Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot

By Jason McGathey

Life in a locally owned, health-conscious grocery store chain...it might be organic, but it sure isn't natural!

Any lowly peon who has ever worked retail or for that matter an office job will find much to laugh about and relate to in this highly comical epic, of a company whose chaos hits all too close to home. From blowhard bosses who insist "somebody" needs to do something whenever any problems arise, to the crybaby technophobes running riot all over the enterprise, to the widely held misperception that Good With Computers is an actual department, it's all right here, in this fresh, modern workplace tale so realistic you might swear that you have lived it. But of course, nothing this preposterous could happen for real, right?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason McGathey
• Release date: Mar 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224667772

Jason McGathey

Jason McGathey has published 5 books, with his most recent, "Riots Of Passage," hitting store shelves in December 2019. In addition to maintaining a couple of personal blogs, he also contributes to the occasional odd publication, both in traditional print and online.

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Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot

Copyright 2024 Jason McGathey

All rights reserved.

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Also by this author:

Night Driving (2001)

One Hundred Virgins (2006)

Accelerated Times (2013)

Survive The Strip (2015)

Riots Of Passage (2019)

Days Without End (2020)

The Doom Statues (2021)

Stop Rewind Fast Forward: 1992 (2022)

A1

Everything was cool up until the summer that Liberty Avenue closed. More specifically the morning where it first occurred to many of them that maybe this company was no longer on the upswing. Their acting owner has just called a meeting, to announce the shuttering of their original location, which somehow endured in this town, in a beleaguered, not exactly great spot, from the late 1970s up until now. And also, oh yeah, that their president, Duane Hatley, who had received the news earlier than his employees, had just chosen to tender his resignation as well.

I don’t think you know what you’re doing, Duane told said acting owner, Rob Drake, a quote which has somehow already become common knowledge, and is basically disputed by no one, not even by the targeted individual himself – that it was said, anyway, though Rob would presumably disagree with its sentiment.

But they are a relatively strong cast of seasoned veterans, those assembled in this conference room, and nobody immediately freaks out. Even Liberty’s looming extinction, in fairness, isn’t exactly a news flash, although everyone had remained optimistic it might weather the storm. And meanwhile they have three other locations, all of which are performing somewhere in the range of fair to strong, their tiny chain has endured setbacks before. They will be okay.

Once the unavoidable vague if nervous giddiness associated with even bad news wears off, however, many will wonder what this means re their future president, then. Much subsequent hand wringing will ensue. Some muse that an outsider would represent the best thing for this company, while others opine that an outsider is about the last thing this company needs. And all the while their lame duck of a president admits that he really isn’t sure what he plans on doing after leaving this place, only that it isn’t this.

The very structure of this enterprise is an odd one, though it’s somehow worked, on a mostly uphill slope, for over 25 years. Bellwether Snacks, a wholesale operation shipping packaged goodies around the globe, was founded decades upon decades earlier by one Walter Locke, a former peanut vendor turned self-made multimillionaire. He and his faithful wife, Beatrice, both now safely in their late 70s yet still quite active, slowly increased their holdings and their spread across the years, to its current state of a half dozen distribution centers throughout the United States. In 1979, as a hobby, Beatrice persuaded Walter to let her open the Healthy Hippie Market, a funky little shop on a major thoroughfare, in a major city. A store dedicated to the sort of lifestyle its name might imply – green, local, sustainable. Over the years the ol’ Healthy Hippie has undergone a mind-boggling array of permutations, until reaching this dim summer morning, and the announcement that its flagship store is, well, throwing in that flag.

––––––––

Edgar arrived on the scene eight years and some change earlier, in yon sepia tinted January of two thousand and seven. In retrospect, it must have been obvious to everyone that he was slumming it. A lot of them were. His situation revolves around having just moved to this state, and grabbing the first tangible offering he could find. So yeah, the pay’s not great, but he’s not complaining – he kind of likes this kooky little mom and pop operation. And when he thinks back upon these early days, his thoughts inevitably lead to his first curated trek around their Palmyra outpost.

If you think this place is dysfunctional, Corey Brown is telling him, guiding Edgar through this meandering tour, you should see it at inventory time. I think they find these people 4 in the morning at the bowling alley.

Corey Brown is the assistant store manager at Palmyra. His incongruous appearance matches that of Palmyra’s, which has nothing in common with either of its big city stores to the south. Towering and burly both, in the Paul Bunyan model, and often even dressing the part. Big on the corduroy pants and the flannel shirts, for instance. But with a curly mop of bright orange hair and matching goatee, as though Bunyan’s distant Irish cousin.

So he escorts this latest hire, Edgar, about the premises, to point out various highlights, challenges, and possible future projects. Palmyra is one of the wealthiest per capita little hamlets in this region, an enclave of upper-class white people, as far as its residential base. But it’s also a college town. Hence, this outpost attempts catering to both demographics, somewhat. Only somewhat because, as is often the case during tours like these, what he is being officially shown is probably not all that important...but a lot of the background noise, so to speak, the stuff Edgar’s seeing elsewhere he suspects just might be.

Like, okay, this Palmyra location apparently just cleared out the utility room two weeks ago, to make room for a new water tank. Outside, on the concrete slab of a back dock, they’ve set a table that looks like maybe it was stolen from a laundromat, out there to rot, next to some empty greeting card racks, items that were apparently in the utility room, prior to this. Random weird objects are just lying on the floor in the hallway, such as a paring knife, and a shrimp fork, though it’s unclear whether these precede the new water tank or not. Yet even for a shop with Hippie in its store name, these seem like peculiar touches for this demographic, this lack of concern for appearances.

Then again, this is all stuff behind the curtain, really, which the average customer wouldn’t see. So this old hot plate tossed casually aside by the ice machine, or old wooden baskets, and ugly white foot cases with black matting which nearly block the back door are maybe not that big of a deal.

