My first real job, aside from mowing lawns and caddying at Orchard Ridge Country Club in Fort Wayne, was as a sales associate at Newberry's (aka J.J. Newberry). I was about 16 years old back then, eager to earn a real paycheck. On January 20, 1995, McCrory Corporation purchased the local and beloved five and dime, Belmont Stores. Belmont's was going out of business not because of financial woes, but because siblings of the owner of the local chain, who was looking to retire, quarreled over control. McCrory Corporation was a subsidiary of Rapid-American owned by Meshulam Riklis, the famed
corporate raider. Riklis's shady history could take up an entire encyclopedia itself, but that's for another day. According to Wikipedia, when Riklis bought McCrory back in 1963, it was the fourth largest retailer in the Country. Imagine, the fourth largest was McCrory, a spot now held by the Home Depot.
Meshulam Ricklis with some other characters
I started working prior to the opening of the stores, along side of former employees of Belmonts. For a retail type job, it paid about fifty cents over minimum wage; a lucrative deal in my eyes. Prior to the opening of the store, work consisted of setting the store up, stocking shelves, training, and decorating the store. Most major corporations higher contractors to come in and perform tenant improvements to match the corporate branding theme. Not Newberry's; a penny saved is a penny earned. We were tasked with installing signs, lettering, and so on and so forth. For starters, a shower curtain separated the sales floor with the stock room. Classy. Products that were sold there were mainly the big name brands with house brands as well. For the most part, everything was pretty cheap in quality.
The fun really started when the store opened it's doors. For the first couple of months, things seemed to roll smoothly. I worked in a variety of rolls including checkout, stocking shelves, and cleaning up. The Belmont's managers and employees were still around, which was good because they knew what they were doing. In order to make things fun, my buddies Greg and Jason joined the team. After time, the Belmont's people started to disappear. I never asked why, but the word was that the new corporate structure was too much for those who were experienced at working in a locally owned business. For the life of me, I can't remember what the name of the first manager of the stores name was, but she was only around for a little but. With her departure, here comes Alan. I could be using real names; I could not be as well, because I forget.
Anyway, Alan seemed like an okay guy, who was in his late 30's. His partner, the assistant manager, was Sam, somebody who resembled Snoop Dog in many ways. As with Alan, Sam was pretty decent to work with. After the store closed, Greg, Jason, or I would get on the intercom and start rapping. We'd head down the toy aisle and grab the Rapmaster to lay down some beats. It was fresh.
During Alan's brief time as manger, word began to spread that the store was an easy place to do some free shopping. In mass communications class at North Side High School, I recall an assignment where certain art materials were needed. A student exclaimed, "Not to worry, I can get this stuff at Freeberry!" Freeberry? That's right, the store now has a reputation, and a declining one at that. Not long after that, one of Newberry's elderly employees was working the checkout. A gentlemen entered the store and headed to our electronics department to check out the TV's. As he was exiting the store with the TV, the fellow associate yelled out, "Hey, you can't take that!" The good citizen responded, "Whatchya going to do, old lady?" Pretty bold, but what was she really going to do? This criminal couldn't have been more right.
As the stores criminal enterprising was increasing, Alan's mental stability started to go down hill. This was visible in his demeaner and his appearence. He started growing a beard and bleaching is hair and became paranoid that corporate managers where out to get him. At least that's what he told us. It was so bad, that he said he was driven of the road by one of these corporate "agents". Black helicopter were not far behind. I suppose this was my first foray into watching a man morph into a paranoid schizophrenic.
Meanwhile, things at the store started to get exciting in terms of the criminal element. On one afternoon, while I was at school, a group of thieves decided to embark on Newberry's. It started off with one of the theives grabbing garbage bags from the household goods aisle. Using the garbage at merchandise storage contraptions, they would grab stuff off the shelves and hide the full bags. An employee discovered what was going on and called police. The criminals took off soon before several squad cars arrived on the scene. A search of the area ensued, locking down neighboring Holy Cross Lutheran School in the process. I don't believe they suspects were caught. This was indeed the beginning.
As Alan became too unstable to function as manager, he resign his post and went into hiding, never to be seen again. In about 8 months of working at the store, we were preparing for manager number four. Welcome, Manager Mike, ready to make his stamp. He was an outsider, coming in from Iowa to make his mark. He seemed like a real manager, took things seriously, very stable, and didn't mess around. The days of rapping on the intercom were over. Was this to be the turnaround the store was looking for? Nope.
Charlie Savage, now a Pulitzer prize winning journalist for the New York Times, wrote a column in the Fort Wayne Journal Gaz
ette on September 16, 1995 entitled "Punk Like Me." The story examined how business would treat customers, based on their looks.
