Parks Place

A place for me, Parks, to put thoughts, feelings and whatever else runs through my brain.

recent posts

  • Introductions

    Well, this is it—the first post. How are you supposed to start these? Probably just by starting them, I suppose. Every journey begins with a first step.

    Hello, and welcome. I decided to start this adventure because I think it will be good for me to put my thoughts and feelings into something constructive. I’ll share a bit about what brought me here and then a few of my interests.

    What brought me here
    The last 12–15 months have been, without a doubt, the most challenging of my life. I’ve been taken advantage of by several people, had my dog stolen, moved back in with my mom, lost my job of ten years, and gone through a breakup with the person I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Needless to say, it’s been rough. And I’m not too proud to admit that I wasn’t dealing with it well.

    Over the past week, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting and meditating, and I realized I needed a way to record my thoughts. Which brings me here.

    My interests
    I’ve always been a big reader—both nonfiction and fiction. I’ve never counted my books, but there are a lot of them (and I’ve even read most!). I enjoy cooking and have an extensive cookbook collection. I’ve been into video games for as long as I can remember—one of my earliest memories involves them, which I’ll share in a future post because it’s a really good story.

    I also have a passing interest in photography and art, though I’m not particularly skilled at either. My most expensive hobby is definitely LEGO; my unfinished pile has gotten a little out of hand. I’m sure there are other interests I’ll remember along the way, and they’ll probably show up in future posts.

    And that’s it—the first post. It feels good to type all this out. Thank you for taking the time to read. If you have any thoughts or feelings you’d like to share, please feel free to reach out. And hey—thanks for being here.

    — Parks

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Seven)


    The three-year mark came and went. The Zone Manager system had settled somewhat but not a terrible amount. It was still very volatile, and the turnover rate was still very high. Princess and Hammer lasted. Most of the others did not. There was a revolving door over the Specialty departments that didn’t seem to go away. The final Zone Manager that ended up in Specialty was a transfer from a different store. His name was Storm. I do not remember exactly what he did at the other store, I think it might have been something in the receiving department. I also applied for the position and again did not receive an interview. I was used to it by now.

    Storm was not a bad manager. He had a lot of good stories but I confess after a while I wasn’t sure how many of them I believed. He claimed to be a remote travel expert who put together private vacation plans for people. And at one point he was in charge of a coffee shop that was going to put Starbucks out of business but I’m fairly certain that didn’t happen. He did what pretty much all of the Zone Managers had done so far and that was to ignore the Flooring Department. Probably a good thing,

    By now I had the department firmly under my occupation. Oddball knew that it was our department and no one else was gonna touch it. By now Hook had quit (or been asked to leave, I honestly don’t remember because it wasn’t a great loss) . To replace Hammer we hired another Specialist. A hotshot Lowes vet from Jersey. I’m going to call her Eagle because she loved The Eagles. She seriously knew her stuff and was a wonderful addition to the team. We also brought in a former employee from a different Big Box retailer. He was very good at merchandising but he was also very stubborn and believed he was right about everything. We’re gonna call him Stubborn because I want to.

    Between myself, Oddball, Eagle, and Stubborn the department had never looked better. I was still rocking the closing shift. We noticed we were having a hard time finding products in topstock. At this point there wasn’t any location system to find things on a shelf or in topstock. So I went ahead and partnered with the overnight team and I mapped all of the topstock that the flooring was kept in and turned it into a Google Sheets document. I gave the overnight supervisors access to it and together we were able to seriously increase findability for the product.

    We were running very efficiently and things were going very smoothly. So you know something had to break. Now I don’t actually mean that in a bad way, at least not in the long run. The day of reconning had come. The debt was called. And Ivan’s reign of terror was over. He was terminated on the spot one day in the middle of the week. Probably just a month or so after the Zone Manager program was implemented. The District Manager just walked in, told the Operations Manager to cancel his card and terminated him immediately. Obviously there was a quiet celebration amongst the plebeian’s, including myself.