Some of the decisions limiting their work spaces are a bit more puzzling, however. The produce department’s back room is almost entirely taken up by twin rows of shopping carts, which cashiers are apparently halfway through re-stickering in their spare time. Carts obtained on a deal from some other grocery store, which admittedly do look pretty decent. A folding table has been casually laid atop some of these, as a clever workaround to the space crunch, which in turn has become a convenient catch all for stacking crap. Meanwhile, in the meat/deli department, one of their walk-in coolers is blocked by a rack of heavy white smocks, which nobody can apparently find another place for. Whenever they need to get in there, they move it out of the way, and then slide it back.

Edgar does wonder what the health department might think about that one, but he isn’t an expert on these matters. And anyway it’s none of his business, nor one of his concerns. It’s a bit strange, though, that the assistant store manager is describing this place as dysfunctional, with a rueful laugh, as if out of his hands – but then again, Edgar thinks he already digs this lowkey establishment much better than the corporate world he left behind. And Corey’s attitude surely reflects this laidback atmosphere, high priced all-natural market or not. And possibly the all-hands-on-deck mentality they either encourage or have no choice but to accept here: like how the water tank has already flooded twice in just two weeks, and their company president, Duane Hatley, went around installing replacement floor tiles himself. They were without hot water for a day and a half at this store, however, calling into question perhaps whether this water tank was actually new.

B1

The job sounds straightforward enough. They are a tiny chain of three retail outlets, specializing in natural and locally sourced products, for health-minded individuals. Though Bellwether Snacks owns them, these stores have relatively complete autonomy, so long as they are profitable. Healthy Hippie Market doesn’t really have its own accounting department, and nobody inside the stores in this role whatsoever, but Edgar Lodge will be the closest thing to it.

It’s a position that hasn’t existed before. Edgar’s primary focus will involve going through every invoice, ensuring each item is charged to the correct department. Then to assign appropriate retails on the products, based upon that department’s margin. He must also place these products in the correct departments for tax and EBT eligibility reasons, based upon some truly mind-numbing finer points of this fair state’s tax code, within their computer system. Still, it all sounds somewhat basic, just a lot of concentration upon tiny details and a baseline of standard math/accounting type knowledge.

He had turned in his application at the Palmyra store nearly a month earlier, during which time they’d seemed extremely excited and assured him they would call back right away; it was only this outrageous enthusiasm which prompted him to check in again on two separate occasions, because nobody from the store ever had. Each time a different management figure gushed forth with assurances that yes, they were still interested. Eventually, his application somehow wound up clear down at the Southside location – coffee stained, he is told, fittingly enough, and not by him for once – and they gave him a ring.

The afternoon he is hired, they explain that they had originally found someone else online, who called on the day he was supposed to start, to say this was too much of a drive, and that he wasn’t interested. That was three weeks ago. Prior to this, Teri Barnette, the IT person, was updating the prices and adding new items when she had time, when people emailed her such, but this wasn’t really an IT job and she was spread a little too thin to perform both roles. But sales were increasing and they needed to get more on top of things, and a whole lot more beyond that.

Though he will mostly work out of the Southside store, an hour south from his home and in the big city of Chesboro, one of Edgar’s first orders of business is to catalog the massive wine collection at Palmyra. If he understands the current situation correctly, only recently has the HHM added a cash register slash database system, Orchestra. Prior to this they were hand pricing everything the old fashioned way, with a sticker gun if that, and a large percentage of the product still needs added into the Orchestra system.

This is where Edgar comes into the mix, addressing Corey’s chief priority. One entire aisle is taken up by this huge wooden wine cabinet, double sided, stained some dark color and really looking like something you’d expect to see in a cigar shop which also sells high priced vino. The thing is even taller than Corey and jammed to the hilt with all manner of product. Edgar spends two full days scanning every bottle, printing out a new tag if it’s missing or incorrect, and then writing down all pertinent information if it doesn’t ring at the register.

It’s probably telling that before he ever gets down to serious business, behind his desk at the Southside store, the head honcho there assigns him the exact same task, first thing. The store manager at South is Destiny Davis and, unlike Corey, she majorly dresses the part of your consummate flower child. Long, flowing, multi-colored and intricately patterned skirts, billowing blouses, jangling jewelry. Hair dyed a vibrant orange, most of the time – so these two management figures have that much in common, although Corey’s is presumably natural – and granny glasses, plus this perfume just about every day which is vaguely tropical and reminds Edgar of the Flamingo casino out in Las Vegas. She also has this manner of walking which vaguely resembles someone flopping herself forward, arms advancing slightly after the rest of the body, which calls to mind a teenager maybe only halfway joking as she protests doing her chores.

Still, she seems pleasant enough, and even rewards Edgar with a six pack of Bell’s Oberon as thanks for a job well done with the wine. While he is sorting through the wine situation out here on the floor – their display is only slightly less intimidating than Palmyra’s, one side of a normal grocery aisle and then various islands beside it – she is continually bringing things in from the back dock, too, some dated as distantly as 2002, for him to scan. Alcohol seems to be a matter of pressing urgency for these bosses, but apparently not that pressing.

Otherwise, the moment has arrived for settling in behind his desk, and learning the lay of the land. Whenever Teri Barnette has time, she shows him the ropes as far as the pieces of his job she’s been performing – beyond this, he’s basically on his own.

The second floor at Southside consists of a conference room, one wall a bank of windows overlooking the grocery store floor, the opposite one behind it opening up into three offices. As Edgar and Teri work from a pair of desks in the middle office, they’ve got company president Duane on one side of them, and then the department heads/merchandisers on the other. Edgar knows spreadsheets, and basic accounting principles, anything else he’d pretty much need to be aware of on that front, but the Orchestra software is foreign to him. Teri’s a bit older, somewhat of a tomboy – or possibly make that a self-reliant country homesteader, at least in appearance and mannerisms, situated directly between Corey and Destiny – and does a tremendous job explaining everything to him. She’s also kind of funny, extremely levelheaded, and really one of the few like-minded individuals he’s met at this company thus far.

