a lot of dollars in them like electronics, cosmetics, OTC (over the counter products like aspirin and cold remedies), hair color, etc. So in these areas, if you were a smart manager, you would assign veteran or honest auditors of whom you could be certain would count products as accurately as possible. Of course, one thing that could never be counted on in my district was a manager being smart, so frequently newbies or fuckups would be placed in these high dollar areas and then proceed to batch the crap out of them. Then of course those areas would get printed out, the store manager would ask for a recount, and usually I would be sent to recount all the areas that the idiots screwed up. It never failed. This usually happened in every single Long's Drugs inventory. And usually the idiots who batched in these high risk areas would exhibit absolutely no subtlety at all when batching, and be so obvious about it that anyone passing by their area could tell what they were up to.



I once witnessed a veteran auditor named Bernice batching while counting some Cover Girl cosmetics. She took one lipstick from the bunch of many, scanned the bar code with her laser gun, replaced the lipstick in the display, stepped back, took one downward glance at the whole lot of them, and entered in a large quantity in her audit machine. Even without knowing exactly how many she entered for that one scanned item, you could tell it was a big number because her audit machine made a beeping sound. In Long's Drugs inventories (and several others as well) anytime an auditor entered in a quantity that resulted in a price amount of $100.00 or over the audit machine would beep. So it was obvious that Bernice was batching.



This was during a time when I still cared about things like that, so I reported it to the nearest TL, a woman named Helen. This Helen was an honest sort (rarity in my district), so she was shocked when I told her that I saw someone batching. She immediately told AM Dean about it. Dean, who was running the store, couldn't care less and neither confronted Bernice (who at one point was rumored to be dating married Dean) nor took any steps to print out the area and check it out. He just simply ignored it. And lucky for him the store never found out. That was the last time that I would stick my neck out and call attention to anyone batching. If the RGIS manager running the inventory didn't care, why should I?



Counting greeting cards in Long's Drugs was always an adventure in batching. Most of the time one auditor, usually a little, spacy guy named Jake would be assigned to count the cards (financially, no scanning) while the rest of the crew counted everything else. He would take the entire length of the inventory (usually 8+ hours) to count 2 or 3 aisles of cards. The whole store, including the back rooms would be finished and Jake would still be on those fucking cards.



I found out why one day when yet another Long's inventory was almost over, except of course for those damn cards. AM Jeff sent a couple of us to help Jake finish them out. I happened to be in the same aisle as Jake, so I got to observe him count first hand. I watched him pick out one greeting card, turn it over, read the price on it and enter it on his audit machine. He would then step back (shades of Bernice), take a long look at that section, and enter in one number. He would then grab another card a few rows up, or down, and repeat the process. He would do this several times until the entire section was counted (more or less). Jake would then take a reading of the area in his machine, and if he didn't like the way it looked he would back out all the prices for that area, leaving a zero dollar amount in his machine, and start all over again. Three times I watched him do this. For one lousy area. So that's why he took so long to count the cards! It was enough to make you want to scream. Or laugh, I don't know. But it was typical of the screwy things that went on in my district, things that the manager knew were going on but did nothing about. Their excuse for putting up with nonsense like this was that they were always so short of auditors for their inventories that they had to retain everyone, even the goobers and feebs and crazies.



Albertson's: We did this chain of supermarkets about every 3 months. The majority of these inventories began at 4:00 am, when the 24 hour markets were almost devoid of customers, and we could be assured of being able to count most of the store free from interruptions by customers.



Albertson's required a certain number of areas to be recounted, just as a matter of caution. You know, to see if that area had been counted correctly, with cost prices instead of retail ones. Usually the store manager would go around and pick ten sections at random. Each area was one full side of an aisle (or gondola), and the manager would choose one 3-foot section of that area to be recounted. He would write down these sections on a sheet of paper, and give the paper to AM Jeff, who was the one usually running these inventories. Jeff would then pass the sheet to his buddy TL Ethan, who wouldn't recount the areas at all. He would simply check the printouts for these areas, find the totals of the sections needed to be recounted, add or subtract a few dollars, and then write the new totals down on the sheet. He would then present this sheet of 'recounts' to the store manager, who would go over it and be pleased that the 'recounts' were so close to the amounts originally recorded.



The Tides: This was a grouping of three stores located in Bodega Bay (site of the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Birds"). The Tides was a seafood restaurant, with a fish market, gift shop and gas station mini-mart to be counted by RGIS.



