I Guess I Have To Grow Up, I'm A Toys R Us Kid... With No More Toys R Us
This is a long post, but one I feel I need to put out there.
In 1984, fresh out of high school, I secured my very first job. Well, my second, if you count the four days I spent as a telemarketer trying to get people to subscribe to the New York Daily News. But, since I don't really count that job, Toys R Us was my first. I worked part-time, which usually meant afternoons a couple of days each week, and all day Saturday or Sunday, for 20 hours at $4 per hour (slightly more than the then-minimum wage). Oh, and I got a spiffy red-and-white striped smock.
I was hired to work in the baby section at the store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn (this was before the advent of Babies R Us). It was a pretty small store - low-slung, cinderblock, and narrow like a mobile home. My job was to keep the salesfloor stocked with diapers and baby formula, and we moved a LOT of those products. I was introduced to the senior baby section employee, Isaac (I seem to recall), who everyone told me was the best, most-hard-working employee in the store. He was. I spent most of my time moving between the stockroom and the salesfloor, with my manager, whom I'll just call "Chuck", watching my every move.
The first week seemed pretty uneventful, until my first Saturday shift. I'd gone into the stockroom to get more diapers. They were stored on shelving that rose a good 20 feet from the floor. The employees had to share a lift to get to things high up, but most employees would just climb to racks, rather than get caught waiting around. I'd just come down from the rack, when a case of diapers (a cardboard box with 4 large boxes inside it) came down from the top rack, and landed on my foot. Now, I didn't think much of it, even though it hurt, and I went back to work. That evening, I had my graduation party, and danced all night to the DJ. The next day, my best friend had his graduation party, and we danced all night to his DJ. Needless to say, by Monday, my foot was a throbbing mess.
I'd broken a metatarsal bone, and was given a walking cast. I turned up to work the next shift, and went to the front-end manager, "Lee" because Chuck wasn't in yet. I told her what had happened, and she said that, if I had broken my foot in the stockroom, they couldn't do anything for me because I hadn't reported it, and there were no witnesses. At this point, Chuck came in, and started shouting that I was fired - I was lazy - I was trying to cheat the company - you name it, Chuck blamed me for it. Lee; however, stepped in. No, Sean would not be fired. She would give me a job on a cash register, and a stool if I needed it while I healed. Then, when I was healed, I would go back to the baby section. Chuck was furious, but ultimately agreed to her terms, except that I could NOT have a stool at the register.
So, I became the only male cashier in the store. On my first day, while cracking open a new roll of pennies, one of them slipped under the cash drawer in my register. The next day, I was asked to come to the office to sign my "Over/Under Sheet", which showed I was one penny short the day before. I explained what happened, and even retrieved the penny for Lee, but did sign the sheet.
Some weeks later, as my foot was healing, and I was preparing to move back to the babies section, the head cashiers shut down my register so I could go to lunch. I was on the last register in the row, furthest from the office and customer service desk. When I came back, the head cashier turned on my register, and we saw that there was no cash inside. I asked her if she'd done a "pick up" while I was on lunch (a "pick up" being when they come around to collect excess cash, which usually has to be totalled by the cashier and head cashier, and the cashier has to sign for the amount taken). No, she hadn't. Then we noticed that the back of my register had been pried open. I'd been robbed. The police were called, and reports taken (but no 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one telling what each one was). The thief had gotten away with about $1,700 in cash. This went on my Over/Under Sheet. Chuck was vocally suspicious of me.
A week later, I was all healed, and Chuck came to claim me back to the babies section. Lee; however, wouldn't hear of it. She told him that I was the best cashier in the store, and she wasn't going to allow me to haul cartons any more. Now, Chuck and Lee were technically equals, so it was a stalemate. Once Chuck had run out of steam arguing (yes, this all took place on the salesfloor in front of me and other employees), Lee proposed a compromise. She said that she would give me up as a cashier (unless I was needed due to high volume) IF I went to work as a "ticket writer", rather than a diaper stockboy. Chuck hated this solution, but it got me away from Lee and meant I wouldn't report to Chuck any more. I'd report to Ivan, who techinically reported to Chuck, but was pretty autonomous, and well-liked by the staff. Deal!
