A real nobleman October 17, 1985
“Treat me like a man,” he said. “I’m a man.”
That’s Rich, the new boss, at the Willowbrook Dunkin. He’s a
tech man from DDV, jumping into Phil’s empire for some ungodly reason, most
likely money.
He comes to us with grandiose ideas of change and he’s so
full of himself it’s hard for me to take him seriously and keep myself from
breaking out laughing when he lays out his schemes.
He’s already made it clear who is in charge. When he’s being
friendly, he tells us all about the things he’s done, how he ran a corporation’s
50 stores once, how he once owned a Dunkin, and while I’ve only spoken to him
on the phone, I know he is somebody not to mess with and someone I will need to
avoid whenever possible. He’s a guy that generates trouble.
Not having seen him has already caused problems since the
day baker has his ear and is filling his head with all his usual complaints
about me – such as not refilling the fryer at the end of my shift.
The day baker has always been something of a pip (a phrase
my mother uses, and I’ve inherited, even though I’m not completely sure what it
means). He has all these complaints about
me, but never raises them to my face, not even a phone call or a note.
One time he complained I left the work area dirty, by which he
meant, I left some water marks on the able, and streaks from the mop on the floor.
Afterwards, I took extra care, and he went around the store bragging about how
he straightened me out.
For the most part, when I call him to ask him what his
problem is, he won’t say, or can’t say, or is too much the cowardly lion to
tell me direct.
He’s better at talking shit behind people’s backs than he is
talking straight. He thinks I’m radical, and one threw out several bundles of my
zine that the old manager let me put on the counter for customers to take. He
lied about doing it, but three people on the day shift saw him do it.
He apparently has no qualms about talking to the new manager,
who has taken a shine to him, and has made him his unofficial assistant. He’s
the one who put up the meeting sign that offended me, a sign that not only
announced them meeting, but included an added message in his ungainly scrawl, “You’d
better show up or you’re fired.”
Since I work the midnight shift, this means I had to come in
on my own time in the middle of the day.
He didn’t take kindly when I wrote him a note telling him I found
his sign offensive and that I would be sleeping at the time of the meeting.
“So, fire me,” I wrote.
Kathy, the morning finisher found my note before the day
baker did, laughing about it as she showed it to Rich, who apparently shrugged
and said, “He (meaning me) didn’t write it to me.”
But this got Kathy in trouble when Rich asked why she had
read my note when it was clearly marked for the day baker.
“Because I was curious,” the always upfront Kathy told him.
Rich doesn’t like her because she always says what she
thinks.
Rich came to our Dunkin with a fixed set of expectations of
just how he should be treated – like a god – but not honesty, apparently.
While I’m not always the most amiable guy, Rich hasn’t a
clue as to how to manage people.
One day he told Kathy to smile and that she looks prettier
that way. The next day he threw her boyfriend out of the store because we hadn’t
officially opened for the day – her boyfriend always accompanies her because it
is often dark when she arrives, and he’s scared somebody will hurt her when the
guards are elsewhere in the mall.
Rich didn’t want to hear any of that. He’s a real nobleman
of the classic kind, who does nasty things thinking they are noble.
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