There was nothing too remarkable about the fish market, which consisted mostly of groceries like liquor, chips, soda and candy; we didn't count the fish, or the crabs or lobster. I hated doing that store because I didn't like to see the crabs and lobster, with claws firmly tied shut with rubber bands, all piled one on top of another in a tiny tank. It seemed cruel, and to this day I can't eat lobster or crab. Once when I was there doing an inventory I saw this little girl of about 10 or so, standing in front of the crab tank yelling at a crab. She was taunting the crab, if you can believe it. It was something like, "Yeah, ha ha, you're stuck in there, and you can't get me, ha ha!" Weird.

The gift shop was a bit more tedious, as it had things like bins of all sorts of sea shells, and polished rocks for sale. Some of the shells were very delicate, and you didn't want to handle them for fear they would break. And the jars of polished stones were loaded to the brim and would take forever to count properly. So you would just guess at the quantity of each jar or box of shells and rocks, and no one was the wiser.



The gift shop also had a tiny back room not much bigger than a closet. It had about 4 metal shelving units jammed into it, against the walls. These shelves contained boxes and boxes full of things like shot glasses, wine goblets, and golf balls all stamped with the 'Tides' logo. There were also tons of toy rubber squeaky things like sharks, octopi, and various other assorted crap. It would take hours to count correctly. No one in their right mind wanted to spend a couple of hours in a closet counting thousands of small bits of junk, so you can guess how all of got 'counted'.



Whole Foods: This store was a real pain in the ass to count. For some bizarre reason, Whole Foods required us to count the groceries under five different departments (Grocery A,B,C,D and E). Each grocery item had a shelf tag with its department labeled on it. So instead of flying down an aisle, counting all the items under one department like you would do in every other grocery store, in Whole Foods you would have to stop and check every shelf tag for an A,B,C,D or E. I mean every single tag, because you might be counting fruit juices and one brand would be under Grocery A, while another brand on the same shelf right next to it had to be counted under Grocery E. What a pain in the ass! It slowed the inventory way down, especially since people were always forgetting to check the shelf tags and going on to count everything under one grocery department. Then those areas that they had counted would get printed out and gone over by the store manager, who would of course spot all the mistakes and demand that it be recounted.



Then there was the Vitamins area. Oh my God, another huge gigantic pain in the ass. Being Whole Foods, they had a rather large section of all sorts of vitamins, homeopathic remedies and nosodes, herbs and all kinds of natural health care stuff. But again, unlike every other grocery store in existence we couldn't count all of it under one department, like say HABA (Health and Beauty Aids). Nope, all the products in this area of the store were divided into 4 departments: Vitamins, Herbs, Body Care and BCM (Books, Cards and Merchandise).



Body Care was pretty easy to count: hair products, skin care items, cosmetics, etc. BCM was simple to do as well, It was just books, greeting cards and jewelry. The real annoyance was counting the vitamins and herbs. There were tons of every conceivable type of vitamin in Whole Food. Shelves and more shelves and one 3-foot section after another crammed full of every vitamin from A-Z. There was just acres of it to count, but that wasn't the bad part. The nightmare came from the fact that there were products Whole Foods called Herbs mixed in with all the vitamin bottles. And I swear to God the herb bottles looked exactly like the vitamin bottles. But some stupid little key ingredient would make one bottle have to be counted under Vitamins, and the other under Herbs. And the only way you could tell which was which was, once again, to read the stupid shelf label. The number '50' was for vitamins, and '52' and '53' for herbs. So again, instead of speeding down an aisle counting merchandise at a rapid pace, you had to stop and read every damn label, looking for a 50, 52 or 53. Aaarrggh. Of course, you can imagine how many screw-ups occurred in the Vitamins section. It took forever to count, even with an auditor experienced at counting in Whole Foods.



And naturally the idiot managers in my district would only compound the problem by scheduling two Whole Foods inventories both in the same night. Every month this would happen. And just to make things a little more fun they would often schedule an Andronico's Market inventory on the same Sunday night as both Whole Foods. Three stores going on at the same time, in a district that was always hurting for people. It was a real invitation for disaster.