Expanding outward, though, it's going to take a while to sort out impressions of his Southside brethren. From what he’s seen of the Palmyra crew, they are a bit more streamlined up there, as far as personalities and demographics represented. And while Edgar has yet to meet a single soul over at Liberty Avenue, or set foot inside that store, he’s guessing they’re not quite as wide-ranging as this Southside bunch, either. Also, he is reminded of what it was like moving to a new school, for example, where it seems like everybody already knows a lot about him, but he has no clue who they are. One afternoon in the early going he steps into the department head office and encounters the vitamin merchandiser, Dale Paquette, and one of his employees, a short, squat black woman given to wearing cab driver hats, Rachel, mid-conversation.

Edgar’s the partner in crime, Dale says, looking up and roping him into whatever this is, as soon as he enters the room.

With what? Edgar asks, grinning.

Dale’s a tall, gaunt, somewhat skeletal guy of indeterminate age, who tops his own head with baseball caps just about all the time. Which, along with his glinting, gold rimmed glasses, somehow lends him the appearance of a slightly mischievous little kid. Even though he’s heard from a handful of others that Dale suffers all sorts of health problems, he is one of those people whose somewhat frail and sickly state has, however improbably, made him appear much younger.

"Oh, it’ll be like that Will Ferrell skit from Saturday Night Live, what was that, him and that other guy were...," Dale explains, as he does his weird, repetitive neck tilting maneuver.

"Night at the Roxbury?" Edgar questions. And already, he has this inkling that, whatever conversation he stumbled into, these two were actually talking about something else, but then Dale smoothly pivoted into this other topic.

Yeah. Think that’ll work? Dale asks.

"If it were the late 90s, maybe..." says Edgar.

Rachel, briefly silent up to this point, pipes up by inquiring, so what’s Edgar’s game, then?

I don’t have any game, he tells them.

Should I tell the girls I work at Healthy Hippie Market? Think that’ll impress them? Dale wonders.

Mmm, not so much, Edgar replies.

Okay, what about a fry cook at McDonald’s? Would that be better?

It might, Rachel admits.

Dale offers a knowing grin and a sort of what’s up? nod in Edgar’s direction and tells Rachel, you know he’s mackin on all kinds of girls, how many girls you mackin on right now, Edgar?

A gentleman never tells, Edgar drily replies.

Rachel howls and brings her hands together in a clap, once, holding them there. "Ooh hoo HOO! Now we know he’s got a lot of ‘em!"

That many, huh? Dale says, then tells Rachel, you know, he sits over there in his office and sends Duane emails on everything we talk about. He just sits there quiet and records everything.

I’m on your side, Edgar insists.

Mmm hmm, Rachel says, not buying it.

About five minutes later, he’s sitting in his office, poring over a spreadsheet. He has no idea that these two are peeking around the edge of the door, watching him, until Rachel starts cracking up.

Look at him! He always acts so innocent! she declares, now that he’s aware of their presence.

You know he flipped over to that screen real quick, Dale agrees.

The weird thing about this exchange is that this is for all intents the first conversation he’s had with either of them, apart from being introduced by Teri, briefly, days earlier. That and he has absolutely no idea what any of this is about. He thinks he played along admirably under the circumstances, but yeah, not a clue what their conversation meant.

C1

Southside opened almost exactly three years ago, and is without question the current prize jewel of this operation. The previous occupant was apparently a Harris Teeter where, reputable sources insist, a store manager was shot to death in his office. Bellwether Snacks/Healthy Hippie Market were subsequently able to lease it for a song, though not so much because of this shooting, rather that at this time, this was somewhat of a downtrodden, forgotten district.

Credit goes to Duane Hatley and an assist to owner Walter Locke for being visionaries, and recognizing that this would soon enough become a revitalized, trendy zone. Now, with HHM a crucial if not the original modern tenant pumping fresh blood into this region, the rebound has already begun. Understandably enough, nobody was exactly clamoring to fill that office where the shooting transpired, which is one reason it became an employee restroom, in a hallway behind the conference room. But at least there aren't any reports of a haunting (Palmyra claims all sorts of paranormal activity, however, odd as it seems), which is amazing for a building with this kind of history.

Then again, this store, if not the entire company, represents a study in contradictions. Incongruities abound. For example, though without question beautiful, and despite a front wall consisting mostly of window, and what is theoretically ample lighting, the sales floor in this store always seems a smidge too dingy. Edgar is forever wishing they'd gone for just a pinch more illumination. At first he thinks it's just the darker color schemes forming this impression, but pictures taken within the various locations will bear this out. Then again, squinting endlessly at price tags and UPCs down here surely contributes to this nagging sensation.

Also, this establishment must be one of the most trigger-happy companies he's ever worked for, even if they tend to fire people for what seem like weird reasons. One day he's up in Palmyra when some guy in the meat department – his name might have been Jerry – is walking around and approaching customers with two different cuts of steak in his hands, asking them which of the two looks better. It seems some new program has been introduced to bring in prepackaged cuts, which this dude is bitching mightily about. His point in this exercise is to demonstrate proof that fresh cut steaks are better; instead, what this stunt establishes is how quick he can find his way to the exit. It might have transpired anyway, yet one of the customers polled just so happens to be a good friend of Mr. Locke's son-in-law, acting owner Rob Drake. Management cans him later that day, having suffered their fill of this guy's antics.

Others are much more understandable. Like the new hire, Max, who is walking around sticking his hands under various bulk bins, helping himself to a litany of samples. When asked what on earth he thinks he is doing, he shrugs and explains he thought the stuff was free for employees. It also maybe didn't help that he didn't seem to be doing any work, ever, as he too was immediately shown the door.

