(This part of the tale was once told many moons ago but as the proprietor of the lounge i get to re-write, re-tell, revise as i go along... when to print the legend and when to leave the facts in...)
With the big move announced the main topic of conversation was what was everyone going to do? it wasn't lost on those who gave a shit that a few of the crew had been called into the office to have a sit down with District Dickhead and our manager... most of them left that meeting smiling but also under the stipulation that they were not to talk about they were told, any raises doled out, any promotions and such... not that anyone was getting promoted but it was pretty obvious some of the guys were getting a raise in order to ease the transition... and good for them, they deserved it, the funniest part was how dipshit Kenny was not called into the office and he kept wandering around asking everyone if they had been called in, who all had been called in, for shits and giggles i told him i'd been called in but couldn't talk about shit but was thrilled by the meeting, his head almost exploded, he even began thinking about demanding a meeting, even funnier was when he found out what i had told him was complete bullshit and ran his mouth for roughly ten seconds, to which i replied listen scarecrow (Kenny was a skinny, scrawny fuck) keep fucking talking and you'll be sprinting for the shitter again to lock yourself in, except this time i don't give a shit, meaning i'll fucking wait...
-- a brief refresher, Kenny in his rush to be #1 in the order filling department was once on a cherry picker, a machine that lets you grab shit off high shelves, when he hit a stack of skids, knocked them over and then told me to pick them up, i told him to fuck off, he said something stupid and i promptly told him i was going to kick his fucking ass which is something every other person here wanted to do but didn't want to get fired for while i myself didn't fucking care, i sprinted after him and he ran to the bathroom and locked himself in while i stood outside and explained to him he was a scrawny asshole who was gonna spend the next six weeks eating through a straw... the manager came out and directed me to the other side of the warehouse and told everyone to keep me away from Kenny so i didn't beat the shit out of him... the good old days...
To absolutely no one's surprise, i was not called into the office but to be fair a lot of us weren't, we'd have our job but we wouldn't be getting a raise or a fancy title or anything of the sort and it was a bummer to watch some of these guys realize the company doesn't give a shit about them, just keep filling the orders and unloading the trucks and maybe you'll get a .25-.50 cent an hour raise come review time... or maybe not.. i know the one performance review i got i received a whopping .15 cents and hour, i had to stifle a laugh, i should have said why don't i just get a free candy bar from the vending machine each day? it worked out about the same.. granted after being hired and finishing probation it was quite clear i didn't give a shit and had something going on the side but i was forever the conundrum for management, the classic underachiever, the guy with a college degree who could do the job hungover or high, in his sleep but who absolutely didn't give a fuck about the corporate bullshit shoveled to the working grunts... my open disdain for overtime was probably the biggest red flag, while many of these guys loved the opportunity i always had an excuse and if i did stay they'd be lucky to get an hour out of me, i could sell an ounce and make more, a zip netting me close to $55, hell if i sell two ounces i'd make more than i did in a day... tax free...
And so began the slow exodus from the North Side and up the road to the shiny new warehouse in the middle of nowhere... right off a select few "company men" were chosen to help facilitate the move, they were the first to go and it was not lost on the rest of us lumpen-proles that most of those guys were the ones who had been called into the office straight away and left said meeting jovial and smiling... the rest of us continued on same as before... the short, pudgy lump known as Dwayne, aka my supervisor, a man who sported the Friar Tuck hairdo, long straight hair around his head while being bald on top, wire rim glasses, in general a fucking miserable bastard on the best of days, was stuck with us while the manager and other supervisor were busy shuttling back and forth but mainly spending their time at the new facility... Dwayne would be moved up at some point but felt he was being slighted back here in the old place, the bright spot was he had now moved out front leaving Buzzo in charge of receiving and what that really meant was i free to fuck about at will, most of the incoming deliveries were now being shipped up to the new place so we in the receiving dept., basically Buzzo and i, took our good old time putting shit away so that we wouldn't get pulled over and made to pick orders, sometimes Buzzo would go over cuz he was bored but i stayed right were i was, wandering the aisles doing nothing at all other than pretending to work...
Better yet, it became quite obvious to all still working that the inventory was basically fucked, no one knew who or what we had and so began a lucrative and widespread run of thieving... yes i know what one is thinking, that's not right, it's hurting the company, it's immoral... yeah, those all might be valid points but as i've often stated fuck the company, in fact the funny thing is the first time i watched this sorta thing happen was when Dwayne and Buzzo got pissed off one Friday and proceeded to slam copper tubing on the ground so they could claim it was damaged, they'd tell Manager Coke Fiend who would then right it off and they would toss the damaged copper into their trunks and take it to the scrap yard for cash, basically they'd make anywhere from $40-100 for their weekend and be in a much better mood (other times they'd tell no one and just load up their trunk), as usual i nodded and watched and even Dwayne, who obviously wasn't too fond of me, didn't care that i knew what he was doing, in fact one day when he was being a bit of a dick for my being ten minutes late and rather hungover i shot back a comment about his little escapades to let him know i didn't give a fuck about him or his job and that i knew his little scam was technically theft and how while i knew the manager turned a blind eye DD would find this info most interesting... it was around that time that Dwayne left me to my own devices realizing i might play dirty... i didn't like to but then again outside of this place i was the fucking man, a twerp like him would be advised to steer well clear of moi or get his ass handed to him... not saying it was right but then again it's all a matter of perspective..