    Now why was he terminated you might wonder. Surly it was for failing to meet goals or metrics. Perhaps it was because he stole from the company or lied about inventory? No, dear reader. It was none of those things. Ivan the Terrible was a family man, with 2 young children and a loving wife. So of course he was sleeping with the front end supervisor. And giving her preferential treatment when it came to promotions including a Zone Manager position.

    I know, shocking. After he was fired the woman in question quit. His wife divorced him and thankfully for me I never saw him again. I’ve been told by a few people that he is still in the area selling windows or fences or something of the sort. I couldn’t care less honestly. I hope he is able to afford food and a roof. Outside of that he hasn’t entered my thoughts since this went down (other than in the course of writing this of course.)

    So what happens now? Well the DM pulled all the Zone managers and ASM’s into the office to talk. I have no real idea what went down in that room but we were told that we would be getting an interim manager while they found us a new store manager. Honestly I had next to no contact with him or most of the ASM’s at this point anyway so it didn’t really affect me. It did occur to me that maybe I had a reasonable shot at a Zone Manager position now that Ivan was no longer in charge.

    As for the immediate here-and-now there really wasn’t much of a change in the building. There was buzz about it for a few days and everything just gradually fell back into place and work continued as normal. The interim manager seemed nice but he also seemed like he had both feet out the door already. I honestly don’t remember his name. I had some contact with “At The End of The Day” on a regular basis now because the company had started holding Specialist meetings to discuss sales goals and metrics and stuff like that. Probably not a bad idea at all. I’m not much of a meeting person though. If it can be an email let it be a damn email. I work best when I’m out on the floor driving sales or keeping things in order. Not stifled up in a room listening to someone tell me what I should be doing out there.

    After about a month and a half our new store manager arrived. She was a transfer from up north. We were going to be her first Store Manager position. She was just a few years older than me (just under 30 if I recall correctly). She seemed like a genuinely nice person, but her management style would remain to be seen. I’m gonna call her Indy (because she liked the Colts, can you tell I’m running out of nicknames at this point?) If nothing else she was warmer and showed a much more human side than Ivan had. So I was already a fan.

    And I think we can call it there for now. I will continue in Part Eight. Thank you for reading!

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Six)

    When we last left off, The Culling had just occurred. Overnight the store was stripped of leadership and some very tenured members of the staff were suddenly left wondering where they would fall in the shuffle. As stated before, all acting Department Supervisors were guaranteed an interview for the new Zone Manager position. To put it into full perspective there were anywhere between 14 – 16 department supervisors all going for 5 Zone Manager positions. 

    As we all know only the best of the best ever get chosen for these sorts of jobs. There is zero chance Ivan The Terrible would show any amount of favoritism about these positions. And he certainly wouldn’t use this opportunity to get rid of people he didn’t like. That would be morally and ethically wrong. 

    So Ivan fired the two hardest working ASM’s in the building, including Lexco. He couldn’t do that to the DS’s he didn’t like but his choices for Zone Manager reflected his personal bias. He did put Princess in place, which I agreed with. He did also promote Hammer, which I couldn’t be mad at. The man had 20+ years of experience leading. His other choices were… dubious to say the least. 

    He promoted the DS from Plumbing and the DS from Electrical. I don’t necessarily think either choice was bad. They were just not put in the right roles and were not given the tools or education needed to succeed. His final promotion would be his most egregious though. He promoted the front end DS. We’re gonna call her Bubbles because I want to and you can’t stop me. 

    We will explore these in just a moment but I’m sure you are wondering what happened to the rest of the DS’s that didn’t get promoted? Well most of us were shifted into specialist roles if we were in departments that had them. Obviously I ended up in Flooring again. Some of the others left, Diamond being one of them. It was a rough time. 

    So when the dice stopped rolling and the damage was tallied up we lost about 50+ years of experience from the sales floor in just over a week. The store was in a rough state. The remaining ASM’s tried to hold it together but anyone could see that there wasn’t a lot of planning that had gone into this transition at the corporate level. 

