(NOTE: I initially wrote this on OpenSalon.com in 2010 as part of an Open Call for those on the site to write about having quit a job in our past in a spectacular way. I immediately knew I had just the story to share. Enjoy!)
Ever worked in an abusive hellhole of human toxicity? Sadly, I’ve had a few of those, including this mid-80s record store stint. My departure afforded me the opportunity to give some of the love back at them, with my exit strategy planned to inflict maximum pain upon my evil overlords. However, when the time came, my nightmare of a regional manager had a surprise of her own for me.
It was August 1987 in London, Ontario, and for the previous year I had been managing a store that was part of the XYZ Records chain (as I will call them), following a prior year as an assistant manager at another outlet.
XYZ had been an established, successful music retail chain in Canada since the 1950s. A few months before I began working for them in July ‘85, XYZ had been sold to a guy who was the middle-aged son of millionaires. He was also, by all counts, utterly whackadoodles. The story went that, since their lucky-sperm-of-an-offspring son was incapable of holding down any position under someone else and possessed less-than-zero social skills, Mummy & Daddy simply let Junior Senior go out and buy businesses on a whim, usually running them into the ground. He was particularly obsessed with store ceiling tiles and was known to go into rages if any of them looked damaged or spoiled. Oh well – it kept him off the streets and gave him something to do.
I heard many times that, prior to the takeover, XYZ had been a pleasant company to work for, with many long-timers at both the retail and corporate levels. That changed decisively with the arrival of Mr. WhackaD, with competent, intelligent employees at the Head Offices leaving so fast that it sounded like one had to queue to get out. Unsurprisingly, they were replaced by shiny, sparkling, nasty, yes-person dunderheads who couldn’t brown nose W hard enough.
Along with my staff and co-workers at other locations, I watched with increasing bafflement, anger, and frustration as one ludicrous and infuriating national store policy was hatched after another. It quickly became clear that Whacka had a genuine disdain for (a) record stores, (b) the people who worked in them, and (c) most of the people who shopped in them, save for grannies who might deign to come in once or twice a year to perhaps buy the new Anne Murray. Or at least look at the cover and call her a hose for wearing a short skirt.
Retail Hell: the store’s front from the previous summer of 1986. Note: The entire Sally Oldfield catalogue (on Import) not pictured.
Not only were XYZ policies upended as frequently as most people change their socks, each of these new laws were enforced with Gestapo-like rigidity and solemnity. The best/worst example was a missive from the late winter of ‘87 that outlined a new dress code policy for retail staff, including a Business Casual style of clothing, no piercings or strangely coloured/styled hair, and no long hair on any male staff. Hair on male staff that touched the shoulders would be cause for immediate dismissal.
And on the date when it came into effect, they meant business. Reps for Mr. Whack were dispatched randomly to locations everywhere across the country and entire stores of staff were fired on the spot, only to be re-opened the next day by cute smiling robots who knew nothing about music and cared about it even less. The Stalin-esque masses of firings built up as the months went on.
As I sit here typing this, recalling the moment, it seems even more absurd now than it did then. And at the time it was beyond the pale. This is literally an example of how to intentionally destroy a previously-thriving business.
The result was that, coupled with increasing control over what was and wasn’t played and carried in the store, an XYZ location had all the ambiance of a slightly hip finance company – just the kind of environment where younger people (then the industry’s bread and butter) wanted to hang out and spend money in!
Never mind that, in 1987, granny and her sewing circle accounted for about, say, 1% of our market. This was the demo that WhackaD wanted and by golly that was that. It should also be noted that it was clear to all of us that XYZ’s once solid fortunes were in free fall owing to bad management. The chain almost went under at this point in time, with some companies refusing to fill stock orders until XYZ paid its bills. This lead to an increasing reduction in key, major label titles in our stock. Store catalogues were now rigorously controlled with popular sellers such as Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run, Wham!’s Make It Big, and Led Zeppelin 3 pulled in order to make room for every single Sally Oldfield title in all formats! On import! Bin padding, anyone?
There was a lot of stress and tension at the store ….