One time we showed up at the Whole Foods in Mill Valley with just 3 people. The store manager was furious. He made such a fuss that AM Dean, who was running the Andronico's Market inventory in San Anselmo, was persuaded to send a couple of auditors from his store to ours. He sent four people: Lilian, Jake, Lucinda and Abram. Now that may sound generous of him, to spare 4 auditors from his own inventory, unless you worked in our district in which case you realized that Dean had sent four of the biggest feebs around. The four of them were not what you would call speedy counters. In fact, at one point TL Ethan, who was running the store, caught Lilian sitting on the floor in the potato chip aisle matching up UPCs. She was pulling out every bag of chips, turning them over and reading the UPC numbers. She then made separate piles of chip bags with different UPCs, and then counted them. All this just to make sure she counted the $3.99 bags apart from the $3.95 bags. She spent hours in that aisle. I thought Ethan was going to strangle her.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

The Fat Man Returns

I have another Moby tale to relate. It is yet another perfect example of his nastiness.



On one of their days off Moby and Leo went up to Lakeport to visit a friend or cousin or something. This friend/cousin/something bravely took the foul pair out onto the lake in his motorboat. At one point the motorboat conked out, and while the friend/cousin/something was tinkering with the motor, Moby very stupidly stood up in the boat to get a better look at what was going on. The motor suddenly started, the boat took off, and Moby lost his balance and fell on top of the motor. This caused a huge gash to open up on his left leg. His friend/cousin/something got the boat to shore, found a phone and called 911. As the location was rather remote, a helicopter ambulance was sent. Moby later told everyone that the EMT's had one hell of a time lifting all 500 lbs. of him onto the stretcher. There were only 2 of them, so both the friend/cousin/something and Leo, plus a couple of innocent bystanders, had to help lift enormous Moby onto the stretcher. Moby said that it was at that embarrassing moment he decided to go on a diet. Said diet lasted about one week.



Moby was transported by helicopter to a local hospital, where his leg was stitched up. He was then sent home and was on leave from RGIS for a couple of weeks. When he came back to RGIS he delighted in rolling up his pants leg and showing everyone the huge slash on his leg. This act never failed to elicit gasps of horror and disgust from his audience. And he would do this all the time! While we were in the office parking lot waiting for a ride to a store; during an inventory, while you might be standing on a milk crate counting jars of spaghetti sauce; or, if you might be so unlucky as to be sitting behind him in the company van. Moby would prop up his left foot on the dashboard, roll up his crusty pants leg, and give everyone in the van an eyeful of his oozing wound. Talk about making your stomach turn! It was sickening.



This leg wound of Moby's took an exceptionally long time to heal. It never seemed to close up fully, but instead oozed and dripped around the stitches. His brother Leo kept urging him to go to a doctor and have it taken care of, but Moby always refused to do so. The rest of the district speculated on why that was. Someone said it probably was because Moby was embarrassed about his gargantuan size, and didn't want the doctor lecturing him about his enormous weight problem.



A couple of months after his accident, Moby ran an inventory at a DKNY outlet store in St. Helena. It was a small store, with little stock on the sales floor but with a back room crammed full of clothing and accessories from floor to ceiling. There were barrels of belts that had invalid bar codes, so each one had to be scanned individually and forced into the audit machines one at a time. There were shelves piled high with t-shirts wrapped in plastic; when you touched one shirt the whole pile of them would come cascading down, and there would be t-shirts all over the floor. There was also rack upon rack of shirts and dresses, with each hanger on a 'waterfall' (2 or more items hung vertically in one space). It was a nightmare.



We were there for about 10 hours. Everyone was starved, so we broke for one of those exceptionally rare RGIS lunch breaks. While we were eating, Moby came downstairs from the mezzanine level of the store and thrust his leg in front of us. He rolled up his pants leg and said, "Check it out!" It was horrible. More than 2 months after his accident and his leg was still red, gummy, and oozing. We said, "Moby, that's disgusting! Gross! We're trying to eat here, and you're showing us your pus-y leg! Do you want everyone to throw up?" Moby just grinned and walked away. So foul.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Insane In The Membrane

Okay, so far you have met the Foul One, Moby; the Horse's Ass Leo; elbow bender Kenny; long-nailed Jeff; and psycho #1 Ethan. It's time now to introduce you to Psycho #2, Alice.









How to describe someone like Alice? Let me see...Bats in the belfry? A screw loose? Crackpot? Certifiable? Unhinged? Really, the possible descriptions are endless.









I first encountered Alice one morning at our brand new district office. The old office was in an inconvenient location, and was rather small, cramped and shabby. DM Kenny went scouting for a new office spot and found a couple of choices. One was in an already established business park location. The building that housed the possible office was nice, and there was plenty of available parking. The surrounding neighborhood in this business park too was nice, and appeared clean and safe.