But then on the flipside, there are a handful of folks who'd already been fired once, then brought back under mysterious, murky circumstances. Grocery merchandiser Harry Redcrow was one such individual, although everyone said he had a longstanding history with Duane which would take volumes to explain. Yet after a number of weeks, Edgar begins to gain a feel for which people seem likely to stick around. They have maybe a certain essence about them that you couldn't really explain, subconsciously cluing you in that they were, if not lifers, then certainly in for the long haul. A solid twenty-five percent of them have prior history together, too, at a former local establishment named Frilly's, which had gone under a few years back, and this only served to strengthen such ties.

Still, this isn't to suggest that most of these souls are conventional or predictable, in any sense of those terms. And one of the more baffling individuals he encounters would be the current bulk manager at Southside, this older guy who talks pretty much nonstop. Everyone says he's in his early 60s, though to his credit, he doesn't really look it. Everyone also says that he's gay, although nobody really cares about that, of course, not in these enlightened times, not in this progressive industry. Much more discussion and bewilderment stems from his often curious work performance, and also that he speaks in a thick French accent, claims to be a thoroughbred French...even though his given name is Pierre O'Brien.

Dude, he ain't French, grocery manager Craig Willis declares one day in the department head office, as a few of them discuss this point in hushed tones. Though Edgar's pretty much just listening, absorbing this debate, a slightly older woman, Barbara, who works in some vague marketing capacity here, is defending the absent Pierre.

I've seen his birth certificate, actually, believe it or not, Dale Paquette offers, and appears to be 100% serious, it says he was born in Michigan.

Edgar feels like the vote is not yet in on Dale, although thus far, he is checking some boxes as one of the quote unquote good guys. In fact, he reminds Edgar of a specific, really close friend he’s maintained for years – which might not mean a ton, though usually a positive sign. However, without question, Craig Willis is somebody he vibed with right away, the first totally normal person he has met at this store apart from Teri Barnette (and possibly Duane, although as company president, there's always going to be a barrier there in the chumminess department). Craig is so normal it appears outlandish that he could possibly ever work at this place. A somewhat muscular guy of slightly above average height, with a shaved head and goatee, given to wearing jeans and polo shirts on the job, Craig's favorite stunt is to walk over to the famous golden fast food arches next door, grab some lunch, and trudge back here with it, perfuming these all natural aisles with those gloriously noxious fumes, before he bunkers down in the break room with his grub. After which is one of the few known for enjoying a cigarette behind the building. Safe to say, he does not toe the line with this hippie scene in the slightest.

Well, even if Edgar’s not exactly hitting it off gangbusters with this Pierre character, there's no denying the dude can be somewhat comical at times. Pierre's comical in the way that a relentless gossiper and complainer – of which this prissy old tart is both – can occasionally hit the nail on the head, or at least conjure up some hilarious one liners, ranting and raving about somebody else, or a vexing situation.

Their first real interaction occurs down in the bulk department, as Edgar's walking the floor with a handful of invoices, attempting to decode where a few of these mystery items were going. These items are on an invoice, but Edgar can’t find any matching PLU number to indicate how they’re being sold. Instead of arriving at many answers, however, he instead finds himself besieged by one of Pierre's broadsides. His story is that he originally ran the bulk department here, then was shipped out a year or so ago, to Liberty Avenue as an assistant store manager. About a week before Edgar's arrival, lucky him, Pierre was brought back for a second tour of duty at Southside, to run the bulk department and act as assistant store manager.

What am I going to do with all this candy!? he moans, in his high-pitched, French accentuated English, gesturing wildly at this section of their bulk bins, "People that shop here don't want candy! Never mind that this is supposed to be an all-natural grocery store and we should not even have this stuff. But Willie keeps ordering it! Chick-O-Sticks? What am I going to do with all of this crap?"

Edgar is in the middle of filling out what amounts to four eventual pages of items that either have no PLU number on the bin, have the wrong price, no price, or ring up as the wrong thing. Then he turns over the remaining mysteries to Pierre, to track down where these products came from, or what their names might be – one challenge almost exclusive to the bulk department because there are no barcodes, like 99% of the items in this modern world have, nor even a universal agreed upon number like produce (4011 for bananas being the one number the vast majority of grocery employees in the galaxy would know; throw a 9 in front and you have the organic PLU). In many instances, with bulk, if unable to trace a product's origin, it comes down to an eye test, attempting to figure out what this is.

Late afternoon, Pierre arrives up in Teri and Edgar's office, to deliver his findings. Pierre's extremely fired up about the state of the bulk department upon his glorious return, though, and it seems that Edgar's inquiries have only fueled this inclination.

Some of this stuff I can't find, I am not even sure where he got it, Pierre's commiserating to Teri, with whom he has a much more extensive rapport, Lemon Heads? Atomic Fire Balls?

Edgar starts chuckling over at his desk, which causes Pierre to whip his head around and declare, it's not funny!

You're right, Edgar agrees, straightening up somewhat, it isn't.

"Last time when I got here, we had to put $5000 worth of candy out on the back dock and give it away. Because nobody wants it, it just sits there. Then I leave for a few months and come back, and Willie's ordered all this crap in again!"

The infamous Willie in question is Willie Holt, a cashier. The specific delineation of roles gets a little murky here. Apparently Willie has also been running double duty until the moment of Pierre's return, although even now, he hasn't exactly been stripped of his bulk crown, either. They're just scaling his responsibilities back substantially in this department. Almost without exception, though, Edgar would prefer speaking to Willie rather than Pierre. Willie is a black man of roughly the same age as Edgar, and clearly, it's safe to say, located at some point on the autism spectrum. But he’s also extremely friendly, high functioning, really smart in many ways and, well, bottom line just easier to deal with than Pierre.

Even so, a little diplomacy is in order. Edgar feels that the point of his job isn't to bust people out, it's to straighten this company's numbers. The next time around, he approaches Willie instead, with his clutch of invoices, attempts to be cheery and conversational.

This department is very confusing, Edgar says.

Well, Willie laughs, "I guess if you haven't worked over here much, then it would be."