Thus began the parade of goods out the back door... or more correctly the receiving dock, as guys fucking pulled their car up for a minute and threw shit into the trunk... the fact was with the big move Manager Cokehead and the DD rarely stepped foot in the old place, it was all about the shiny new place, which looked oddly similar to the old place... just cleaner and more well lit... meanwhile shit was literally flying off the shelves and into our cars...
The history of my checkered employment has shown that i may not have been the most trustworthy employee but that would be a misnomer... i always applied the Robin Hood theory to my actions and yes one could say that was nothing more than a rationalization for the act of stealing from the company and that i was attempting to put a moral or ethical spin on things to justify my actions, a completely valid argument by the way but only if one believes that capitalism is some sort of just system of compensation and labor... and as any democratic-socialist will tell it is not... the money always flows up and so when it came to my surviving sometimes i had to do things some might deem unethical... at the bagel place i scammed dollar bills and would occasionally, meaning once a week or so, lift some lunch meat and cheese out of the coolers, we were allowed to take home the defective bagels, meaning not round, and so while scraping by on minimum wage and getting the first iteration of the weed business established lifting some food helped me to eat... the skimming of the 7-11 register much the same, i was live without a net back then (refer to old posts) and so i needed to make as much cash as possible, thus scamming anywhere from $50-120 five nights a week was important, granted i also lifted cartons of cigarettes to sell but that's the way i got by, i wasn't living high on the proverbial hog but i was stashing away enough money for an apartment when the summer season ended...
Back in the warehouse it was a bit different... i didn't need any money, in fact i had more than i knew what to do with, no lifting from the warehouse was more a fuck you to the giant corporation that i worked for... and so i asked Stiv if he needed any tools? Stiv was in a constant state of anxiety of how to launder his money and so he was partnering with his friend, also his current landlord and ex-fling, who was one of the only other people who knew about his weed connection, they had bought a house to flip and were looking at another and Stiv was doing the work all while billing himself, a neat little trick and one i give the guy credit for... needless to say he used power tools and so i gave him a rundown of what was at the warehouse and told him to let me know if he wanted anything... he needed a drill and a small power saw and so i set about getting both for him to which he was quite pleased as they were both high end tools... granted i took the least from the place as the copper was disappearing like mad as well as a whole bunch of other shit, the company inventory system was a mess once the move started so no one knew where anything was and the lumpen-proles knew it, hence the free for all...
Within two weeks of the announcement the old warehouse was now being run with a skeleton crew... Dwayne was de facto manager as Cokehead and Guy, the assistant manager, were always up at the new place... Guy was hired after i was and was roundly disliked by many of my co-workers, mainly cuz he had gotten the assistant gig over Dwayne, who for some reason people liked which i found odd cuz he had the personality of a giant turd, and so Guy was looked at as an "outsider".. he also had the new supe problem of trying to make a good impression and actually do his job, probably a bit overzealously, thus rubbing the lumpen-proles the wrong way... as one could guess i didn't give a fuck either way and had no problem with Guy other than the aforementioned but since this was all a front for me i didn't really give a good god damn...
As things slowed down at the old place the dreaded cross-training reared it's ugly head, meaning sometimes the receiving guys, basically Buzzo and i, would be pulled over to fill orders since the bulk of those guys were up at the new place... in fact the only guys still at the old place that weren't the counter sales dept. or managers were those of us who had not fully committed to moving the new palace and so the bosses were beginning to yank our chain, lay shit on us they knew we wouldn't like as well the new game of moving us around at will... we'd show up at the old place and start work and roughly thirty minutes or an hour in the phone would ring, DD would tell Dwayne or Guy to ship a few of us up to the new warehouse to help up there and so we'd grab our shit and get in our cars to drive up... the key point, those of us pulled up had not gotten a raise or any sort of incentive to have to drive another 20 minutes up the road and better yet they'd usually tell us to drive back 5-10 minutes before we were due to punch out meaning we'd punch out late, granted we'd get a smidgen of overtime but the truth was it was bullshit...
After a certain point it wasn't a matter of if we'd get called up but when.. it started as one, maybe two days a week, now it was every day, sometimes we'd get the word as soon as we walked in the door, usually Guy (who did shuttle back and forth) was tasked with giving us the shit news and he managed to earn some points by agreeing with us that it was bullshit... but what could we lumpen-proles do? not much... shit always rolls downhill, we'd have some clandestine meetings in the back aisles to discuss our options but there wasn't much we could do... obviously i could quit but i was trying to hold out to see what would happen but the fact was i was making far too much money to get bogged down at this place, mainly the job helped placate the Waitress and give me the thinly veiled appearance of an upstanding citizen, meaning a tax return... but something had to give... and soon...
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