Location #2 (and Kenny's eventual pick) was in a brand new strip mall on the other side of town. RGIS would be one of the first tenants in this strip mall, and would have a much larger office than the old location had provided. And what appeared to be a plus (at first) was that it was surrounded by several businesses that could come in handy to an auditor. Also in the strip mall would be a donut shop (early morning auditor's breakfast), a mini mart (great source of caffeinated products), and a Burger King (late afternoon meals). Plus, across the street was a Rotten Robbie gas station, and an International House of Pancakes. What more could an auditor ask for?









Well, how about parking? See, since RGIS was one of the first businesses to move into this strip mall, the mall was almost completely vacant at first. So in the beginning we had plenty of parking spots. But what brain dead Kenny didn't realize was that duh, that wasn't going to last for very long. As the donut shop and mini mart and flower store moved in, the amount of available parking spots shrank considerably. These fellow tenants resented our numerous cars taking up their customer's spaces, and let our RGIS district office know it.









So at first Kenny told us that when we met at the office to commute to an out of town inventory, we could only park in the spots facing the street, not the ones directly in front of the stores (one auditor named Dalton ignored these instructions once and parked right smack in front of the donut shop. When he came back to the office, there stacked one on top of the other on his antenna were about half a dozen donuts. Dalton was pissed off, but he never parked there again).









We parked at the outer slots for a couple of weeks, until the businesses complained again. So then Kenny had us move our cars to the opposite end if the strip mall, in front of Burger King. We came back from one inventory to find fliers on all of our windshields. These fliers stated that we were never to park there again and if we did Burger King would have our cars towed.









Next, Kenny had us meet at the Coddingtown shopping mall about 3 miles up the road. That lasted for one night. Mall security discovered that we RGIS people were using their parking lot for commuter parking (they found out mostly thanks to Beatrice's noisy behavior) and forbid us to park there again. Finally, we ended up meeting at the park-n-ride in Rohnert Park, a city about 8 miles south of Santa Rosa. Wow, great planning DM Kenny!









Anyway, back to nut job Alice. She was a short, stocky woman in her forties, with pale freckled skin and light red hair tightly pulled back into one long braid. She seemed to be bright and alert. When I first saw her she was standing in front of the district office talking to another auditor. I heard Alice tell this person, "Well, she's been nice to me, and so has she, and so has he, but that one's kind of stuck up, and..." etc. etc.









As I worked with Alice in several inventories following this encounter she appeared to be interested and eager to work (a rarity at RGIS). She picked up on the inventory game rather quickly and I thought that finally this district had scored themselves a good auditor.









That is, until she worked there for a couple of months and her true self began to emerge. Alice, as it turned out, was a real whack job. I mean like totally loony. She was really good at hiding this nuttiness of hers at first, but one's true self can never stay submerged forever, and soon Alice's psychotic behavior began to bubble up and break free for all of us at RGIS to witness.









It began rather slowly at first. At first you might misinterpret her rapid fire talk as, well, coming from someone who was just really eager to learn. After a while, though, her swift speech increased and sped up until it was almost maniacal and started to give one the creeps.









Of course, with Alice's mouth always going a mile a minute, anyone in conversation with her almost never got a word in edgewise. Any 'conversation' with Alice was strictly one-sided. You would start by saying "Hi" to her, and that might be the last time you got to say a word. Alice would take a deep breath and then let 'er rip. Her entire life story would come spilling out in excruciating detail. Every little thing that had ever happened to her in her lifetime would be relayed to you at lightning speed. She had no ability to discriminate between what information could be shared with others and what should be kept private. Alice would just open her mouth and vomit out her every thought, feeling and opinion. And 99.9% of it was ugly and negative. It got so bad that people started avoiding even saying "Hello" to her, because Alice saw that as an invitation to spill her guts on everything and everyone. The more she worked with RGIS the crazier Alice got, until she finally exploded one morning at an East Bay Albertson's supermarket and left the company for good. And good riddance.









But before she split Alice left quite an impression on all of us. For starters, she had appointed herself Champion of Underdogs in our district. She would take up any cause or grudge that an auditor might have against someone, even if you didn't want her to. If you made the fatal mistake of confiding to her your unfavorable thoughts or opinions on a manager or fellow auditor, Alice would take it upon herself to go to that person and tell them exactly what you said. I don't believe that by doing this she was pulling a Moby and deliberately attempting to stir up trouble. She just decided all on her own that it wasn't any good to hide your true feelings but instead you (through herself, Alice) should make them immediately known to the subject in question.