A ticket writer was in charge of the "big ticket" items - baby furniture, bikes, ride-on vehicles, and electronics and video games (though these last two had their own special ticket writers). We had to know the stock, know the items, help customers pick out the right size bike for their kids. It was a sales position, though we were told that we weren't selling, just providing customer service. For this, I was given a very spiffy orange vest, with Geoffrey Giraffe's head on the back. It was a great job. Ivan was a great boss. The senior guy on the ticket desk who trained me was MIke. Mike was a little person. He was terrific, and taught me a ton about customer service and how to enjoy work. I'll never forget one night we stayed over in the store doing inventory when, around 3am, Mike came tearing down the aisle in one of those Little Tykes electric cars. Gave us all a good laugh and some spirit to get through a long night.
I enjoyed the job, and interacting with customers. Parents buying diapers and formula are doing a chore, but parents buying a kid a new bike are having an experience. It was nice to help them pick out the right bike for their kid, and the accessories (bells and helmets - I always recommended helmets).
As summer ended, I was preparing to leave for college. I'd be living on campus 45 minutes from home, but couldn't possibly keep working in this store. I went to see Lee and John (who had replaced Chuck when Chuck was transferred to Jersey) to give two-weeks notice. They were sorry to hear I would be leaving, and John asked me where I'd be in school. When I told him Iona College in New Rochelle, he said that he'd just come to us from the Yonkers store, which was right nearby. Did I want a job? Hell, yes! He called Debbie, the other manager in Yonkers, and told her he was sending me up with my employment records in two weeks, and she had to give me a job. She agreed. I was very grateful.
I moved into my dorm, and the second day I was up at school, I took the sealed file John had given me, and delivered it to Debbie. Well, I tried to deliver it. It seems that the Toys R Us in Yonkers is up on top of this bluff, and if you don't know exactly where the turnoff to the parking lot is, you can circle the place for hours. Or, at least, I did. When I finally got to the store, Debbie took my file, and assigned me a shift without looking at it. She said, "If John says I need you, then I need you." She did say that she already had enough ticket writers, but she'd put me in action figures until a ticket writer spot opened up.
While I was in the breakroom for my first shift in Yonkers, I made friends with another MIke, who would be my partner in action figures. Debbie came in with my file, and asked everyone to give us the room, please. She sat down, and had me sit across from her. "I need to understand something before I send you out to the floor," she said. "How is it possible that you have only two errors in your cashier records? One penny and $1,700? I've been working here a long time, and no one has ever had that clean or strange a record." So, I explained both errors, and she was satisfied.
A short time later, there was an opening for an electronics ticket writer, and good to her word, Debbie gave me the job. i was teamed with JoJo, whom I'd already become friends with, since we were both Star Trek fans. We manned the "Security Booth", where people had to bring their tickets for electronic items after they'd paid for them. It was a job under high scrutiny, including a complete nightly inventory.
We were also tasked with one of the most important and (might I say) holiest of tasks in that Fall season - the distribution of Cabbage Patch Kids to people who had been on waiting lists for months. As the dolls came into the store, they were stored in the specially secure stockroom attached to the Booth. Customers were called to come pick up their dolls. We would display 20 dolls at a time inside the Booth, and the customers would have to choose from the ones shown. We were forbidden from going into the stockroom to find a particular combination of hair and eye color. You could have been waiting for 10 months, but if there were no redheads in the display when you came in, you either had to wait for four other people to pick up their dolls (at which time we'd put out four more), or just take what was available.
One day, a nun came up to the Booth with her Cabbage Patch ticket. She told me that she'd been waiting for months for a specific style doll for a special needs child at her order's children's home. And, of course, that style was not on display. I looked at JoJo, and she agreed that I had to go try to find the right doll. So, I went into the stockroom, and breaking all protocol, started opening cartons, looking for that one doll. Just then, our manager, Ivan F. (different Ivan from Flatbush) came into the stockroom from the back. "WTF!" I told him what I was doing, and that, as a Catholic, it was nearly impossible for me to have denied the nun. He looked at me, and said, "Then let's get looking." Together, we found the right doll, and presented it to Sister.
That Christmas break, I was going home for a month. Debbie called John, sent me home with my file, and John put me back to work in Flatbush. Now, there was no formal policy on moving employees between stores. This was totally off-the-books, except that the Regional Manager knew about me. I used to run into him at both stores, and it sort of surprised the staff and managers as time went on that he liked me (he wasn't known to be a very friendly guy). I went back to work in Flatbush as a ticket writer with Mike and Ivan.
