What's this? Another installment of "Vocational Errors by Your Host Mark"? Sure, why the hell not? I've got quite a few of them.
I'm trying to think of the time line on this and I think it must be the summer of 1988...just after high school graduation and going into the first semester of my tenure at Salem State College (more on that later). There was this video store that my mom would frequent since it was near church and she would talk to the owner all the time (I've just realized that my mom was instrumental in me getting 3 of my jobs. This is not a knock on her at all, she was simply trying to get me to understand that I was expected to actually support my own damn self one day and to stop being such a load. Sorry Mom, I'm a slow learner. I think it shows more of my character, or perhaps lack of character. I needed my mommy to pound the pavement for me and find my sorry ass a job).
One Sunday she came to me and told me that the video store was hiring and all I had to do is tell the guy that I was her son and the job was in the bag. So she drove me back to the video store and waited for me in the car at my request (a 1988 Hyundai Excel...whatta ride. This thing was such a frickin' heap. The interior, which was the same odd maroon color as the rest of the car, actually bleached in the sun and all the door handles, window levers, and vents turned light blue. My mom loved that car). I walked in and talked to the owner guy Tom something-or-other. I told him I was my Mommy's little boy and that he should totally hire me to be mean to his customers. He did.
The way the store worked was that the empty video boxes were out on the floor on their respective genre-themed shelves and all the actual videos themselves were on the shelves behind the counter with these stupidly narrow passages between each one. When it was busy, one person would ring in the customer while the other one went to the back and grabbed the movies. That sounds all efficient and shit but it was just this side of chaos when it got super busy. The main reason was that there was no decent filing system (and having worked at the Malden Public Library during high school I was all about filing systems), and so the person looking for the videos in the back would have a bitch of a time trying to find the goddamn tape. Plus, when the returns would come in they would be stacked in these teetering towers of plastic pandemonium until someone had a chance to put them away. So more often than not the tape you were looking for was actually being crushed at the very bottom of that Jenga pile. Good luck fishing it out (oh god, I just remembered when E.T. finally came out on video. The people were RABID for that tape. They wanted it no matter what the cost. The days leading up to its release were heralded with a flurry of "Is E.T. in yet?" questions. No, you illiterate buffoons. As the sign clearly states it will not be in until tomorrow. Now go away and let me watch The Sunshine Boys for the 100th time).
But, for the most part that job was about boredom. This was kind of the last hurrah of the neighborhood video store as the Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos were muscling in on their territories. One of them opened a few blocks away after I was hired and it siphoned more and more people away as time went on. This would make for loooong stretches of time where absolutely no one would come into the store. Perfect opportunity to reorganize the store and/or develop a better filing system for the tapes right? Yea maybe, but wouldn't you rather just watch Young Frankenstein again? Of course you would.
The videos that we would watch would, of course, depend on who was working that day. There was an older guy (I'm guessing he was in his early 40's) who had worked there from day one who was REALLY into Huey Lewis and The News. He would play their concert video every single time I worked with him. If I didn't hate that band before, I certainly do now. Another woman I worked with loved Van Halen and would play their concert video every single time too. And this wasn't even Diamond Dave era either, it was all Van Hagar. Bloody fucking hell that was torture. The owner dude Tom and I would just put on old comedies (he liked the silent era stuff like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and I would put on Mel Brooks or Neil Simon movies). Tom would make me call customers who's videos were overdue though so I didn't like working with him. Nobody else really cared whether you brought "Top Gun" back on time or not.
It was kind of a perfect little job for a while there because it didn't take much if any brain power (right up my alley there!) and since the bulk of the customers had stopped coming in, there were fewer and fewer humans to deal with. The problem being of course that this is not exactly a great business model and so Tom was forced to come to grip with reality and sell the business. I figured he'd have sold it to one of the bigger conglomerates but no. He sold it to this younger go-getter Type-A kinda guy named Marc (which, annoys me by the way. Spell the name with a "k". It looks better. "Marc" makes me read it with a soft "c" sound i.e. "Marce". Just sayin'). Marce (hee!) came in and had all kinds of ideas to improve the business and customer relations and promotions and holy shit dude...you DO know that this is a crappy video store in a shit hole city (no offense Malden but...damn) staffed entirely of people who sooo don't give a shit right? No? Ok.
Right off the bat he banned the practice of munching on the candy that was on display at the counter. Damn. Gone were the employee-picked videos playing on the big ol' console T.V. (this is 1988 remember...no fancy flat panel T.V.'s then). He made us play Disney movies and ONLY Disney movies. He also put a plan into place to eliminate the porn section (this was always a creepy encounter...it was a horrible setup not only for us behind the counter but also for the poor perverts who just wanted a wank. Most video stores have that area in the back of the store where the X-rated stuff is sequestered right? Not this place. The movies were all listed alphabetically in 4 large 3-ring binders that we had behind the counter. So in order to get yerself a porno, you had to have the stones to not only ask one of us for the binder but then to stand there and flip through the binders looking for that special film. Jeebus Christmas. People did it though, we had plenty of regulars too). The pornos were more expensive to rent than a regular movie and Tom had aquired quite a collection of them. I personally think that eliminating this was the nail in the coffin for that store. But Marc wanted what Marc wanted.
Fine. No pornos. No good movies to watch when there's nothing else to do. No snacking behind the counter. Anything else Mr. Nofun? Oh right, he started adding me to the weekend schedule even when I wasn't supposed to be on. The way it worked in the good ol' days with Tom was that you'd work one weekend and then have the next one off, work two weekends and you could have two weekends off. Nice. Marc started putting me on the schedule without first checking with me to see if I was even available (I was available usually but he should have checked dammit). He did it a few times and then I just ended up deciding that I wasn't going to come in even though my name was on the schedule for that Saturday. I'm really mature y'see.
Saturday rolls around and I go about my business (which was probably sleeping until 10 and then watching cartoons while eating cereal...did I mention I was 18?). At about 11 the phone rings and it's Marc asking why I wasn't at work. "Oh, I wasn't scheduled to work because I worked last Saturday remember?", I offered. He countered with "That policy was in effect when Tom owned the business and it is now each employee's responsibility to check the work schedule (posted on the back wall of the shelves that hold video tapes)." Touche sir. Very well put. "So you are scheduled to work today so I expect you here shortly." he summed up. I countered his counter with "Yea, I think I quit. I'm not coming in today." and hung up the phone. He was livid. He called back immediately and chewed me out for about 5 minutes (he would have gone on longer but I hung up again). At the time it felt awesome. Now I just think I was a douche.
I say that it felt awesome at the time but even that feeling was fleeting. After the second phone call my mom asked me what was going on. When I told her I had just quit my job she, how do I say this? She lost her shit. Hoo-boy was she mad at me. With good reason I might add. I stood there in the kitchen and waited for her to finish pointing out how I now had no means of income and that she still wanted her $200 in room and board. Sigh. Stupid teenagers. But hey, at least I didn't have to watch any fucking Disney movies anymore!
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