Well, wasn't that super of Alice? Gee, to take it upon herself to make your decisions for you! Gosh, how kind! And stupid! And dangerous! I mean, a person might have just been blowing off some steam when they told Alice how much they hated what this person had said or did to them. They might have just been venting a little temporary anger or unhappiness, and certainly did not expect someone to take this inflammatory talk and run with it, as Alice often did. In this respect she was a bit similar to TL Leo, as she too seemed to feel that she knew more than you about what was the best thing to do. And by God she was going to do it, whether you liked it or not.









Alice's derangement was also demonstrated in her fierce belief that everyone at RGIS was against her. This persecution complex of hers manifested itself many times during her stint with RGIS. For instance, Alice would tell me that another auditor, Lilian, had deliberately stepped on her foot and pushed or shoved her a number of times in various inventories. Lilian herself completely recognized Alice's looniness for what it was, and would ask me if I believed her or Alice. "What do you think, Lilian?" I asked. "Of course, I believe you." Lilian smiled and thanked me. I mean, who in their right mind would believe a madwoman like Alice?









Alice also claimed that TL Jeb almost punched her. It supposedly happened during a Target inventory. On a break, Alice was walking past Jeb, who was holding a cup of coffee. Alice said that she accidentally bumped into Jeb, causing him to spill some coffee on himself. She said that Jeb was so mad at her that he drew one arm back and was about to punch her, but at the last second he changed his mind and didn't sock her. Yeah right. We're supposed to believe that an elderly, frail, diabetic man in his sixties was going to knock out a squat vigorous woman in her forties? C'mon, get real!









Just two days after this incident at Target, Alice claimed that during our Long's Drugs inventory that very morning, another auditor named Jake was rude to her, swore at her, and told her to get the hell out of his way as he walked down an aisle of the store. Alice then went around telling everyone present at the inventory (RGIS manager excepted) that she was going to take Jake out to the parking lot and "kick his ass." This threat was never carried out, of course. And it wasn't too long after this latest extreme of Alice's that she told us that at her previous job her boss almost punched her in the face but stopped himself from doing so at the last minute.









Do you see a pattern here? Does it spell wacko to you? It told the rest of us in the district that Alice might benefit from a stay in a padded cell. A long stay.









Alice also was firm in the belief that after just a short time with RGIS, she was already far superior to everyone else in the district. Maybe the company too. Maybe the whole damn world. She told me on several occasions that she was a much more accurate counter than two other auditors named Eden (a girl) and Nadine. Alice said that TL Ethan had taught those two how to count, and not very well either. She said that they were more fast than accurate. Alice said that they may have counted 6 or 7 items when there were really 9 or 10. She would then tell me that that wasn't a good thing to do, that she (Alice) was better, that she was "dead on accurate". The phrase "dead on accurate" was said emphatically by Alice, while she slammed her right fist into her left palm with each word. Give me a break.









At a Food 4 Less inventory one time Alice said that she was so ticked off at DM Kenny (who was running it) for some unexplained reason that she deliberately tried to make mistakes so Kenny would have more trouble to deal with. But Alice said that she was so good at counting that she couldn't make mistakes even when she tried. Can you believe her crap?









She also had something of a problem where jealousy was concerned. Alice felt that she was so valuable to RGIS that no one could possibly choose another auditor over her. When the whole "Lilian stepped on my foot and pushed me" fiasco happened, Alice picked up on the fact that I was on Lilian's side, not hers. She then informed me rather imperiously that she knew for an absolute fact that if it came down to her and Lilian, that our district office would definitely keep her (Alice) and not Lilian.









But her envy of others really showed itself when it came to our Area Manager Jeff. AM Jeff had a way with the ladies, that is to say the young ladies in their late teens or early twenties. We had several of these young girls as auditors in our district, and if one was even halfway cute Jeff would be all over her like a cheap suit (or "like white on rice" as Alice herself put it). During inventories that he ran Jeff would go up to a girl that he fancied and stand next to her as she counted at an end cap. He would spend considerable time chatting up this young girl, smiling and whispering in her ear the whole time.









Alice would go ballistic when she saw this. The rest of the district was used to Jeff's lover boy ways and either joked about it or ignored it. But not Alice. It seemed to make her absolutely furious for some mysterious reason.









I believe that I discovered the reason for Alice' green-eyed behavior one morning during another Food 4 Less inventory. Corpulent Moby was running this store, but Jeff had stopped by to ostensibly check on how his Team Leader was handling things. In reality though Jeff was just there to flirt with his latest girl toy.