Edgar's willing to take this bullet, in the name of getting results, because it really doesn't matter. The object is to make sure this stuff is correct, not thump chests or point fingers. And the bottom line about this kind of work, the reason he feels he is so good at it, is that it truly is fun for him to straighten out these details. It reminds him maybe of a primitive video game he might have played as a teenager.

He thinks about that old chestnut, about how you should consider what you would do if you were insanely wealthy, how you’d spend your free time...and whatever that answer is, this is what you should be doing for a career, right now. And maybe that's true, who knows. The problem with this exercise, though, is that most of them will never have any concept of what it's like to be insanely wealthy. So he believes a better mental model might be asking oneself: if your job were a video game, would you play it in your free time? And he believes that the answer to this for him, in this role, is yes. Yes he would.

So, sure, he might chuckle to himself, or share that chuckle with select trusted cronies, about some of the things he's encountering. It doesn't mean he's indicting anyone behind these stunts – and who knows, the current figure representing a department might not even be the person responsible. There's probably no paper trail anywhere that would explain why the Just Nutty snack mix, in an aha! moment he's stumbling upon right now, going through the invoices and asking Willie the occasional question, is priced at $5.85 per pound, even though it costs them $9.60. And that, in a further amusing twist, to punch in the handwritten PLU number at the register, it actually comes up as Nerds candy for yet another lowball figure.

Not that these hilarities are limited to the bulk department. Like there's this fancy incense display that has a sign saying 20 cents each, 10 for $1.75, 20 for $3.20 and 100 for $15. But there are no PLU numbers listed anywhere – nor do any exist in the system – for breaking out these various price points. There are just baggies preprinted with a barcode, which doesn't scan anyway. He's guessing that despite the UPC, what happens is that the cashier asks the customer how many are in here, nods and hits the generic department key to punch in a price.

There's no denying he finds this process endlessly fascinating, and would comb the store, clutching paperwork and a magnifying glass, for twelve hours a day if they would let him. And for the most part, this is what he does, armed with his growing battery of Excel formulas, and ever-increasing knowledge of the Orchestra software. Duane has given him the keys to the kingdom, for the most part, in setting retail prices for this chain. A couple notable exceptions are that Arnie Greenberg, the produce merchandiser, wants Edgar to email him all cost updates, to sign off on or decide upon himself, and the pricing on the in-house deli creations are something that department overlord Christie Marsh pretty much has to determine. Otherwise, just about the only x factor is that Duane occasionally comes up with a pet project, usually a new product line, and has something specific in mind for it.

One such project crops up on a Friday afternoon, after Edgar's already been on the job about a month. Duane has stepped in from the next office over, with some barcodes and a list of prices for a product line he's introducing at Liberty Avenue alone, at least for now. Furthermore, he's suggesting that maybe Edgar should drive these tags over himself, and explain what they are, because Duane doesn't quite trust that crew not to take one look at the shelf tags (Edgar can log in remotely to their office computers, and print them from here, which is how he’s operated thus far), fail to recognize the product, and pitch them.

I actually haven't even been to Liberty yet, Edgar admits. Original store or not, its weekly volume and smaller size have left it flying perpetually under the radar. To put the situation mildly.

Duane offers him a broad grin, and in his thick Georgia accent, says, well, now's your chance!

D1

Both in size and appearance, Liberty Avenue more closely resembles your average, single proprietor owned, charming little convenience store more than it does an all-natural market. And moving in the complete opposite direction as its Southside cousin across town, this location finds itself situated in a once thriving district which has now fallen seriously out of favor. In a non-GMO nutshell, what happened out here is that heavy traffic forced the city into some dicey infrastructure decisions, which then subsequently killed most traffic – namely, a cement blockaded bus lane right down the middle which essentially made this city boulevard into an interstate, a pair of divided one way streets with no turnoffs for half-mile stretches at a time. Therefore the inbound city traveler, in order to reach Liberty, has to sail a fair distance past it, to the next major intersection – the only crossing point between there and downtown – and then hook a U-turn or else a series of more conventional ones, just to retreat to this funky little enclave.

Fortunately, driving from the Southside store out to here is not nearly as convoluted. This store just happens to be on the correct side of the road. And so during the occasion of his first ever visit, Edgar arrives with maybe a half hour to spare from his standard 4pm quitting hour. Barely enough time to introduce himself to the head cashier, acting as manager on duty – a pleasant seeming, slightly heavy-set redheaded girl named Chloe who, yes, it must be said, dresses the part with the flowing, floor dragging skirt – and whomever else happens to be around. He hands off the tags for Duane’s new product line to her, some kind of packaged meat brand which figures to do well here, not so much the other two stores (and not to be confused with the merely pre-cut steaks recently introduced at those locations). Edgar finds himself a bit nervous and sweaty, strolling in for a cold introduction like this, into the sea of entirely unfamiliar faces, and Chloe’s kind of looking at him funny, but he otherwise does okay.

Having completed this task, he strolls around and appraises this bizarre yet adorable outpost. There’s a truly awesome neon sign which looks like it must have been in place circa the store opening in 1979, now relocated to a jutting high wall just above the cash registers. The dusty, white tiled floors are reminiscent of Palmyra’s checkerboard patterned ones, and the same applies to its zany paint jobs, each wall seemingly a different color, though this eclectic contrast works here, somehow. Taking a page from Southside, meanwhile (or rather the other way around, if getting technical), they’ve got a front wall of nothing but windows, although this store manages to be more cheerful somehow than either of the other two.

Nobody’s idea of modern, of course, but does this matter? Other details are possibly a little more crucial. They have no meat department or deli, hence the greater need for packaged cuts. The produce section is a little sad, but, on the plus side, their alcohol set seems a shade more realistic here – though only on the job a month, he’s already begun to suspect that there’s no way sales justify the massive square footage dedicated to beer and wine at the larger locales. They’ve got eight feet allotted for each here, and that seems about right.