The night after Christmas, we organized a touch football game in the parking lot after the store closed. In a tale I won't tell in detail here, I was badly injured, tearing up the insides of my left knee. There were managers present, but my injury wasn't obvious that night. The next morning, I woke to a knee blown up like a football. The doctor told me I'd be out of school and work for at least 8 weeks, and then I'd need surgery and rehab. I wasn't having any of that. I was on scholarship, and didn't want to miss school. I told him to give me 2 weeks in the cast, and then we'd see about surgery. He thought I was nuts, but agreed. I was out of work for two weeks, but Debbie, John and Ivan held my position for me. (They didn't tell any of the staff what had happened, and this one friend of mine, Gillies, actually thought I might have died - we didn't have social media or cellphones to spread the word that I was hurt but OK).
After two weeks, the doctor removed the cast, and said I'd made a pretty miraculous recovery. He wouldn't insist I have surgery, but said it was inevitable that I'd need it. And, he said, I'd probably never play sports again. That semester, I captained an intermural championship volleyball team, and went on to play 15 seasons of corporate league softball, among other things. I'm 51, and haven't had surgery yet, though my knee does hurt from time-to-time, and in really cold, damp weather, will sometimes just buckle under me. I ended up back in Yonkers in January, and joined an interstore bowling league. My team, The Pinbusters, took the championship.
That summer, I went back to work in Flatbush. Lee and John made sure I had full-time shifts that summer. Toys R Us used to throw a huge regional picnic each summer. When we went there, I was able to get the Flatbush and Yonkers staff to mingle, which was unheard of, as inter-store rivalry was high. I also had to split my time between the two groups, and alternate which store's team I played on in the various games. Still, it was fun.
Speaking of fun, in a store mostly staffed by high school and college age people, I learned that the staff did EVERYTHING together. We went to all kinds of places in groups all the time - oldies clubs in Manhattan, after-hours bars in Brooklyn and Westchester, the beach after night shift or on weekends, block parties, diners... The TRU crowd was tight, and I made a ton of really great friends there.
In the fall, I was back in Yonkers, but by Christmas break in '85, my parents had moved further away from the Flatbush store. It wasn't the most convenient store for me to work when I was at home any more. But, John was transferred to the Bay Parkway store, which was right near our new home. So, with file folder in hand, I started work in Bay Parkway that break. Luckily, there were several people I knew from high school working there, so the good times continued. They assigned me to the cashier staff, but gave me the added responsibility of totalling up and reconciling the receipts with my friend John C. each night. (I haven't mentioned it, but there were several regular and discretionary raises since I'd started working at TRU.)
When I went back to Yonkers in January, I had a surprise waiting. I was in the breakroom before my first shift, catching up with my buddies, waiting for the regular staff meeting. That's when Chuck walked in with Debbie. He launched into a loud speech about how he was the senior manager, and things were going to change, and... blah-blah-blowhard. Then, in front of everyone, he pointed at me, and said, "And if you think YOU'RE getting away with the shit you got away with before, Golden Boy, THINK AGAIN!" As he sent us off to work, Debbie and Ivan F. stopped me to ask what that was about. I told them that I never really knew why he hadn't liked me since the day he hired me in Flatbush. So, I went to the Booth with JoJo for my shift.
As the store was closing, Chuck showed up at the Booth with a broom in his hand. "Get your ass out to the parking lot. Gather those carts, and sweep up the whole lot. You don't go home until I think it's clean." I told him that I couldn't go outside because I had to complete the nightly inventory in the Booth and the stockroom, and JoJo had gone home early, so I was alone. "WHAT F-ING INVENTORY?! Get your ass out to the lot!" I picked up the intercom, and paged Ivan F. He came over, and listened to Chuck give me my orders again. Ivan F. just said, "Chuck. I know you are new here, and you're the boss. BUT, Sean's the best employee we have, and he has the security job for a reason. He has one job in this store, which is in this Booth. He doesn't mop, clean or do anything other than the Booth. You'll have more luck getting me to sweep and collect carts than you will getting any manager here to make Sean do it." Chuck stormed off.