As a manager, I was sometimes working 60-hour weeks for starvation wages, barely allotted enough of a budget to adequately staff a store that was located in a bad, higher-crime area in the city’s east end right next door to a high school (during the previous Xmas season there had been an armed robbery with gunfire at the lotto booth directly outside our door on one Friday night, while we had thousands of dollars worth of product stolen from our back room after it was broken into the next Friday), had to keep up with seemingly weekly changes in iron-clad rules, and regularly had to deal with a none-too-bright, grating, pernickety, taste and irony-free corporate true believer of a regional manager who I’ll call Miss Winner. To say we had a strained working relationship was an understatement. And once the cleansings firings really got going, hitting many innocent friends and acquaintances of mine in the process, the tensions between the two of us were so thick you could have cut them with a knife.
Working at XYZ was part of a post-high school plan of taking some time off from education. I had begun college right after graduation but hadn’t been into it and decided to drop out for a few years in order to have fun, work, and figure out what I wanted to do. By 1987, I was utterly miserable in my role as an XYZ store manager, with my hands so tied that I felt like I was babysitting a neglected child of evil, abusive parents who were using me as a whipping boy for their own mistakes and indiscretions. I had decided that I wanted to study literature at university and, owing to a communication screw-up, did not learn that I had been accepted until early August of that year, barely a month before classes started.
Record store displays, mid-80s-style: Eurythmics, The Human League, Jennifer Warnes, and Run-DMC plus those comely, all-important ceiling tiles What could be more appropriate than a cluster of bright, shiny balloons to go with a Leonard Cohen tribute!
album!
On the same day when I received that welcome news, I also intercepted something at work that made it clear to me that XYZ was trying to set me up in order to fire me, despite – or more likely because of – my store doing very well in terms of both healthy, upwards sales and gross profits. I knew that my days would be numbered because it was becoming progressively harder for me to hide my barely concealed disdain for Mr. Whacka’s train of bozos, and anyone who didn’t kiss ass quite hard enough would not be there for long.
Since XYZ’s approaches were increasingly anti-retail, I decided that if I was going to go down, I’d rather go down winning by my rules than losing by theirs. Ergo, I began ignoring what I was told to do, pandering instead to—wait for it!—our customers’ actual needs and wants, resulting in robust business. This was not to be tolerated in the land of Corporate Ideology Worship Über Alles.
As I knew I was leaving but needed all the cash I could get up until I started school, I had to carefully plan an exit strategy. I had no misgivings about sticking it to XYZ’s pond scum management, in particular my Nurse Ratched of a regional manager. However, I had a pretty good idea of how the company would cover my departure and surmised that if I gave Miss Winner no notice at all, the people who would be most directly, negatively affected in the immediate future would be some innocent co-workers in the city who I knew.
Not wanting to further dump on this already put upon group of people, I decided on a compromise: I would announce my later-in-the-week departure on the Tuesday after Labour Day (following two weeks of what turned out to be an utterly blissful vacation, given that I knew what I was going to do upon return). I reasoned that this was short enough notice to screw with upper management but gave me time to have the new manager set up and ready to go following my departure.
However, this was not simply about my leaving for I had two more aces up my sleeve. Namely, among my staff of three (an assistant manager, a full-timer, and a high school weekend part-timer), my assistant and full-timer had both recently announced their return to university as well, with the assistant wanting to leave the job entirely to concentrate on school, while the full-timer was open to a part-time position.
Ergo, all full-time staff would cease to be. Simultaneously. And this would go down just a few days after the big news would be delivered. I saw dropping this bomb on the Whacka Crew with such short notice as partial revenge for the unfair dismissal of so many former colleagues not to mention how I had been treated. Absolutely delicious stuff.
Suffice it to say, when I returned to work on that Tuesday morning, I was gleeful at the mere thought of what was about to play out while utterly dreading what was to follow thereafter: a week spent in close quarters with Miss Winner as she brought in the new manager and oversaw the transition. Oh well, I could simply quit at any time if she got too obnoxious, I reckoned.
The very desk in my office from where I delivered my news to Miss Winner. And there’s that old OMD Architecture & Morality poster.