But what of the personalities on display? Well, there’s basically no missing the guy running the bulk department here, even from halfway across the store. His volume and his manic energy announce his presence well in advance, this vaguely frightening Russian dude named Robert. As Edgar is drawn to this bulk aisle – the last one on the right, same as Southside – Robert is shouting down the length of it, to somebody stocking produce up in the front.

You like dis!? Robert asks the fellow. As Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash is playing overhead on the Muzak, this transplanted Russian performs some sort of crazy gyrating dance that basically looks like someone trying to hula hoop, minus the actual hula hoop. Michael Jackson. I buy dis yesterday. Michael Jackson.

As Edgar has only poked his head into the aisle, neither has registered his presence, so he ducks back out of it once more without interaction. Maybe they thought he was a customer. Whatever the case, perhaps meeting this branch of the operation can wait until another day. Soon enough he is back up front, where Chloe continues holding court, alongside some other girl, a cashier named Tonya. The latter has short, spiky blonde hair, an admirable figure on display in tee shirt and jeans, as she too comes across as nice and normal enough.

Part of Edgar’s routine will involve conducting a monthly scan audit at each of the stores. Tied in with this, owing to some recent scandal, Duane also wants him to count the cash on hand during these unannounced visits. Basically this has to happen before store opening on whatever mornings he decides to drop by, to avoid a ton of probably impossible mid-day calculations and report running and bouncing from register to register. Maybe it defeats the purpose to tell these two that he’ll be stopping by soon for one such visit, but Edgar does kind of wish to get a handle on this landscape in advance.

Chloe is helping a customer, so Tonya escorts him to the elevated office, one of those quaint 1970s relics with a scuffed, flimsy wooden door behind the front desk, opening up to an L shaped set of maybe ten steps, total, into this raised, glass railed cage. From which one can clearly see almost all of the store. A minute or so later, after Tonya shows Edgar the safe, grants him the passwords for their pair of computers, Chloe rejoins them.

He’s kind of hoping one or both girls is present whenever he does drop by again. Company policy is that someone be on hand when he’s auditing the cash, to cover everyone’s behind, but he would like to avoid interaction with the actual store manager, George, for as long as possible. As yet another casualty of Frilly’s demise, George shares considerable history with seemingly half the employees, and Edgar’s already heard a bunch of horror stories about the guy. Edgar hasn’t met him, but has glimpsed George, at least – strolling the aisles up in Palmyra, oddly enough.

"Now what in the hail is he doin here? the deli manager up there, Dolly, had wondered aloud, mid-conversation with Edgar, in a Southern drawl molasses-thick enough to make Duane’s seem nonexistent. She was already filling him in on a crash course about her time with this company, and that other one before this, and immediately shifted gears into ranting about George instead. He must be checkin up on us. Either that or trynta get ideas for he’s own store."

Now that Edgar has arrived at George’s actual store, however, the man’s subordinates don’t seem all that intimidated. Either that or they’re just enjoying the jittery gallows humor of those who are temporarily free. Still, it’s possible that the stories Edgar has heard about George being an iron fisted tyrant are a bit overblown – these two do indeed seem to regard him as some kind of joke. Apparently, as they explain it to Edgar now, they think he looks just like the actor Wilford Brimley, and have a contest going to see who can trick him into saying diabetes the most often. Just like in the insurance or medicine commercial or whatever it is (whereby this timeless film legend pronounces it dia-beet-us), but slipped into normal conversation, i.e. without him ever realizing what they’re up to.

I got him to say it yesterday, Chloe gloats.

No way! Damn...oh, but did you hear they rescheduled our event? Tonya says, an event about which Edgar isn’t aware, it’s not gonna be at the end of the month now.

They lied to us, Chloe hisses, a whisper of mock indignation, bastards...

Having checked off this final store, right around the same time that he’s closing out his first month, Edgar leaves this afternoon feeling as though he’s completed some sort of circuit. He’s met the major players, for the most part, and learned much of what is needed from Teri, has begun to develop some ideas of his own. But he really hasn’t implemented a whole hell of a lot, not yet, and that’s where he’s headed next. This is what Duane and the owners are expecting from his role: to dig in deep and figure out where the problems lie, help straighten out these messes.

E1

One of Teri’s first key lessons for him concerns the addition of new items to their computer system. Months earlier, when they first began installing this Orchestra software, she arranged a blank Excel template twelve columns wide, sent this to all department managers, merchandisers, and store managers. It’s fairly self-explanatory, and she is adamant that if anyone wants a new item added to the system, they must email it via this form.

If it comes in and it’s wrong, fire it right back at them, she tells him with a chuckle, sometimes I’ve sent it back to them two or three times, you know? But hey, it’s one of those things, it’s gotta be right.

Well, yes and no. Edgar is on his own, off to the proverbial races, soon after learning the basics from her. And he is already a little less hardline about some of these stances than she. The first three columns in this spreadsheet are pretty much crucial, yes – UPC, department, product name. But even these, one could argue, were often art forms requiring a bit of nuance.

Preferably one would hope they were transcribing a UPC directly from the barcode itself. However, even these were not infallible. Some packages omitted the last digit, a complicated check number of sorts that, like the final number in a bank account, somehow verified that all the preceding ones were correct. Others, typically more low-budget type companies, omitted the final digit and the first number, somehow, either on their products or catalogs or both. Still others didn’t list the number underneath the barcode at all. These required scanning to snake charm and conjure the magical digits, which was often actually preferable to them unknowingly transcribing an incomplete one. Most UPCs were an even dozen digits, but the odd product line, books and wines chief among them, would have 13. Assuming you had the full number, when they in fact sent you one of these without the check digit, was often about impossible to pick up ahead of time.