I guess Alice must have witnessed yet another one of AM Jeff's "Let me whisper sweet nothings in your ear" episodes because shortly after his arrival at the store she came storming over to talk to me. Right away she began ranting about Jeff and this girl, Margie. "What," she was practically shouting, "Is Jeff saying when he's going up and whispering in all these girl's ears? Do you know know how close he gets to them?" She then demonstrated how close Jeff had gotten to Margie. Alice was practically bumping noses with me as she yelled, "He (Jeff) thinks those girls are so hot! I know that if I lost 20 pounds I would look damn good!"









At that point I did two things. First I took about 3 steps back from Alice. Then I thought to myself, "Oh my God, you have to be kidding, Alice. Do you really think that Jeff would in a million years be interested in you? He's a young good-looking guy in his early 30's, and you're a stout, cheese-faced woman in your late 40's. Get real!" It was almost as sad and demented as Moby's mooning over Ginger.









Another annoying thing about Alice was that she had a habit of telling you the most intimate, personal details of her life, whether you wanted to hear them or not. She would think nothing of dropping into a casual conversation her fervent belief that she had been abused by many people during her childhood. And every time she told you this it was someone different who had done horrible things to her. This family member, that family member, another one, yet one more...but maybe not, as she wasn't quite sure about that one just yet. She claimed that no one in her family believed her accusations of abuse, and at times Alice herself wasn't certain that anything had happened to her at all.









It was a very sad thing to hear, that people might have done such terrible things to a child. And if it was true then it would seem to go a long way in explaining some of Alice's odd behavior. Like her obsession with cleanliness. She always made sure that she was absolutely spotless for every inventory. Hair washed and tightly braided, with nary a strand allowed to escape. Face scrubbed to within an inch of its life. Not a trace of makeup, and her RGIS polo and slacks were always clean and pressed. Now of course I'm no psychologist, but you don't have to be one to figure out why she was fixated on appearing sparkling clean. Alice probably still felt some residual effects of having been allegedly abused during her childhood. It probably made her feel 'dirty' to have had those things happen to her, and so to combat that feeling of being 'dirty' she overreacted and became obsessed with being 'clean'.









If this was true then I really felt sorry for Alice. No one should have to go through what she might have gone through. But at the same time I felt bad for her I was also secretly wishing that she wouldn't feel so compelled to tell anyone with a pair of functioning ears all these deeply personal stories about herself. She would tell you these things at the drop of a hat. And even if you had only known her for about two hours. And even if your conversation had been nowhere near the subject of abuse.









For instance, say you might have been scanning stuff in a J.C. Penney's back room. You're just going along, scanning bar codes, beep beep beep...when out of nowhere this woman comes up to you and tells you that when she was a child she thinks her mother used to hit her in the face with a shoe. How are you supposed to react to something like that? Do you say, "Oh, no, that's terrible." Or "I'm so sorry to hear that." Or do you say what you're really thinking, "Um, that's awful, but why on earth are you telling me this? I hardly know you." I just used to wish that she would please keep some things to herself. But instead, if you said to Alice something like "It's a really nice day today, isn't it?", she would reply that she thought an uncle or someone had molested her when she was young. She did this on a constant basis. Again, I felt bad for her, but I scarcely knew her and wasn't a friend, so I really didn't understand why she kept telling me and everyone else in the district stuff like that. I mean, if there was anyone who could have benefited from seeking professional mental help it was Alice. Hopefully by now she's done just that.









After Alice had been with the district for awhile, there was an attempt (desperation time!) to promote her to Team Leader. Like most of the other attempts at this within my district, it was a resounding failure. Alice had the skills to run a store all right, but her deep emotional problems affected her ability to last very long as a TL. She would get frustrated at the slightest mistakes made during one of her inventories and shout and be constantly on the verge of tears.









Like when she ran one of her first stores, a Wilson's Leather shop in the Santa Rosa Plaza. It was a night inventory, and the next morning (probably at a Long's Drugs inventory of course) Alice told me all about it.









Alice said that at one point during the inventory AM Jeff stopped by, unannounced and uninvited. He usually didn't do this, but Alice was sure she knew the reason why. "Because Margie was there!" she yelled (Alice was never one for whispering). Everyone in the district knew that Jeff was infatuated with Margie and didn't care much about it, but it absolutely infuriated Alice to see Jeff within ten feet of Margie.