    As far as I could tell there was no training program for this new position. There were no clear guidelines or reasonable expectations for how the Zone Managers were supposed to operate. And the turnover rate would prove to be excessive over the lifetime of the program. But honestly that didn’t affect me. I was back doing something I could do blindfolded. The only difference is that there wasn’t a DS to fall back on. 

    I think it is a testament to my knowledge and skillset that I rarely ended up dealing with a Zone Manager directly. They kind of just left us alone in the department because they knew I had it handled. And while I took some pride in that it was also incredibly frustrating to feel like I was doing their job and not being compensated for it. But I imagine based on my own experience that isn’t exactly uncommon in retail. 

    I mentioned before that the turnover rate was high for the Zone Manager role. Our first person dropped off after about a month. It was the electrical DS, whose name I don’t even remember. I also don’t remember who replaced her because they were hired from outside of the store and lasted about two weeks. 

    This seems like a good time to say that I applied for every open Zone Manager position as soon as they were available. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Besides my initial guaranteed interview I did not receive another one, despite applying for the position 17 different times. If I needed a bigger indicator that Ivan didn’t like me then this was it. 

    But that’s beside the point. Two things happened around this time that stand out to me. The first was they promoted one of our Cabinet Specialists to ASM over the speciality departments. We’re going to refer to him as “At The End of The Day.” Because he ended almost every one of his sentences with it. He was a genuinely good person and he was an expert at cabinets. 

    He was not however a fantastic leader or people motivator. He was kind of like using 60 grit sandpaper when you really needed 220. For the most part he left Flooring alone so his abrasiveness didn’t really affect me much. 

    The second thing that happened was we hired a part time associate to help in flooring. I’m gonna call him Oddball (Yes after Donald Sutherland’s character from Kelly’s Heroes). He was very unique. Clearly had a great deal of intelligence but was also very out there. I do not know if he knew what a shower was. But he was reliable at work so I didn’t really care. Oddball would go on to be very valuable to me as far as maintaining the department was concerned. 

    This seems like a good spot to close for now. I’d judge this to be about two to three months into the Zone Manager shuffle. By this point I have almost been with this company for three years now.

    A lot happened very quickly after this so I’m going to save that for Part Seven.  Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

  • The Sulfur Exchange

    Disclaimer: This is going to be a different from my Home Improvement series. It’s been bouncing around in my head for a while, and I need to write it down. It’s just a short story but the idea has been living in my head rent free for a while. I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think. I have never written something like this before.

    ______________________________________________________________________________________________________

    This part of town always smells like sulfur and iron. It reeks of unwashed concrete and loneliness—like the city forgot it was here or quietly erased it from the maps. But I know better. I know why the trash piles up and why no public servant ever turns down this street.

    I take a drag off my stale cigarette and walk toward the seemingly abandoned parking garage. The only vehicles here are carcasses—stripped of anything of value, left to rot. Empty shells of steel and plastic, just like the people who abandoned them. I finish the cigarette, drop it onto the cracked concrete, and grind it out beneath my heel.

    Hands in my pockets, I thumb my lighter. I hate that I’m addicted to these cancer sticks, but it could be worse, I tell myself. I leave the lighter where it is and head deeper into the garage. The cars thin out, but the smell of sulfur grows stronger.

    I pass the empty guard station—windows smashed, door boarded, now nothing more than a receptacle for trash. My ears stay sharp for unusual sounds; my eyes are useless in this gloom. Not without preparation, anyway. And that isn’t why I’m here. Not tonight.

    The stench guides me to the far end of the garage, near the elevator—strangely functional despite the power being out everywhere else. I steady my breathing and finally speak into the darkness.

    “I know you’re here. I can smell you. I’ve come for trade, just like last time.”

    The smell intensifies, and a faint breeze drifts from the elevator shaft.

    The creature emerges soundlessly from the shadows. Short and disturbingly slender, it tilts its elongated neck and regards me with curious, unblinking eyes. It sniffs the air and stares. It never makes a sound, never opens its mouth, but I know what it’s thinking: Bold. Foolish. Stupid. Always the same contempt.