From the beginning, he’s gotten in the habit of checking every item they sent him, to make sure it doesn’t already exist in the system. You really don’t have much choice. Aside from all the other reasons, doing so typically would at least pull up a similar item in the same product line (the first six digits, known colloquially as the family code, were usually identical, and some of the following ones as well), and therefore confirm that this was an intact, complete UPC. Assuming this wasn’t an entirely new product line, of course.

But more importantly, checking every item first would also prevent you from adding something that had already been added. This was kind of crucial when dealing with multiple stores, particularly if the cost had recently changed. Otherwise you’d be adding a new item at one store, whereas it was already in the system, with a different price tag hanging at the other stores. Some of the more tech challenged managers and merchandisers had trouble grasping this point – even if they’d never worked the other locations and couldn’t possibly know such level of detail at those.

"But I know for a fact we’ve never had this here!"

Well, maybe not at your store, he would tell them, but yeah, you might want to scan this stuff first, just to make sure it’s actually new.

Of course, it was entirely possible some of this stuff had never been at any stores. Dale in particular is fond of sending a vendor’s complete catalog and having Edgar add the whole thing, rather than cherry-picking which new items were actually coming in. This is kind of a judgment call. On balance, Edgar would indeed for the most part prefer someone send him the total product line ahead of time, rather than missing new items, and those going out on the floor without scanning. So for self-contained vendors, i.e. such as most of these vitamin companies, or local ones, where the only products they carried were their own, this makes sense. However, when it came to gigantic conglomerates, like their biggest supplier, Universal Foods, this does not. Reason being that you would wind up doing reams of maintenance and printing untold shelf tags for items nobody had ever carried, every time the price or something else changed.

Moving further along the line on Teri’s new item spreadsheet, the department code is next. Many of these require little if no thought, because the person sending the item really only represents one department. Produce is cut and dried in this regard, ditto alcohol. And even when in doubt on some of the more complicated departments, a major supplier like Universal has sub-category numbers that clue a person in on important distinctions, for example the difference between grocery and housewares. These finer points often carry margin and, more crucially, tax implications with them. But this all becomes a little trickier when certain individuals continually send items that don’t even belong to them.

For the record, Edgar likes Harry Redcrow just fine. The grocery merchandiser is a pleasant enough chap and often quite funny. In his late fifties or early sixties, of at least partial Native American descent and given to wearing heavy flannel shirts, rugged blue jeans to go with his quite impressive and sturdy hair helmet. Harry brings with him considerable experience, and a long history with the likes of Duane and George. However, in many respects, the phrase old school doesn’t even begin to describe the guy.

Edgar envisions the end result with this stuff as being a finish line. And they have their ideal methods that they are trying to push on as many people as possible, as with Teri’s new item spreadsheet. However, with everybody else who is not on board with the ideal, you have to try and figure out how to get them across that finish line anyway. And some of these ideals collapse at the outset with Harry. True, Edgar mentions the new items spreadsheet a few times to the old man, as tactfully as he can. And presumably, before that, Teri was able to get him to cooperate without bringing a shopping cart full of tact. Whatever the case, though, Harry soon begins a pattern of piling up Edgar’s desk with the items themselves. On occasions, especially if he just sat through some presentation from a product rep, he might bring in some really nifty, colorful brochures with the barcodes circled, the ones he hopes to add. And this is a slight improvement, sure. But mostly it’s the mountains of piled up product.

It’s true that Edgar’s a bit too timid to make much of a stink about this. Being a clear instance of eyeing the finish line and all, concluding that the intentions and the end result are right on point, at least. Other situations are not open for debate, however. Their deli for example receives a couple different lines of gourmet breads, twice a week, and for months, Harry somehow manages to code just about every invoice to grocery. Edgar keeps patiently reminding him that these belong to the deli, and they need to be corrected, but this doesn’t really seem to sink in. Meanwhile, however, he’s up in Edgar’s office, completely obsessed with a price change on some random can of dog food.

Why did this just go up ten cents? This shouldn’t have gone up any. We sell a ton of it.

Okay, so...the cost on that product line went up two cents...and that was just enough to raise the retail..., Edgar explains, checking out the latest Universal file, but hey, listen, uh, it looks like grocery paid for the entire Bread Artisan shipment.

Bread Artisan?

Yeah, it actually belongs to deli.

Oh. Okay, okay.

And so on. And on a similar note, he is constantly giving Edgar new candy items to add to the system. While it’s easy to joke that these moves are made to circumvent Pierre O’Brien from ranting and raving about the candy situation, the reality is that, for whatever reason, the bosses – Duane and the Bellwether Snacks ownership team – had long ago decided that they wanted all candy coded to the bulk department, packaged or not. Bulk has a higher margin and, considering that this category is basically the entirety of Bellwether’s wheelhouse within the stores, they probably have these items together for simplicity’s sake.

So aside from these two points, Harry’s frequent introduction of product lines that he doesn’t even have a say in creates all sorts of other problems. This is without even getting into the finer points of time wasted on projects outside one’s purview, etc. He’s pissing off the bulk people by eating up space that belongs to them, introducing entire sets without even so much as a heads up. And the product is often already here, it’s already been paid for, so it must go somewhere, regardless. Sometimes Edgar is able to catch these in time – and in this situation if no other, he’s kind of thankful for being brought the actual item – but not always. This is especially true if Harry’s at one of the other two stores and has the grocery manager there email a new item spreadsheet to Edgar.

If the description isn’t extremely explicit, these shots might pass through the ol’ croquet wickets without interference. And it’s by no means uncommon for someone to send Edgar a list of six new items, say, about which the only names given are Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, Peanut Butter, and so on. Situations like these would require a correction down the road, because when you’re sitting in some distant office, you haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell they’re sending you. Often this would take either Edgar visiting the store, and spotting the item or else catching it on one of his monthly scan audits, or maybe one of the bulk managers complaining. Then a subsequent department change and a jacking up of the retail. Things finally reach a head, of sorts, one afternoon when Harry’s in his office, and Edgar mentions yet again that he can’t add candy bars to the grocery department.