And when Jeff interfered in her inventory Alice erupted. She had assigned Margie to count a certain section in the store. Margie pouted at having to climb a ladder to scan some leather Jakeets displayed high up on one wall. But instead of going to Alice, who was running the inventory, she instead complained to Jeff. Jeff told Margie, "No problem", and sent another auditor (Alice's daughter) up the ladder instead. Alice was hopping mad. "What business does he have doing that?" she raged. "He was only there because Margie was there! He spent half the night pressed up against her!"









So of course since Alice had appointed herself Champion of Victims Everywhere (even if they didn't consider themselves victims) she called RGIS' head office in Michigan to complain about Jeff and Margie. She got her daughter to call in too, as a witness to AM Jeff's alleged sexual harassment of Margie. Alice even tried to get me to call in and file a complaint. "But I wasn't even at that store, Alice," I told her. She replied, "Yeah, I know, but you know how Jeff is, you've seen him do stuff like that all the time. Can't you call in too?" But I refused to do so. I mean, none of those girls that Jeff flirted with ever seemed to object to it, you know what I mean? So I saw no point in filing a useless 'complaint'.









Alice didn't feel the same way. She placed so many calls to RGIS' human relations department that finally they sent a couple of Ops Managers to our district to interview Margie. They called her into the office and asked her, "Is Jeff sexually harassing you?" Margie told them "No", and that was the end of it.









But not for Alice. She kept up such a steady barrage of phone calls to RGIS' head office that her daughter used to tease her and say that Alice had her own personal 1-800 number to RGIS.









I can't imagine what RGIS must have thought of Alice calling in so much. I think that after a while they must have realized what a crackpot she was, and in true RGIS fashion probably just began to ignore her, and hope that she would go away.









Which she did, eventually. The last straw for Alice came one morning at an East Bay Albertson's supermarket. Alice had driven herself and couple of other auditors to this inventory, and had arrived for the 4:00 am start a little too early. So she and the others went over to an all night store and bought some coffee. When they arrived back at Albertson's they signed themselves in at the time they had originally arrived at the store. Ops Manager Rich observed them doing this and told them to change the start time to the immediate present. Alice refused, and when Rich insisted that she change the start times she blew up and left the store. She also left RGIS too, which was probably a good thing for everyone concerned. Especially everyone at RGIS. People had gotten sick and tired of her constant friction and chaos and madness, and it was good to see her go.












Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Fat Man And Lil' Hitler (Conclusion)

If there was one person that was even more abhorrent than Moby in the district, it was his brother Leo. Despised more for his personality disorders than his questionable hygiene, Leo would never win a popularity contest at RGIS or at any company.









Like his disgusting brother Moby, Leo operated under the delusion that he was God's gift to the inventory service. He seemed to have decided very early on in his time with RGIS that he was always 100% right, and everyone else was always wrong. Always. No exceptions. Even Moby felt that you could learn something from anyone, even a newbie, but not Leo. His way was the only right way to do things, and if something got messed up then it was someone else's fault, not his. Even if it meant lying about some screw-up he had committed while running an inventory. He would rather blame a completely innocent person than admit he made a mistake.









A perfect example of this aspect of Leo' defective personality occurred one evening at a CSK (auto parts) inventory that he ran. Team Leader Leo had me and several others start counting in the back room. He told us that when we were finished counting there we could move out onto the sales floor. I asked Leo where he wanted us to start on the sales floor. "Oh, anywhere, it doesn't matter," he told me airily. "We have a late crew coming in, and they should be here by the time you guys are done back there. So you can just take the next available aisle." So when the back room was done I did just that.









Even though it wasn't a very large store, the sales floor took an exceptionally long time to finish (This actually was a common occurrence when Leo or Moby ran an inventory. Even though they had been with RGIS for a number of years, they still fouled up about every store they ran, due to their incompetence and ineptitude). Leo as usual was screwing up left and right. He kept the early crew at the store counting long after we should have been sent home. Not only was this practice of keeping both the early and late crews until the end of the inventory usually not done at a CSK, most of the early crew had a Long's Drugs to do in the morning. It was almost 11:00 pm, and we had to be at the Long's at 5:15 am the next day, but Leo refused to let us sign out. What an asshole.









I decided that I wasn't going to put up with this crap, and went into the bathroom and called AM Jeff on my cell phone. I explained to him what Leo was doing, and Jeff expressed surprise that Leo hadn't let us go yet. He told me that he would take care of it.









I went back out onto the sales floor, and a few minutes later Leo' cell phone rang. It was Jeff, telling Leo to send the early crew home. Finally shithead Leo did something right and told us to finish up our areas, collect to the Ray, sign out and go home. We did, and I gave no more thought to that inventory.