The rest of that spring semester continued much that way - Chuck trying to pull me down, or find a reason to fire me. Finally, one night, a bunch of us were hanging out in the underground parking lot of the store. Some of the managers, including Chuck were there. Since Flatbush, Chuck had carried this briefcase around with him. Inside it, was a minibar. This night, he turned to one of his favorite employees, and gave him a drink. That's when I stepped up to him. "None for you, Golden Boy." "I don't want any, Chuck, but since you did just give a drink to an underage employee on company property, I guess you won't be bothering me any more." And I just stared him down as he turned red. That's when Debbie spoke up, "You know Chuck... Sean has always been in really good with Doug (the Regional Manager)."
From that day until the day I left the company in June to take an internship at City Hall, Chuck never spoke to me again. After two years of alternating part-time/full-time work there, I even received a check for $600, as my profit-sharing payout.
This was a job where I learned some of the most important lessons of my life:
- good, hard work will be recognized and rewarded.
- you can sell anything to anyone, if you take time to listen to their needs.
- you can enjoy a difficult job, if you are working side-by-side with good people.
- a bad boss does not always win.
- follow all on-the-job safety rules. Corallary: be patient and wait for the proper equipment to become available.
I'm going to miss having the TRU stores to visit. They take me back to such a great time in my life. I don't think young people have these sort of positive job opportunities in big corporations any more.
In closing, here's a little ditty a friend of mine and I wrote when we worked at TRU.
Here's little ode a friend of mine and I wrote when I worked in the Yonkers store:
To the Tune of "America The Beautiful"
Oh, beautiful
For spacious aisles
For bikes and dolls and trains
For ticket writer's agony
Under Geoffrey's name
Oh, Toys R Us; Oh, Toys R Us
Grant a raise to me
We'll fill it good, just like we should
From P on down to G*
All beautiful
And swept-up neat
We search for patientness
The customers, in cold and heat
Bitch and make a mess
Oh, Toys R Us; Oh, Toys R Us
God help us on the tour**
'Cause if we fail, they start to wail
And keep us in 'til four.***
* "P" was the Playskool aisle, in those days the first aisle in the store. "G" was the Games aisle, in those days the last aisle in the store.
** "the tour" was when the district supervisor and other execs would come through to inspect the store. Everything had to be absolutely ship-shape, or there was extra work to be done.
*** keeping us until four (a.m.) was an exaggeration.
In 1984, fresh out of high school, I secured my very first job. Well, my second, if you count the four days I spent as a telemarketer trying to get people to subscribe to the New York Daily News. But, since I don't really count that job, Toys R Us was my first. I worked part-time, which usually meant afternoons a couple of days each week, and all day Saturday or Sunday, for 20 hours at $4 per hour (slightly more than the then-minimum wage). Oh, and I got a spiffy red-and-white striped smock.
I was hired to work in the baby section at the store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn (this was before the advent of Babies R Us). It was a pretty small store - low-slung, cinderblock, and narrow like a mobile home. My job was to keep the salesfloor stocked with diapers and baby formula, and we moved a LOT of those products. I was introduced to the senior baby section employee, Isaac (I seem to recall), who everyone told me was the best, most-hard-working employee in the store. He was. I spent most of my time moving between the stockroom and the salesfloor, with my manager, whom I'll just call "Chuck", watching my every move.
The first week seemed pretty uneventful, until my first Saturday shift. I'd gone into the stockroom to get more diapers. They were stored on shelving that rose a good 20 feet from the floor. The employees had to share a lift to get to things high up, but most employees would just climb to racks, rather than get caught waiting around. I'd just come down from the rack, when a case of diapers (a cardboard box with 4 large boxes inside it) came down from the top rack, and landed on my foot. Now, I didn't think much of it, even though it hurt, and I went back to work. That evening, I had my graduation party, and danced all night to the DJ. The next day, my best friend had his graduation party, and we danced all night to his DJ. Needless to say, by Monday, my foot was a throbbing mess.
I'd broken a metatarsal bone, and was given a walking cast. I turned up to work the next shift, and went to the front-end manager, "Lee" because Chuck wasn't in yet. I told her what had happened, and she said that, if I had broken my foot in the stockroom, they couldn't do anything for me because I hadn't reported it, and there were no witnesses. At this point, Chuck came in, and started shouting that I was fired - I was lazy - I was trying to cheat the company - you name it, Chuck blamed me for it. Lee; however, stepped in. No, Sean would not be fired. She would give me a job on a cash register, and a stool if I needed it while I healed. Then, when I was healed, I would go back to the baby section. Chuck was furious, but ultimately agreed to her terms, except that I could NOT have a stool at the register.