    “I bring something for the Exchange.” I reach into my coat and draw out two vials—one glowing faint blue, the other red flecked with black. “Joy and Despair. Fresh, siphoned tonight from the local Abbey.”

    Its eyes flick to the vials, hunger flashing in their depths. The question is whether it will bargain fairly or try to lowball me.

    The creature tilts its head again and strokes its chin with talons far too long for comfort. Its voice finally grates out, like rough stones scraping a tune. “Harvested tonight, you say. By you?”

    I nod. “By me. Now, do you want them or not? I don’t plan to be here all night.”

    Its gaze lingers on the vials. “We want them. But what do you want, human? You’ve come all this way to trade. What is your price?”

    Its voice drills into my skull like a migraine. I grit my teeth. “A favor. Undisclosed, undecided. Redeemable when I say—no questions asked. And I want one for each vial.”

    It finally looks away from the vials and locks onto me, staring past my eyes and into my soul. “You ask much, human. Favors are not given lightly.” It steps closer. The smell is worse here, a sulfurous fog, but I barely notice anymore.

    “One favor for both,” it hisses. “No more. And we will sample both before you leave. Should you prove untrustworthy, the Exchange will not trouble itself with you again.” It bares cracked, razor-sharp teeth—a surgeon’s nightmare.

    I know better than to push my luck. “Deal. Sample away.”

    I hold out the vials. It plucks the red one first and inhales. I watch the Despair hit it like a physical blow—its shoulders slump, its frame seems to shrink. Only for a heartbeat before it straightens again.

    “Very fresh. Acceptable. Now the other.”

    It takes the blue vial and inhales more deeply. Always saving the best for last. Its body seems to swell with lightness; even the sulfur smell thins. A long moment passes before it returns to its usual unsettling stillness.

    “You have been found acceptable,” it croaks. “The Exchange is pleased. A Favor is granted.”

    It extends one talon downward. I present my palm. The talon traces a sigil in my skin, using my blood for ink, though I feel no pain. When it finishes, the mark vanishes, leaving a heat burning along my forearm.

    “You will leave now,” it rasps, “and you will not return unless you bring something of even greater quality. Do not linger. Who knows what waits in the darkness?”

    A rough chuckle echoes as it melts back into the shadows.

    I clutch my forearm and exhale a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Time to go—slowly. No rushing. No weakness. They feed on weakness.

    I walk back through the husks of cars and the trash heaps, past the guard station, and out into the street. The sulfur stench is weaker here, but still foul.

    I pull out another cigarette but don’t light it. Not yet. I savor the small comfort of its weight in my fingers after dealing with the supernatural. At the end of the street I draw a deep breath and rub my forearm. I know the sigil is there, even if I can’t see it.

    I turn onto the main road, away from the real shadows, away from the sulfur, away from the Exchange—for now.

    It’s late, but I know The Haven is open. It always is. I walk a few blocks and nudge the heavy door open with my foot. Mercy looks up from polishing a glass.

    “Well, if it isn’t my favorite four a.m. customer. The usual?”

    I don’t bother answering. By the time I sit, my beer is already waiting.

    “You got that insomnia again, Dealer?” Mercy asks with a grin. No one uses their real name in the Haven, not even Mercy. It’s a refuge from the darkness that lurks outside.

    I nod. “I won’t ask,” she says. “We don’t talk business here. Enjoy your beer. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

    She disappears through the door behind the bar. I take a long sip. Mercy is always a highlight after nights like this. And there will be many more nights like this.

    Tonight marks my third trip into the underbelly. My third Favor. I’ll need many more before the real work begins.

    I finger the lighter in my pocket and tuck the cigarette behind my ear. Beer in hand, I slide into a corner booth and stretch out, staring at the ceiling. Mercy won’t care if I sleep here—she never cares, as long as you pay your tab.