Yeah but I thought we would just pile these by the register, and then, Harry explains, making little shooing motions with his hands, to suggest blowing these out the door.

"Well, but there’s nowhere for me to put them. I mean we could theoretically put candy in housewares, I guess, because the margin’s the same. But then the tax rate would be wrong."

Of course, one other pertinent point is that by the time this is caught, the ship has long since sailed on this being coded to the correct department. Grocery has already paid for the stuff. Once the invoice gets past Edgar, it’s kicked up to accounts payable at the Bellwether HQ and that’s that. If only the quaint little local vendors had obvious names like Candy, Inc. or something, then this might be easier to spot. However, nearly all of them either went the inscrutable and/or esoteric route (347 Foods) or else incorporated yet another in the endless permutations on the word nature (Natural Goodness). In these instances grocery is if nothing else able to balance things out somewhat by enjoying a few weeks’ worth of sales before the items switch departments. But, alas, Edgar is finally able to score one small victory, following this final discussion on the topic – Harry must grasp the nature of this predicament at last, for he finally, blessedly, stops bringing Edgar candy items to add.

F1

Though its weekly sales amount to roughly half of what each of the other two are pulling in, one oddly colored feather in Liberty’s cap is that it is nonetheless the most profitable store. Palmyra and Southside both appear to be rising ships, with slow and steady upticks in volume, but money is continually poured into each in the name of various improvements. Whereas, apart from utilities and its bargain of a lease, expenses are almost nonexistent at their oldest location. The Locke family likes to characterize Liberty as HHM’s reliable, if unglamorous, cash cow.

Up in college town, Palmyra, tinkering with the help remains as big a project as anything else. For starters, they’ve already made one major change up top. Edgar barely got to know the store manager, Kate, who seemed like a sweet, soft spoken, middle-aged lady, given to wearing these highly professional looking pantsuits with and without the jacket. But apparently Kate was a wee bit too fond of her pill prescriptions, if rumors were to be believed, explaining a great deal about her distantly dreamy persona. Whatever the case, though, the numbers were bad and discipline lax, so they’ve shown her the door. Corey Brown is now the new store manager.

Some bubbly blonde cashier named Samantha moves up the ladder accordingly, elevated to Corey’s old assistant manager post. This despite her young age – maybe twenty, tops – and the chirping, hyperactive maturity level to match, and having only been with this company for a few months. Not to mention that she’s already announced a pregnancy which will put her out of commission not too distantly down the road. Edgar gets the feeling that nobody else at this store particularly wanted that position, though, plus he’s noticed a persistent tendency at retail stores, for whatever reason, to consider front end people before anyone else. So Samantha gets the nod.

Elsewhere it’s basically business as usual. One of the more longstanding dramas around these parts concerns that between Dolly, the deli manager, and Nick, her meat cutter. While these two departments are separate entities at just about every other grocery operation known to man, they’ve been combined here at the Healthy Hippie, physically and financially. It’s treated as one big department, with the meat sales flowing into and under the deli umbrella. But butchers in general tend to project a macho front, that they are going to do whatever they want, thank you very much, and that certainly has not changed here. Even if reporting to a deli manager in every way except for his actual behavior.

Dolly likes to talk Edgar’s ear off – not that he’s alone in this regard – so he feels like he already knows a great deal about this dynamic. Which isn’t to say this makes these points automatically true, but her rants do tend to pass the eye test as far as what he’s seeing for himself. For example, whereas the standard with beef scraps is to toss them into tubs, separated loosely by fat content, this Nick guy just piles them up on his back cutting table, all day(s) long. Sometimes he grinds these, and sometimes they remain mounded there even after he’s punched the clock and headed home. Sometimes the pieces understandably just fall off onto the floor.

With no other employees, he’s a one man show over on that side of the case, albeit a highly entertaining one, whether speaking to or for that matter just observing the guy. This afternoon Edgar finds himself in the front office, another elevated room like that at Liberty Avenue, chatting with Corey, and even from here they can vaguely hear the deli’s stereo, at the back end of the store, above the overhead Muzak. Until that is Nick strolls over and jacks up the volume to the proverbial ceiling, it’s Zack De La Rocha screaming Fuck You! repeatedly, for he shall not do what you tell him. Up here they have clear sight lines all the way back to the deli, and can see Nick standing at the stereo, nodding and grinning at the rest of the department, his hand on the volume knob.

Hold on a second, Corey tells Edgar, stomps down the stairs and across the store. From this distance it almost looks like a play, albeit one with the actors muted, as he watches their distant verbal interaction, the sudden swift dialing back of that CD’s volume. Corey returns, shaking his head and telling Edgar, I mean, I like Rage as much as the next guy, but come on...

So Edgar’s laughing about that one for the remainder of his shift and beyond, though Dolly is becoming progressively less and less amused by her butcher’s antics. She’s patching together the meat department’s closing shifts and Nick’s days off, staffing these with random deli employees, or even with her and/or Corey cutting the meat. But the latest wrinkle, while seemingly minor, has her blood boiling, whereby Nick has apparently gone to Corey and asked if this one lazy wasteoid working back there can be transferred into the dairy department or something. Sure, the employee in question might be essentially worthless, but it’s not Nick’s place to say.

In other developments, the cops were here just yesterday. Two unfamiliar guys were trying to buy beer and, despite by appearances being well over the legal age, the cashier in question insisted upon ID anyway. It’s a touchy topic at this store, as they were fined just months ago for failing to do so with a minor. That cashier, incidentally, who must have been under the impression they were trying to pin a murder rap on her or something, never showed up for work again, failed to appear in court, and rumor has it immediately moved back to her home state of Texas.

Regarding yesterday’s pair of shoppers, though, this cashier held her ground, and these dudes went off on her. The police were eventually called to sort out this shouting match, take a couple of statements. And this episode is understandably the talk of the store today, as she’s relating it to a wave of second shift cashiers just