So, I became the only male cashier in the store. On my first day, while cracking open a new roll of pennies, one of them slipped under the cash drawer in my register. The next day, I was asked to come to the office to sign my "Over/Under Sheet", which showed I was one penny short the day before. I explained what happened, and even retrieved the penny for Lee, but did sign the sheet.
Some weeks later, as my foot was healing, and I was preparing to move back to the babies section, the head cashiers shut down my register so I could go to lunch. I was on the last register in the row, furthest from the office and customer service desk. When I came back, the head cashier turned on my register, and we saw that there was no cash inside. I asked her if she'd done a "pick up" while I was on lunch (a "pick up" being when they come around to collect excess cash, which usually has to be totalled by the cashier and head cashier, and the cashier has to sign for the amount taken). No, she hadn't. Then we noticed that the back of my register had been pried open. I'd been robbed. The police were called, and reports taken (but no 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one telling what each one was). The thief had gotten away with about $1,700 in cash. This went on my Over/Under Sheet. Chuck was vocally suspicious of me.
A week later, I was all healed, and Chuck came to claim me back to the babies section. Lee; however, wouldn't hear of it. She told him that I was the best cashier in the store, and she wasn't going to allow me to haul cartons any more. Now, Chuck and Lee were technically equals, so it was a stalemate. Once Chuck had run out of steam arguing (yes, this all took place on the salesfloor in front of me and other employees), Lee proposed a compromise. She said that she would give me up as a cashier (unless I was needed due to high volume) IF I went to work as a "ticket writer", rather than a diaper stockboy. Chuck hated this solution, but it got me away from Lee and meant I wouldn't report to Chuck any more. I'd report to Ivan, who techinically reported to Chuck, but was pretty autonomous, and well-liked by the staff. Deal!
A ticket writer was in charge of the "big ticket" items - baby furniture, bikes, ride-on vehicles, and electronics and video games (though these last two had their own special ticket writers). We had to know the stock, know the items, help customers pick out the right size bike for their kids. It was a sales position, though we were told that we weren't selling, just providing customer service. For this, I was given a very spiffy orange vest, with Geoffrey Giraffe's head on the back. It was a great job. Ivan was a great boss. The senior guy on the ticket desk who trained me was MIke. Mike was a little person. He was terrific, and taught me a ton about customer service and how to enjoy work. I'll never forget one night we stayed over in the store doing inventory when, around 3am, Mike came tearing down the aisle in one of those Little Tykes electric cars. Gave us all a good laugh and some spirit to get through a long night.
I enjoyed the job, and interacting with customers. Parents buying diapers and formula are doing a chore, but parents buying a kid a new bike are having an experience. It was nice to help them pick out the right bike for their kid, and the accessories (bells and helmets - I always recommended helmets).
As summer ended, I was preparing to leave for college. I'd be living on campus 45 minutes from home, but couldn't possibly keep working in this store. I went to see Lee and John (who had replaced Chuck when Chuck was transferred to Jersey) to give two-weeks notice. They were sorry to hear I would be leaving, and John asked me where I'd be in school. When I told him Iona College in New Rochelle, he said that he'd just come to us from the Yonkers store, which was right nearby. Did I want a job? Hell, yes! He called Debbie, the other manager in Yonkers, and told her he was sending me up with my employment records in two weeks, and she had to give me a job. She agreed. I was very grateful.
I moved into my dorm, and the second day I was up at school, I took the sealed file John had given me, and delivered it to Debbie. Well, I tried to deliver it. It seems that the Toys R Us in Yonkers is up on top of this bluff, and if you don't know exactly where the turnoff to the parking lot is, you can circle the place for hours. Or, at least, I did. When I finally got to the store, Debbie took my file, and assigned me a shift without looking at it. She said, "If John says I need you, then I need you." She did say that she already had enough ticket writers, but she'd put me in action figures until a ticket writer spot opened up.
While I was in the breakroom for my first shift in Yonkers, I made friends with another MIke, who would be my partner in action figures. Debbie came in with my file, and asked everyone to give us the room, please. She sat down, and had me sit across from her. "I need to understand something before I send you out to the floor," she said. "How is it possible that you have only two errors in your cashier records? One penny and $1,700? I've been working here a long time, and no one has ever had that clean or strange a record." So, I explained both errors, and she was satisfied.