There was a ritual wherein at the start of every week, each store manager would receive a call from their regional manager and personally report on the previous week’s sales and profit margins – a sort of verbal and mental running of the gauntlet to keep the working plebes in line. Managers would wait for the voice of their Regional Deity to command their presence on the phone. When the call came on that Tuesday, I scooted back to pick up the line in my office, charged with the knowledge that I was about to paint my nemesis’ day several dark shades of frustrating. I felt like I was ascending to the podium to collect an Oscar.
We went through the numbers and then the call went like so:
Miss Winner: (spoken in her mousy natter) So, you said that you had something you wanted to talk about.
Me: Yes, I just found out that I have been accepted to UWO and therefore will be leaving XYZ.
MW: (barely able to contain her thrill at seeing the back of me) Congratulations! That’s great news for you.
Me: Thanks.
MW: What will you be studying?
Me: English Lit.
MW: Gee, I’d like to go back to school but I just don’t know what I’d like to take.
Me: Well, I’m pretty happy about it but, (in a tone of mock regret) unfortunately, as I said, I just found out and so this is a little short notice. This Saturday will have to be my final day.
MW: That’s ok, I will come up with a transition plan. Is (the Assistant Manager) in today?
Me: Yes he is … but I have another piece of news for you as well that I must tell you first. (delivered with faux concern and sincerity) The Assistant has also decided to return to school and he too will be leaving this Saturday.
MW: (noticeably more sombre tone) Oh …. O — kay. (pause)
Me: Yes, he has decided to leave and return to full-time study at university as well.
MW: (sounding fazed) Uh huh.
Me: Oh …. and I have one more piece of news.
MW: (almost whispered) Ok.
Me: The-full timer will also be returning to UWO next week, and so after this Saturday he will be unavailable to work full time. He is very interested in a part-time position, though.
25 years later, I can still fully recall the sound of the extended silence that followed—softly punctuated in the background by the muted clickety-clack of Head Office typewriters—that greeted me on the other end of the line at that moment. I was grinning from ear to ear and thoroughly enjoying it when Miss Winner dropped a bomb of her own on me: one that I did not see coming and was better than anything I could have anticipated.
After I let a good 10-15 second pause linger in order to allow the salt to really saturate the wound, I continued …
Me: Now, you could …
MW: (blurted out in a tone of horrified desperation) SO WHO DO I HAVE WORKING IN THAT STORE FOR NEXT MONDAY MORNING?!?!?
Me: Er, no one. You’ll have to come down and hire a complete staff.
MW: (increasingly emotional) But I can’t. After getting all the store numbers here today, I am leaving Toronto (two hours north of London) to drive to Windsor (four hours away and two hours south of London) to personally oversee the prep and opening of a store this Saturday. I have so much to do there before everything opens on Saturday morning I couldn’t possibly get to London this week if I wanted to no matter how hard I tried. And I have to be there for this opening and no one else can really take my place in Windsor. How am I going to do this?!?!?
Me: (all Wally Cleaver-like) Gee, I’m so sorry but this all just came up.
MW: (deep, whimpering sigh) I really wished you’d given me a better head’s up. There couldn’t have been a worse week in the whole year for this to happen.
And there it was. My joy at hearing her spit out that last line was ineffable. I had utterly maximized the misery of Nurse Ratched. Not only that, but I would be able to work that final week without her in my face. It was like winning a lottery.
She mumbled something to the effect that she would have to put her thinking cap on and quickly got off the phone in a state of mortification. Later that week, I chatted with one of the “good folks” secretaries at Head Office who I knew and she told me that, following our phone call, Miss Winner put her head down on her desk and sat there crying for 10 minutes.
My only regret upon hearing that was that I couldn’t have been there to videotape the event for mirth-filled, frequent, repeated viewings.
Those final 5 days at XYZ in September ‘87 made for the best working week of my life. I made it clear to staff that, during the remaining period:
- Dress code was prohibited. I encouraged everyone to wear the most worn, torn, and outré stuff they had. For the remainder of the week, I wore only ripped jeans and made sure not to shave.