    I close my eyes and drift off, the faint smell of sulfur still lingering in the air.

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Five)

    Welcome back, dear reader. When we last left off, I boldly announced that I was going to apply for the now-vacant Department Supervisor position. And I did exactly that!

    Did I get the job? Absolutely not. Ivan the Terrible didn’t think I had enough experience to lead a department—and he was probably right, at least at the time. My counterpoint would be that you can’t gain that experience unless you’re given the opportunity to try. Needless to say, I was a bit bummed, but that’s life: take a moment, take a breath, and keep going.

    They ended up hiring someone from outside the company with a lot of management experience. I’ll be honest—I don’t even remember his name. He lasted two days before walking into Ivan’s office, handing over his vest, and saying something like, “You might as well start over from scratch,” before leaving. The position was posted again, and I applied again. This time, I wasn’t even granted an interview.

    Hammer and I kept the department as tidy as we could, sticking to a solid routine. I worked the closing shift so I could maintain the department after things slowed down at night. I spent countless hours mopping and zoning the grout and thin-set aisle. At one point, I’m fairly certain there was as much dust in my lungs as there was on the shelves.

    Weeks went by, and they still hadn’t found anyone to fill the Department Supervisor role. I stayed persistent, asking about the job whenever I could. The Specialty Assistant Store Manager (ASM)—we’ll call her Lexco—probably got tired of hearing from me.

    Let me divert for a moment to give you a sense of daily life in a place like this.

    This particular store was about 120,000 square feet, what we called a “Left-Hand layout.” That simply means when you walk through the front doors, the majority of the store is to your left. We had a 20,000-square-foot Garden Center, a 12,000-square-foot Back Room/Receiving area, and a 10,000-square-foot Bullpen (an open-air, fenced space for bulk products like pressure-treated lumber).

    Both sides of the building used gas-powered forklifts—the lumber side for pallets of concrete, building materials, and lumber, and the garden side for mulch, soil, and pavers. There was an extensive training process for all powered equipment, and by then I was certified on every piece in the building. It pays to be useful, and I enjoyed being useful.

    Strict rules governed where and when the equipment could be parked inside, though they weren’t always followed. If you know Southwest Florida, you know it rains Every. Single. Day. for several months of the year. Forklift forks rust easily, so they weren’t supposed to be left outside in the rain.

    Whenever a forklift was left outside, someone had to dash out and bring it in. Somehow, I became the go-to guy for that soggy task. I didn’t mind—it’s just water—and I collected a lot of free shirts along the way. Eventually, I invested in waterproof shoes, because few things are worse than wet feet halfway through your shift.

    We received a freight truck almost every night, and a dedicated overnight crew handled unloading and stocking. Because I closed most nights, I became friends with the overnight supervisor. Some days we’d get two trucks, and the first had to be unloaded before the second arrived or the store would be fined. On those nights, they’d pull help from the salesfloor, and I was almost always tapped. I didn’t mind—it was easy work, and you could make it fun.

    I was doing everything I could to prove my value and increase my chances of landing the Department Supervisor position. After months of persistence, I finally wore Lexco down, and she agreed to interview me. By then I’d been with the company for nearly two and a half years. I liked being a Specialist, but I knew I could handle more. Eventually, after many attempts, I broke through—Lexco gave me the job.

    To be honest, there wasn’t much more for me to do that I wasn’t already doing. The main new responsibilities were overseeing our display area, making sure we had product, and ensuring displays were maintained and reflected sales data. Oh, and attending a staff meeting every Monday. Management also sent me to a different store for a week of training.

    The person who “trained” me was a 20-plus-year veteran of the industry and a genuinely great guy. He loved cars, so let’s call him Gears. Gears reviewed the basics—broken tile, carpet control, merchandising tips.

    Then he shared the real insider knowledge: how to game the system to get exactly what we needed from the Distribution Center (DC). At the time, orders for customer product were placed by phone, and the DC never verified whether an item was actually sold. That meant we could request four pallets of a fancy tile and display it without issue. And we did—on more than one occasion.