A short time later, there was an opening for an electronics ticket writer, and good to her word, Debbie gave me the job. i was teamed with JoJo, whom I'd already become friends with, since we were both Star Trek fans. We manned the "Security Booth", where people had to bring their tickets for electronic items after they'd paid for them. It was a job under high scrutiny, including a complete nightly inventory.
We were also tasked with one of the most important and (might I say) holiest of tasks in that Fall season - the distribution of Cabbage Patch Kids to people who had been on waiting lists for months. As the dolls came into the store, they were stored in the specially secure stockroom attached to the Booth. Customers were called to come pick up their dolls. We would display 20 dolls at a time inside the Booth, and the customers would have to choose from the ones shown. We were forbidden from going into the stockroom to find a particular combination of hair and eye color. You could have been waiting for 10 months, but if there were no redheads in the display when you came in, you either had to wait for four other people to pick up their dolls (at which time we'd put out four more), or just take what was available.
One day, a nun came up to the Booth with her Cabbage Patch ticket. She told me that she'd been waiting for months for a specific style doll for a special needs child at her order's children's home. And, of course, that style was not on display. I looked at JoJo, and she agreed that I had to go try to find the right doll. So, I went into the stockroom, and breaking all protocol, started opening cartons, looking for that one doll. Just then, our manager, Ivan F. (different Ivan from Flatbush) came into the stockroom from the back. "WTF!" I told him what I was doing, and that, as a Catholic, it was nearly impossible for me to have denied the nun. He looked at me, and said, "Then let's get looking." Together, we found the right doll, and presented it to Sister.
That Christmas break, I was going home for a month. Debbie called John, sent me home with my file, and John put me back to work in Flatbush. Now, there was no formal policy on moving employees between stores. This was totally off-the-books, except that the Regional Manager knew about me. I used to run into him at both stores, and it sort of surprised the staff and managers as time went on that he liked me (he wasn't known to be a very friendly guy). I went back to work in Flatbush as a ticket writer with Mike and Ivan.
The night after Christmas, we organized a touch football game in the parking lot after the store closed. In a tale I won't tell in detail here, I was badly injured, tearing up the insides of my left knee. There were managers present, but my injury wasn't obvious that night. The next morning, I woke to a knee blown up like a football. The doctor told me I'd be out of school and work for at least 8 weeks, and then I'd need surgery and rehab. I wasn't having any of that. I was on scholarship, and didn't want to miss school. I told him to give me 2 weeks in the cast, and then we'd see about surgery. He thought I was nuts, but agreed. I was out of work for two weeks, but Debbie, John and Ivan held my position for me. (They didn't tell any of the staff what had happened, and this one friend of mine, Gillies, actually thought I might have died - we didn't have social media or cellphones to spread the word that I was hurt but OK).
After two weeks, the doctor removed the cast, and said I'd made a pretty miraculous recovery. He wouldn't insist I have surgery, but said it was inevitable that I'd need it. And, he said, I'd probably never play sports again. That semester, I captained an intermural championship volleyball team, and went on to play 15 seasons of corporate league softball, among other things. I'm 51, and haven't had surgery yet, though my knee does hurt from time-to-time, and in really cold, damp weather, will sometimes just buckle under me. I ended up back in Yonkers in January, and joined an interstore bowling league. My team, The Pinbusters, took the championship.
That summer, I went back to work in Flatbush. Lee and John made sure I had full-time shifts that summer. Toys R Us used to throw a huge regional picnic each summer. When we went there, I was able to get the Flatbush and Yonkers staff to mingle, which was unheard of, as inter-store rivalry was high. I also had to split my time between the two groups, and alternate which store's team I played on in the various games. Still, it was fun.
Speaking of fun, in a store mostly staffed by high school and college age people, I learned that the staff did EVERYTHING together. We went to all kinds of places in groups all the time - oldies clubs in Manhattan, after-hours bars in Brooklyn and Westchester, the beach after night shift or on weekends, block parties, diners... The TRU crowd was tight, and I made a ton of really great friends there.
