The Rise and Fall of Bill Cook, Part III (I'm made Assistant Manager)
After two months
of Bill as manager, the clerks made a solidarity move and expressed our concerns
about how poorly Bill was managing the store to the owner. My guess is that the
corporate office had their own concerns about this because the owner agreed to
meet us at a local restaurant to discuss the situation. This was a huge
surprise because any previous communication from the corporate office has been
telling us the rules and laying down the law. Now they actually seem to care
about what we have to say.
We explained
that Bill’s attitude and behavior were making the store an uncomfortable place
to work and that his feud with the assistant manager was bordering on the level
of harassment. The owner listened politely and explained that he was well aware
that Bill was an idiot. He also explained that less intelligent employees,
provided they could actually do their job, were some of the most loyal people
you can have working for an organization. “He’s the type of guy you could tell
to slam his head against the wall before every shift, and although he’d
probably ask you to repeat the instructions a few times, he’d actually do it,”
he said.
In the end (pun intended), he
agreed to replace Bill and promote the current assistant manager to store
manager. Furthermore, instead of demoting Bill to assistant manager, which
would just result in more fighting, I was promoted to assistant manager. Bill
would become a standard clerk and the new manager and myself would slowly take
over his duties.
This would all
start tomorrow. For the rest of the day, I would have to play ignorant to this
new decision as I worked the evening shift with Bill. It ended up being a
tricky situation because the group met with the owner over lunch at 1 p.m. and
I was supposed to start work at 2 p.m. When I arrived at 2:30 p.m., Bill was
absolutely livid. He had called me at home and my cell repeatedly, and called
the corporate office twice complaining that I hadn’t arrived and suggested I be
fired. He asked me where I was and I lied that I was at a dentist appointment,
that the main office knew where I was and that they were supposed to tell him.
He
was suspicious and still really angry, which made for a boring shift without
any amusing Billisms, but at least I didn’t have to worry about letting any
details slip about the new store management.
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