    This was also my first real dive into department-wide sales data. I was still too new to spot trends the way I would later in my career, but it was invaluable experience.

    I had been a Department Supervisor for about two months when the company decided to shake everything up. They claimed there was too much overhead.

    Overnight, they eliminated two ASM positions at every location and replaced Department Supervisors with a new Zone Manager system. Instead of managing one department, Zone Managers oversaw three or four. The only guarantee for Department Supervisors was an interview for a Zone Manager role. As you can imagine, this was incredibly frustrating for all of us.

    There’s a lot to unpack about the next six months of my career, so I’ll pause here for now. Thank you for reading—I hope this chapter was entertaining.

    Please enjoy Part Six. Thanks for reading!

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Four)

    Where to begin with flooring? If I’m honest with myself (and with you, dear reader), I’ll always have a soft spot for my time in the Flooring department. It was the first point in my life where I was (eventually) put in charge of a team and given expectations and metrics to meet. At the same time, anyone who has worked with flooring for any length of time will agree with me—it’s a pain in the backside. It’s heavy, it’s particular, and there’s real skill involved in making sure it’s set correctly.

    Before I was transferred into the department, my entire flooring experience amounted to exactly one thing: walking on it. Exciting, I know—but it’s the truth. Sure, I could tell the difference between tile and wood, but that was about it. Still, I was hungry and eager to learn, and I felt ready for the challenge.

    The Flooring team was the least cohesive group I’d worked with, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Our Department Supervisor, Doc, was relatively new. The other Specialist, Hammer, was brand new. In fact, the only member who’d been there for more than a year was one of the grumpiest people I’ve ever met. We’ll call him Hook, since he liked to fish. Hook could find a way to complain about free food—and did, more than once.

    Both Doc and Hammer were retired military. They were rigid and strict, but we worked well together. I respond well to structure, and while none of us had a wealth of flooring experience, we were good at asking questions—and I’m particularly good at finding answers. That became something of a calling card throughout my career. Unfortunately, Hook wasn’t much help despite being the only one with real flooring experience.

    Flooring had a few quirks that set it apart. For starters, we had a carpet machine—a massive piece of equipment about 17 feet long. Our carpet rolls came in 12- and 15-foot lengths. The machine worked like a giant pasta roller, feeding the carpet out into a reversed roll (backside facing out so it was ready for installation). This process doubled as part of our inventory control, since we always rolled a little extra to ensure there was enough material.

    Specialists also carried more responsibility than in Appliances. When a customer requested a detail, a third-party service would measure the space. They’d send us the measurements, and we’d calculate the square footage and create the material list for the installation. We had to account for overage, waste, transitions—everything. It was a lot to learn, but once you got the hang of it, you felt like you really knew your stuff.

    You still had to track special-order products the same way, but installations were where you really had to be on your game. Get the math wrong and you could have a $15,000 install blow up in your face. Nobody wants that nightmare. I’m happy to say I never had one of those disasters, largely because I made a point of talking with customers and steering them away from potential mistakes.

    Here’s an example: we once had a customer interested in hardwood flooring for their entire home. Nothing wrong with that—except they were snowbirds. (For clarification, I was living in Southwest Florida at the time.) Snowbirds typically leave their homes empty for about half the year. Hardwood floors, however, don’t handle humidity changes or moisture well, and Southwest Florida has both in spades.

    Typically, when snowbirds leave for the season, they turn off their AC to save on electricity—a perfectly reasonable move, unless you have hardwood flooring. The temperature and humidity swings cause the wood to expand, forcing corners up and bending the planks, which leads to cupping. It’s a fast way to ruin a floor. Thankfully, we convinced the customer to choose a more suitable product.

    I have a lot of fond memories from those first few months in Flooring. Hammer and I became good friends despite a 20-plus-year age difference. He had great stories from his military service in Germany, Kosovo, and Iraq. Doc shared plenty too, especially about how he earned his nickname as a combat medic. Even Hook occasionally offered a good story.