In the fall, I was back in Yonkers, but by Christmas break in '85, my parents had moved further away from the Flatbush store. It wasn't the most convenient store for me to work when I was at home any more. But, John was transferred to the Bay Parkway store, which was right near our new home. So, with file folder in hand, I started work in Bay Parkway that break. Luckily, there were several people I knew from high school working there, so the good times continued. They assigned me to the cashier staff, but gave me the added responsibility of totalling up and reconciling the receipts with my friend John C. each night. (I haven't mentioned it, but there were several regular and discretionary raises since I'd started working at TRU.)
When I went back to Yonkers in January, I had a surprise waiting. I was in the breakroom before my first shift, catching up with my buddies, waiting for the regular staff meeting. That's when Chuck walked in with Debbie. He launched into a loud speech about how he was the senior manager, and things were going to change, and... blah-blah-blowhard. Then, in front of everyone, he pointed at me, and said, "And if you think YOU'RE getting away with the shit you got away with before, Golden Boy, THINK AGAIN!" As he sent us off to work, Debbie and Ivan F. stopped me to ask what that was about. I told them that I never really knew why he hadn't liked me since the day he hired me in Flatbush. So, I went to the Booth with JoJo for my shift.
As the store was closing, Chuck showed up at the Booth with a broom in his hand. "Get your ass out to the parking lot. Gather those carts, and sweep up the whole lot. You don't go home until I think it's clean." I told him that I couldn't go outside because I had to complete the nightly inventory in the Booth and the stockroom, and JoJo had gone home early, so I was alone. "WHAT F-ING INVENTORY?! Get your ass out to the lot!" I picked up the intercom, and paged Ivan F. He came over, and listened to Chuck give me my orders again. Ivan F. just said, "Chuck. I know you are new here, and you're the boss. BUT, Sean's the best employee we have, and he has the security job for a reason. He has one job in this store, which is in this Booth. He doesn't mop, clean or do anything other than the Booth. You'll have more luck getting me to sweep and collect carts than you will getting any manager here to make Sean do it." Chuck stormed off.
The rest of that spring semester continued much that way - Chuck trying to pull me down, or find a reason to fire me. Finally, one night, a bunch of us were hanging out in the underground parking lot of the store. Some of the managers, including Chuck were there. Since Flatbush, Chuck had carried this briefcase around with him. Inside it, was a minibar. This night, he turned to one of his favorite employees, and gave him a drink. That's when I stepped up to him. "None for you, Golden Boy." "I don't want any, Chuck, but since you did just give a drink to an underage employee on company property, I guess you won't be bothering me any more." And I just stared him down as he turned red. That's when Debbie spoke up, "You know Chuck... Sean has always been in really good with Doug (the Regional Manager)."
From that day until the day I left the company in June to take an internship at City Hall, Chuck never spoke to me again. After two years of alternating part-time/full-time work there, I even received a check for $600, as my profit-sharing payout.
This was a job where I learned some of the most important lessons of my life:
- good, hard work will be recognized and rewarded.
- you can sell anything to anyone, if you take time to listen to their needs.
- you can enjoy a difficult job, if you are working side-by-side with good people.
- a bad boss does not always win.
- follow all on-the-job safety rules. Corallary: be patient and wait for the proper equipment to become available.
I'm going to miss having the TRU stores to visit. They take me back to such a great time in my life. I don't think young people have these sort of positive job opportunities in big corporations any more.
In closing, here's a little ditty a friend of mine and I wrote when we worked at TRU.
Here's little ode a friend of mine and I wrote when I worked in the Yonkers store:
To the Tune of "America The Beautiful"
Oh, beautiful
For spacious aisles
For bikes and dolls and trains
For ticket writer's agony
Under Geoffrey's name
Oh, Toys R Us; Oh, Toys R Us
Grant a raise to me
We'll fill it good, just like we should
From P on down to G*
All beautiful
And swept-up neat
We search for patientness
The customers, in cold and heat
Bitch and make a mess
Oh, Toys R Us; Oh, Toys R Us
God help us on the tour**
'Cause if we fail, they start to wail
And keep us in 'til four.***
* "P" was the Playskool aisle, in those days the first aisle in the store. "G" was the Games aisle, in those days the last aisle in the store.
** "the tour" was when the district supervisor and other execs would come through to inspect the store. Everything had to be absolutely ship-shape, or there was extra work to be done.
*** keeping us until four (a.m.) was an exaggeration.