- Staff were strongly encouraged to bring in as much of their own music as possible (a BIG company no-no), preferably albums that were irksome in some way to our MOR customers (I brought in several carefully selected titles for in-store play on the final Saturday including Free Jazz by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, An Evening With Wild Man Fischer, New Day Rising by Hüsker Dü, The Rhino Brothers Present the World’s Worst Records, and Ivor Cutler’s Privilege. To my astonishment, two people asked where they could purchase a copy of the Wild Man Fischer album), and to not play anything that we might actually carry in the store.
- Only attend to customers that they felt were worthy of service or that they felt like serving. (I remember one googly-eyed harried housewife, rampaging into the store on the Wednesday afternoon as if to bite a pig and probably looking for the new Whitney Houston, making a stampeding b-line for me. I gave her a look of horror, ran into the backroom, slammed the door shut, and waited there for 10 minutes before emerging. I am hoping that the shoplifting mall urchins had a field day during that time. We probably didn’t have a shred of Mötley Crüe left by the time I emerged from the back room.)
I know that last one sounds really harsh and in retrospect it is, but I was so fed up and losing it after a few years of crazy-making shit that I could barely contain my disdain for it all.
One other thing is that XYZ would allow stores to write off dinners or take-out if they were part of staff meetings. That week I held four staff meetings, culminating with an extended going away lunch on the Saturday for ten (including personal friends as well as some of our best pals from neighbouring businesses) complete with free booze at a near-by restaurant.
I doubt that the store made even a nickel’s profit that week.
Would I have done any of this had I been treated well? Not on your life. I take pride in conducting myself professionally in any job environment and this isn’t how I would ever normally behave at work, be it my retail position then or my white collar work now. But, that’s what happens when good people are treated abusively, referring not only to me but also to many other hard-working staff who had been shit on, screamed at, and then unceremoniously fired. I contacted a few of them, relating the details of my exit and Miss Winner’s torture, and they were audibly or visibly delighted to hear that XYZ and Miss W at least got some of their own thrown back at them in a small way.
As for my store, they brought in a particular manager from one of the smaller locations, as I had thought. I knew this woman to be a dedicated, terrific person and I made sure that I took a break from being an arse and grimacing daggers at customers and passed along as much knowledge as I could to her about the runnings of the store in order to make things as easy as possible for this brave soul.
She continued on, and I heard she was working 50-60 hours per week, always smiling and bending over backwards to accommodate and please.
They fired her one year later over something minor.
One year after that, I ran into her on campus where she was now taking psych courses, loving life, and thrilled to be unshackled from the crap of the past.
As for XYZ? It finally went bankrupt in the very early ’90s. I remember standing in front of their shuttered flagship store downtown, laughing.
Next On Stage –> In my piece on The Clash, I wrote that seeing them made for the most-anticipated gig I had attended up until that time. Well, this David Bowie concert one year later — at the same venue but utilizing the full stadium — left that prior show’s sense of anticipation in the dust as I finally got to see the performer who had long occupied the No. 1 spot on my “Must See” list.
Bowie and his seventies output made such a seismic, and enduring, impact on my life that I am setting aside a whole first part simply to extrapolate on how formidable it was, as well as to put it in context with the 1970s, at least how I experienced that time. Part Two will look at the actual show, featuring the great Rough Trade as opening act, on that gorgeous Labour Day weekend in 1983, ending one of the most memorable summers of my young life with an unforgettable climax.
022a. Changes: David Bowie (or: “Bowie, The 70s, & Me”);
© 2010/12 VariousArtists
Comments From Original opensalon.com Posting
Thanks OS for my first EP!
lschmoopie — Touché is indeed how it felt. Sadly, it would hardly be the worst place I worked. That “distinction” would go to a two-year-plus nightmare of gross dysfunction. What went down at that place would be bookworthy although I don’t know if anyone would believe it. I also went on to work for someone who made Miss Winner seem like Mother Theresa.
l’Heure Blue — Thanks, and “hu-bots they’re manufacturing everywhere” is no slouch of a phrase either. That’s a keeper (and repeater)! And, as I say above, I actually went on to experience worse in professional environments (completely unlike the fantastic place I work now).