    Eventually, we settled into a solid rhythm—Hammer and I helping each other with installs, all of us maintaining inventory levels, and keeping the department looking sharp for customers and management. And of course, like everything else in Home Improvement, it all changed in a heartbeat. To borrow a military term, it was a SNAFU.

    Doc was terminated for allegedly returning product at a different store for more than he paid for it. I have no idea if that accusation was true. Ivan the Terrible—our nickname for upper management—was known for pushing out people who disagreed with him, and Doc had been fairly vocal. One day we had structure; the next day we didn’t.

    So, what did I do? I applied for the Department Supervisor position, of course. Never back down from a challenge or an opportunity.

    We’ll cover that part of the journey in Part Five. Thanks for reading!

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Three)

    When we last left off, I had just accepted the position of Specialist in Appliances. I was excited to get started but, at the same time, a little apprehensive. For one thing, I didn’t know much about appliances beyond the basics (I’m fairly certain you take the frozen pizza out of the freezer and put it in the oven to make it more delicious). On top of that, there was far more pressure on a Specialist to perform than on someone mixing paint or cutting blinds.

    A good starting point is to explain exactly what was expected of a Specialist in Appliances. First, you were the face of the department. It was your job to seek out anyone who set foot in the aisle and provide exceptional customer service. Second, there was product knowledge. You needed to know the differences between brands, what options were available, and which products were in stock.

    I won’t break down the differences between brands—this isn’t meant to be an appliance comparison blog. And customer service is pretty straightforward: greet people with a smile, listen, stay attentive, and try to meet their needs. The most important duty, however, was Follow-Up. Many of the products were special orders. When you sold something, you had to wait for it to arrive at the warehouse before arranging delivery to the customer.

    This is where you either succeeded or failed as a Specialist. If you didn’t manage your orders and keep customers informed throughout the process, odds were they wouldn’t be happy. And when customers aren’t happy, they do the one thing they all seem to know how to do—almost as if they attended some secret class beforehand:

    “I want to speak to the manager!”

    No sentence in retail causes more frustration than that one. It doesn’t matter how good your day is—when those words reach your ears, it feels like a train suddenly jumping off the tracks. Thankfully, we had an awesome Department Supervisor who could charm the pants off anyone. We’ll call him Diamond.

    Diamond had been with the company for over 15 years and had one of the most infectious laughs I’ve ever heard. There were two other Specialists in the department. The first was a 20-year veteran of appliance sales—extremely knowledgeable but possibly the slowest talker I’ve ever met. We’ll call her Sloth. And finally, there was Cincinnati, who had worked with Diamond for years.

    There was a lot to learn in Appliances: everything I’ve already mentioned, the combined knowledge of nearly 50 years of sales experience, and even my first certification on power equipment—a stand-up forklift with a platform on the back used to pull large stock from the racking. Every day was a learning experience, and we shared plenty of laughs between customers.

    And then they pulled the rug out from under me—because of course they did. Management wanted me to move to Flooring and become a Specialist there. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled. I was just getting comfortable in Appliances. But I’ve never been one to say no when asked to take on new responsibility.

    So that marked the end of my time in Appliances (for now) and the beginning of my time in Flooring.

    We’ll cover that in Part Four. Thank you for reading!

  • Working In Home Improvement (Part Two)

    Welcome back! At the end of Part One, I said I jumped at the chance to take on a full-time position. That’s what this post is about.

    I had applied for several full-time openings and been passed over in favor of longer-tenured employees—no complaints there. They’d put in the time and earned their shot. About six months in, Princess was transferred to be the Department Supervisor of Paint. She knew how hungry I was for more, and the moment there was an opening, I was her first pick.

    I was ecstatic, to put it lightly. I loved learning new things, and I had been cross-training in Paint whenever Home Decor was slow. I liked it. It was fast-paced and sometimes felt like it never stopped. Needless to say, I loved it. Not much feels as good as working with your team and crushing a long line quickly with no mistakes.

