By Jerome Haller

As I checked in on a Sunday night, the Head Guard sat in the office. He said he’d work at the store during half my shift. That would be much longer than usual. The news concerned me. Perhaps he planned to watch me in action.
About 30 minutes later, a young African-American male stepped past me. His frown and black leather jacket gave him a thuggish appearance.
The Head Guard looked at me and tilted his head toward the visitor. We followed as he walked toward the food section. He stopped and grabbed a box of cookies. I figured we did not have to worry. He could not hide it in his jacket. I walked back to my post. A few minutes later, he paid for the snacks.
I stood by the door and thought about the false alarm. What if the customer had accused the store of racial profiling?

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Posted on November 13, 2009

By Jerome Haller

In order to alleviate the pain of working my crappy job, I’ve started creating nicknames for some of the store’s more obnoxious customers. That provides a bit of levity which helps prevent me from crying or performing a rash act.
The coping mechanism allowed me to survive a recent Saturday night. Four class acts I’ve christened Churros, Coupons, Diapers and Mr. Stinky arrived one after the other.

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Posted on November 12, 2009

By Patty Hunter

I really love it when we band together against the customers. There is no better way to create a sense of unity than to coalesce against the common enemy, which in this case are the douchebags that attempt to make our lives a little less enjoyable.
The other day, a table sat down and almost immediately started trying to flag down anyone who looked like they worked at the restaurant. (They did not wait long at all for their server.) The busser walks by to clean a table and they wave their hands in his face. Dialogue is as follows.
Impatient assholes: “Hey! We’re ready! We want to order!”
Busser: [Not even stopping as he walks by the table] “Okay.”
And he kept walking. They stared, bewildered. I ran away giggling. They totally deserved it.

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Posted on October 29, 2009

By Jerome Haller

The shift from my old office job to my first security gig proved smooth and pleasant. Training sessions had provided valuable tips about service to clients. The assignment to a condominium building west of the Loop represented proof of a fairy godmother. Most of the tenants were yuppies. I assumed they possessed social skills. I looked forward to handling the job.
On the first day, I arrived in full uniform: a blue blazer, white shirt, black tie, gray slacks, and black shoes.
The supervisor, a short man with a warm smile, showed me around the building. Afterward, he gave me the duties: watch the security monitor, check in visitors, log in deliveries, handle emergency phone calls and write reports. He also introduced me to the other guards and several tenants. Everyone greeted me politely.
Finally, I plunged into the job. I sat by myself at the security desk most of the time. That suited my personality. I tend to be a loner.
The security company’s emphasis on keeping a professional demeanor paid off on a Saturday night.

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Posted on October 13, 2009

By Jerome Haller

For 10 years after graduating from college, I earned a decent salary as an office staff person for a downtown company. My duties included answering phones, maintaining office equipment, filing documents, and photocopying paperwork. But the company’s fortunes declined. For first time in my life, I got laid off.
The dismissal initially pleased me. Severance and unemployment benefits helped cushion the blow. I would not miss some of the more immature folks at the old job. I could enjoy some free time while looking for a new position.
But after four months, my feelings changed. A new routine wrecked havoc on my ego; working on my resume, going to the unemployment office, visiting job fairs, and going on interviews. To feel useful again, I took a temp office job. But it lasted only a few weeks. The client couldn’t pay anymore. My confidence had evaporated.

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Posted on October 12, 2009

By Jerome Haller

Nothing notable happened during the first several hours on a recent Tuesday night. That changed about 2 a.m. A short, thin man with a smile arrived in the store. He approached me and requested “gay or raid.”
Because of his Spanish accent and choice of words, I needed a few seconds to figure out what he wanted. Then I got lucky and said, “Oh, Gatorade.” After pointing to the store’s rear, I added: “Just go to the back wall. The refrigerator is at the left.”
He likely did not understand my words, but he walked to the refrigerator and found the drink.
Many of my store’s customers are Mexican-Americans. Some don’t speak English very well. In my weak moments, I ask myself why they don’t learn the language. After all, they chose to come to this country. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

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Posted on September 25, 2009

By Patty Hunter

I thought going back to school would give me a reprieve from the stupidity at work. And I’m not just referring to a classmate in my environmental reporting class who asked what malaria was. No, no. Rather, it seems the stupidity has compounded itself. Now, instead of dealing with a few jackasses each of the five or six shifts I work at the restaurant, they wait for me. They pile up during the weekend and fill up my section, asking for the salad dressing on the side because they don’t like a lot of it and then want extra, thereby putting twice as much on the salad as I would have. They ask if our personal-sized pizzas are “manly enough.” If you need a pizza to confirm suspicions you have about your masculinity you’re in deep trouble my friend. But yes, it is manly enough to feed you. From the first bite on your chest hair will double in size and your pheromones will render you the most desirable creature on the planet. (I don’t know what that says about the 10-year-old girl that ate almost the same thing you did about an hour ago but I don’t really care.)

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Posted on September 24, 2009

By Jerome Haller

A two-man crew started boosting goods from my store several weeks ago.
They had struck three days in a row, taking shampoo and aspirin right after my shift ended.
The store’s review of surveillance video revealed an especially brazen stunt: One man simply stuffed a few big bottles of shampoo inside his shirt and strolled past a cashier.
Most likely the thieves were drug users trying to earn money for their addiction. Some shoplifters sell items to discount stores and pedestrians on the cheap. Eventually, they earn enough to score dope.
My store has one advantage: many shoplifters get greedy and stupid. They keep coming back for more loot, thinking the store’s employees won’t catch them. Then they get busted. It’s only a matter of time.
Thus the store took action on a recent Sunday morning. With about 45 minutes before the end of my shift, another guard walked into the store and sat with the assistant manager in the main office. About ten minutes later, the Head Guard stopped in and joined them. Afterward, the first guard told me to camp in the office. He explained that the guards wanted the thieves to think I had left. My first stakeout had just begun.

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Posted on September 15, 2009

By Jerome Haller

As I left home for work on a recent Friday night, I glanced upward. A full moon shone through the clear sky. Lyrics from “Bad Moon Rising,” the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic, danced in my head. I wondered if that was a bad omen.
Yes, it was The night turned into a comedy of errors.
As soon I stepped inside the store, the other guard walked toward me. “I have a favor to ask,” he said.
I paused, recalling the night I stood at his post for 25 minutes while he left for bread.

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Posted on September 11, 2009

By Scott Buckner

Actually, I am not a roofer. Nor have I ever wanted to be one. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a roofer; it’s good honest work that is severely under-valued and under-appreciated by most people until rainwater starts drenching their indoor valuables. I’m even convinced that the first thing Adam and Eve did after they begat Cain and Abel was invent a sod hut with tarpaper and shingles that eventually needed tending to.
The fair amount of personal discomfort inherent to professions like roofing, furniture moving, and professional wrestling is why I chose to become a newswriter and later a graphic/ad designer instead. However, when you become an out-of-work graphic/ad designer, you can become a lot of things temporarily. This is how people like my friend Tony (an out-of-work construction project manager) and I ended up working for a week stripping and re-roofing his mother’s garage on the East Side.
I cannot call myself a roofer, even while involved in the actual act of roofing. I didn’t learn any secrets or insights into what it takes to be a really good professional roofer other than it all begins with the ability to not go sailing off the edge of a roof. The only thing I learned – other than how quickly you can trash a few pairs of jeans – is that relatively sedentary guys a year or two short of their 50th birthday with pack-a-day cigarette habits since high school have no business roofing anything more complex than a treehouse.
Tony: You know what we need right now?
Me: What?
Tony: Four 21-year-olds.

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Posted on September 8, 2009