Fetlock — You got it, re: primal. But, yet, so much more. And I’m betting dollars-to-donuts that King Crimson would have been played in the store at some point that week, as I distinctly remember going through a big Crimson re/discovery during the ’86-’87 period, specifically the ’70s stuff. If I played them that week, I am guessing it probably would have been “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic” for, say, the Wednesday afternoon suburban mall shoppers.
Duane — Thanks. While I’m hopefully a considerate guy — I try! — my overall MO goes like thus: I have little empthy *specifically* for those who have little empathy *in general*. 23 years later and I still get the warm’n’fuzzies thinking back on all this. And let me tell you, that going away lunch was fun! Nothing says “See ‘ya, assholes” quite like double Jack Daniels, neat, over lunch, paid for by our villians.
Froggy — Thanks also!
Gabby — That sounds like either (a) an ice skating jump or (b) a wrestling hold.
irishwolfhound — Exactly. That “exit period” is always so great because the game is up and everyone is moving on.
emma — In the one and only confirm/deny I will do: no, it wasn’t Sam The Record Man. That is where I went to work next, part time for six years, while putting myself through my undergrad. And let me tell you, that Sam’s location and the in-store-specific mass-dysfunction and inter-personal wars plus out-there staff and clients could easily be a book of sustained lunacy on its own. I had some funny interactions with Sam himself. How I miss the flagship store on Yonge in Toronto where I’d shopped my whole life.
As you can see, I’ve worked in more than a few “terrific” places.
And I must add that, as an Avengers fan starting from my childhood in the 60s, the handle/icon is fab indeed.
I wish I had quit, but instead I did it the hard way (I still think with good reason, but I admit it was not my idea of “fun”):
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Geery.html
tomreedtoon — This was two decades before the implosion of record retail in general, so it felt anything but Pyrrhic. This was still very much the fat times for the industry.
In terms of where I am, there are several great music stores with strong catalogue selections and helpful/knowledgeable staff along with well-stocked mega stores just a couple of hours away in Montreal and Toronto that I regularly binge at + Amazon. I just dropped a few hundred $$ at the HMV flagship on Yonge a month ago. Otherwise, I’m not so sure I’m overly unhappy about what’s happend in that industry because, around these parts, what it’s meant is that it’s turned more into a niche market with strong support within it.
Daniel — Wow, nasty story. Yes, some people are just out to be unreasonable and normal avenues don’t apply.
OE — Thanks and glad you enjoyed. I couldn’t agree more re: nicer people. XYZ went bust as the early 90s recession was raging. By that point, I had a few friends who were in corporate positions at competing companies (some had worked with me at XYZ and gone through this nonsense themselves) and they told me about how everyone in the industry had XYZ’s number as it were and, therefore, no one would so much as touch anyone’s CV if they were part of the crew trying to jump from XYZs sinking ship, making it very tough for them to find work.
I loved reading your story; that’s some exit strategy!
Workers of the world, unite and take over…
Patricia — Thank you. And as a long time Smiths fan(atic), I appreciated the appropriation of the quote (correct year as well!). And The Smiths will be coming up twice in the My Life — In Concert! series.
2mchwrk — It sure is. Hüsker Dü were one of the bands that soundtracked the mid-to-late 80s for me, and New Day Rising is one of their bast. It’s a real shame that there’s so much bad blood between Mould & Hart. Would love to see them reform and play some shows as I never got to see them live.
Cymraeg — Well, it was a a once in a lifetime thing where all the ducks lined up. It certainly felt like some justice was served, although far too little considering what she/they put so many through, before and after my time there.
Altaira — In total agreement with you on both counts. As someone who has been a boss off and on for 25 years, I have always made treating my staff respectfully a priority — and have been blown away on more than one occasion when staff have gone way above and beyond the call of duty to help out when a bad situation has arisen.
Long time paaassssing
Where have the record stores gone?
Long time ago …Love this rebellious piece against (I’m pretty damn sure) STRM.I see I have some back reading to do here… We would get along famously.I haven”t read your Ottawa concert series yet but I saw it. Btw, Did Hole do, Dolls Parts?