    I was the newest person on the Paint crew, but I had good company. Obviously, you already know about Princess. We also had an old-school paint merchant who used to work for one of the big paint companies—we can call him Bob. Then there was a really quiet but efficient guy who never said much, but when the paint shipment came in, he was always the first to start breaking it down. We’ll call him Anchor, since he always kept us grounded.

    And then there was Screwy. I’m not sure who loosened his screws, but they did a damn fine job of it. He was reliable when we were busy, but the moment we weren’t, he would start rambling about this, that, and everything. I honestly couldn’t keep up, and I don’t think it would have mattered if I did—he probably wouldn’t remember anyway.

    That was the Paint crew. We worked well together, and there was a lot for someone hungry like me to learn. Because we always had a dedicated day for paint freight, I got to learn about inventory control, managing paint tint levels (one of the few items in the entire store that was sold at $0 to handle inventory adjustments), and I began to learn how to lead a team.

    I spent a decent amount of time with Princess building the schedule and learning the specifics of running a department. No one else wanted to learn it—and there’s nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants to be a leader or take on extra responsibilities. But I knew I did. I also knew Princess wouldn’t be in her position forever, and I wanted to be ready to step into her spot as soon as she moved.

    Well, as it turned out, things didn’t go the way I expected. About eight months after I started in Paint, the Store Manager called me into his office along with one of the Assistants. We’ll call them Ivan the Terrible and Bubba, in that order.

    They told me they didn’t think I was in the right role for the store. I told them I wanted to be a Department Supervisor. They had a different idea: they wanted me to be a Specialist in Appliances. I said yes immediately.

    So, in about fifteen months, I had gone from part-time help to full-time Specialist. I was ready for this next step and eager to learn some new things.

    But we’ll cover that in Part Three. Thanks for reading!

  • Working in Home Improvement (Part One)

    I thought I’d spend some time talking about my former job. I spent ten years doing it, so it made up a significant portion of my adult life. Because of that, I’ll probably break this into a few posts so it doesn’t turn into a hundred-page novel.

    Before I dive in, a quick clarification: whether I’m talking about a company or a person, I won’t be using any real names out of respect for everyone involved. I also won’t answer speculation if anyone asks. That just feels right—and I’d want the same courtesy if the roles were reversed.

    I started at this particular company in 2015, which already feels like a lifetime ago. I was hired as part-time help in the Home Décor department. Prior to that, I’d worked as an operations manager at a gym (I’ll probably write about that at some point—there’s nothing quite like working in a gym), done some basic retail, and before all of that I worked with my father in marine electronics.

    Home Décor was pretty straightforward retail work. We zoned, front-faced, and down-stocked when needed—nothing terribly complicated. The trickiest task was trimming blinds. The machine did most of the work, but there was still a bit of technique to it.

    The coolest part of that department was the Specialist, the person who handled special-order blinds. If you want to talk about someone who truly knew his craft, he was your guy. I called him The Oracle of Akron, Ohio (that’s where he was from). We hit it off immediately, and he was always helpful whenever I needed something.

    The second person worth mentioning was the Department Supervisor—let’s call her Princess. She had been with the company for a while and was both knowledgeable and helpful. It was obvious she was a great person to learn from, and I could tell she was on a path to continue advancing within the company.

    And finally, there was the person who hired me—let’s call him Chief. He was a retired firefighter who stood 6’4″, and he had the uncanny ability to make you feel guilty even when you were completely innocent. He was tough but fair, and whenever the store manager wasn’t around, he was usually the one in charge. I distinctly remember him making me go back and re-dust the displays because I hadn’t done it well enough.

    Between Oracle, Princess, and Chief, I had plenty of people to learn from. There were many others, of course, and I’ll talk about some of them in future posts. I still keep in touch with a few of them even now. I worked in Home Décor for roughly six or seven months. I was very vocal about my desire to move into a full-time position, and when the opportunity came, I jumped on it.

    But that’s a story for Part Two.