That is, not until a few days later. Word got back to me that in that CSK inventory a small but densely packed section of nuts and bolts and screws on the sales floor had been overlooked. When it was finally discovered and counted the inventory ended up lasting hours more than it should have. TM Leo got chewed out by AM Jeff and Ops Manager Samir. He was asked why did the inventory take so long? Leo' reply was that he had told me to count that section the minute I walked in the door of CSK, but that I simply chose not to do it. So of course it was my fault, not his.









That fucking pudgy, big-hipped asshole lying little bastard Leo! He would rather make up a complete bald-faced lie than to do the right thing and say, "Oops, my fault. I forgot all about that section. I should have caught that. Sorry." But of course he would never do the right thing in a million years, because he was afraid and unwilling to admit to any mistakes at all. What a cowardly little scumbag. He was always doing shitty things like that. It was one of the chief reasons why he was so detested by so many at RGIS.









Another problem that Leo had was that he could never answer a question with a simple, one sentence reply. Even a basic, generic friendly question/comment like, "Wow, Leo, not much stuff to be counted in this store, huh?" could never be answered by him with a "Yes, you're right," or "No, it might take a while." No sir, not by Leo. He would give a big sigh, smile condescendingly at the person who had asked the question, and then give an hour long dissertation on why this would be no easy inventory to do. And all in this very, tired, snobby, slightly feminine voice. He was so annoying and tiresome.









Another thing he used to make a very big deal out of was when he discovered that someone hadn't tagged an area properly. Even if it was in an inventory that he wasn't running. If Leo found an area of books in Border's that only had the beginnings of its shelves tagged and not the ends he would check the area tag to see who had counted there and go find that auditor. He would then bring the auditor back to that area, stand him front of it and say pompously, "Okay, you see this area that you did? Now, I want you to take a really good look at it and tell me where you screwed up." Then Leo would stand there with arms crossed and wait impatiently for the person to answer. When the auditor couldn't come up with anything Leo would tell him snidely about the missing yellow tags. The embarrassed auditor would then tag the ends of all the shelves, and only then would Leo walk away satisfied. Total douche-bag.









Leo wasn't as revoltingly obese as his older brother Moby, but he was more than a little out of shape. He was rather pudgy and built like a female with large round hips. These womanly hips of Leo' were only accentuated even more by the very snug navy blue Dockers he always wore. I think that Leo fancied himself a sharp dresser, which was ridiculous given his ladylike pants. He would sometimes show up for an inventory wearing a tightly belted, too small beige trench coat that he probably thought made him look cool and stylish but instead made him look dorky and stupid.









Leo wore thick, horn-rimmed glasses, combed his hair in a wavy black pompadour and had very thin dark lips that one auditor named Beatrice swore would turn absolutely black every time he got angry. These lips of Leo' would therefore act as a sort of mood ring-type indicator of where his emotions lay, and when and where he might erupt. Which actually didn't happen that often. No, Leo much preferred the behind the scenes and behind your back method of dealing with his problems.









Wretched Moby did tell us this one time when Leo lost it, and in doing so gained his infamous nickname. Leo was running an inventory at Giorgiou, an upscale woman's clothing boutique in Sausalito. The store was in a large converted Victorian house, and had three open-air floors of clothing that completely encircled the interior. Moby told us that Leo was frying (really screwing up and running late) in this inventory because AM Jeff had scheduled all newbies and goobers for Leo's store (Moby and Leo would constantly complain that Jeff did this deliberately to them when they ran stores. AAM Dean also said much the same thing, and that Jeff would schedule the best counters for his [Jeff's] stores, and give everyone else the slowest feebs).









Moby ended up driving down to Sausalito to help his brother out. When Moby walked in to the store he found Leo standing in the middle of the first floor, looking up at an auditor on the third floor and screaming at him at the top of his lungs. "Goddamn it, I told you not to count that rack! Get over to the other goddamn side of the floor and start there!" Moby pulled Leo aside and told him, "Leo, you can't talk to people like that." Leo was unrepentant. "These assholes never listen to me!" he yelled. A few hours later Moby and the store manager were taking a quick break outside. Leo was inside the store, still fuming. "How's the inventory going so far?" Moby asked the store manager. She replied, after clearly being frustrated over having to deal with Leo all day, "We should be all right if we can just get rid of that little Hitler," meaning Leo. Moby made the mistake of telling everyone this story and that did it. From then on Leo was known as Lil' Hitler.









Coming soon: More tales.)