Rated!
Scarlett — In terms of where did they go … hmm, round here in Ottawa there are some great stores, some even selling loads of vinyl, such as Compact Music, and there are a few great places in Toronto and Montreal.
And, no, to re-confirm, it wasn’t Sam’s, and I want to clarify that because I did go on to work at a Sam the Record Man for many years and thought they were ok to work for (the problem at that job was staff conflict, not the chain itself). Both Sam and his son Jason often popped in and were very nice, nothing at all like XYZ. Otherwise, I shall confirm/deny no more.
I scanned over your backlog and I’d agree, as you seem to have several terrific music posts — plus I too have some reading to do now.
Yes, Hole did “Doll Parts,” and they were one of the big surprises of the festival. Absolutely knockout show. Courtney seemed sober, together, and genuinely into it. Take a peek at the piece I wrote on it. I haven’t written much lately as life became ultra-packed from late June onwards, but things are re-settling and I’ve been prepping several new pieces in the series. I’m hoping to post the review for the jaw-dropping Flaming Lips show on Thursday and then on Monday the 23rd, publish my piece marking the 30th anniversary of the Heatwave festival (Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Pretenders, B-52s, Rockpile with Nick Lowe & Dave Edmonds, etc) not far from Toronto. Stay tuned.
Shiral — Thanks, and I LOL at “piss on your shoes.”
Fond memories of their floundering. An acquaintance was trying to keep the Dundas Street store open after that, put a hell of an effort in and I think the brain trust paid no attention, except for putting out those petty memos about etiquette and appearance. Useless stuff, when the downtown was already dying off. A fun read, thanks.
I recognize this name … and clearly you recognize which establishment XYZ was. Horrible, horrible people. In another moment of justice, I heard from a reliable source that when many of the key players at the top were seeking positions during the recession-scarred early 90s, right after XYZ’s demise, they were largely seen as pariahs within the biz and couldn’t hired to save their lives. Not to many that many they’d fired were now in prominent positions at rival companies.
Thanks for stopping by.
Well done that man. I don’t recognise the store, I’m on the other side of the Atlantic, but I sure as hell recognise every person in the cast, especially Miss Winner. Been there, done that, never won. I’ve had some satisfying moments, watched some major turds get flushed but I, personally, never came out on top. Fortunately, I’ve never worried too much about that kind of thing. Life’s too short! 😉
Mickey P: Isn’t that sad, that every person in the cast is recognizable? When I first wrote and published this over on OpenSalon, I figured that it would have a universality to it, as depressing as that is. I hear you about not trying to worry so much, but that can be difficult with people and situations who/that by nature one can’t just tune out. But I agree — life is too short for this crap. Thanks for stopping by.
Second time around reading this for me and it is as satisfying as ever. I will confess that being such a music lover, once upon a time I really wanted to work at XYZ’s. Glad you set the record straight for me. To date myself … far out graphic here too, friend. Keep up the good work and gimme a special heads-up on one of your most recent concerts: Neil & Patti. Cheers, CN.
Chris: So nice to see you here. Well, XYZ wasn’t too bad at first but slowly inched into a nightmare. After leaving it and starting university, I spent 6 years working at a Sam’s part time while doing my undergrad, and it was the inverse of XYZ: the company itself was fine, it was the dysfunctional dynamic of the actual store I worked in that was eyeball-gouging. I’ll drop you a personal note about Neil & Patti, and a full-scale overview is in the works, but probably not until January as my life is so crazybusy right now. Short version: both were brilliant, although only a certain type of Neil fan (of which I am one) would have liked the set. And tomorrow night, Leonard Cohen …
Thoroughly engaging read of your successful strategic plan to thwart the corp. (Now, about that Rhino Worst Record collection…can you name an example?)
Corp thwarted, but sad it had to happen in the first place.
As for that Rhino’s World Wost Records album, I’ll get back to you personally on that one, but I will say that it includes Edith Massey singing a cover of “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and the album itself came with a complimentary barf bag.