First wearing preppy cloths, Mr. Savage shopped without issue or concern. Later, he returned, dressed in punk/grunge garb and hair dyed green, to do some shopping to test his theory. Manager Mike, like any "good" manager would do, drew the conclusion that since Mr. Savage looked "different", he required additional supervision. Mike followed him around in obvious fashion, waiting for the criminal activity that was surely going to occur. Needless to say, it never happened and Manager Mike was the only one of several test subjects to show his judgmental ways. I tell this story because it would later rear it's head again, this time involving me.
During Mike's reign, he started to try to save money by cutting down on the number of staff working at any given time. I was working at the checkout and Mike was in his office doing what I could only assume was managerial stuff. I would be speculating if I said he was viewing porn on his company computer. I don't offer any proof, but he just seemed like that kind of guy. Maybe it was because he was came out of his office happy and relaxed, like he just...never mind. While Mike was in his office, a gentleman came in wearing a sweat suit do do some "shopping". He was about 6'-4" and 200 pounds coming in the store. Fifteen minutes later, he came out looking a bit pudgier at about 300 pounds. He obviously didn't want to be a paying customer or he would have visited me at the checkout. As I was taught in my training, every customer is important, so as he left, I said to him, "Enjoy the free merchandise!" I was greeted with a smile and wave as he exited and went back to his daily life of doing what I suspected was God's work.
On another day, two kids came in looking like any other teenager living in angst would look like. According to Mike, however, they did not look like they were up to any good. Damn teenagers! In order to ensure they were behaving properly, I was tasked with keeping an eye on them. Although, I wasn't worried, I complied. I nonchalantly checked up on them, make sure all was well with the store.
Mike came up to me, not happy with my performance, and said, "I told you to follow them."
"Follow them? That's what I'm doing," I replied.
"I mean, I want you to stand next to them and chaperon them," Mike responded.
"What? Are you kidding? I'm not doing that. I'm not following them around the store, just because. It's not right," I said in defiance.
"I'm going to write you up," threatened Mike.
"Whoopdy doo."
Mike and I remained silent the rest of the night. As the store closed, Mike started to rip into me about my failure to do his dirty work. My dad was waiting in the parking lot to pick me up. As I walked to the car, I turned around and flipped Mike the bird. My dad, shocked, asked me what the hell I was doing. I told him the story and my dad decided to pay Mike a visit. I sat in the car as my dad walked up to the door, where Mike unlocked the door. I don't what they said, but when my dad returned, he said, "Your right. Mike is an asshole." Fathers know best, right?
Not everything was super crazy at the store. There were normal days where nothing uneventful happened. They usually consisted of Greg, Jason, and I having a good time while doing our work. Don't get me wrong, we worked hard, but we really couldn't take this place fully seriously. In between stocking the shelves and putting display furniture together, it was actually a decent time. Now, as the 12 month of the store being opened, it was time for inventory control, in the loss prevention sense. The folks at RGIS came in to do there thing, documenting everything on the shelves and in the stock room. When all was said and done, the store lost over $100,000 in the first year due to theft. Yikes! That didn't stop Mike from having only one person work evenings though.
It was a Friday night, high school football was in the air. I had to work that night, many people were coming into the store prior to the game over at Zollner field at Concordia High School. There were lots of people in the store, kids running a muck. A man, say about 6'5", dressed in nice cream colored dress clothing, looking like a was ready to leave for the Caribbean for vacation, came to the checkout with a greeting card and sink strainer. As I rung him up, requesting the proper amount of money, he placed a gun on the counter, held it to my belly, and handed me note that said, "Give me all the money or I will blow your brains out." I was scared shitless. After grabbing a bag to put the loot in, I started placing the one's in the bag. I felt a poke to my stomach followed by, "Start with the twenties, Start with the twenties!" I grabbed the twenties, shaking out of control, placing the money in the bag. All the while, kids where running right by him, not know what was taking place. I looked down and saw all the money I had dropped while filling the bag. As the register was cleared, the bandit mad his way to the exit. On his way out, he bumped into a customer. As any well mannered person would do, the bandit said, "Excuse me." Really? He just said that? At least he's got manners, I suppose. Still in a stake of shock, I picked up the phone to call 911 to find Mike talking all "lovey" with his wife. "Get off the damn phone, I've just been robbed," I yelled.
After reporting the incident to police, about 10 squad cars arrived in a flash. In what seemed like chaos, office locked down the store and went on the hunt for the criminal I described. Meanwhile, I was being interviewed by detectives in a state of panic while the crime scene crew was dusting for prints. Even Mike showed compassion at the end. For some reason that day, Mike never did a cash drop. Over $2,000 was in the register. I called my parents to have them pick me up. As you have probably concluded by now, I didn't have my own car. Although my home was only about a 10 minute walk away, I was a little too scared to make that jaunt by myself. Mike drove me over to Keltsch pharmacy, where my older brother was working. I hung out there until he was off work. Many people would call it quits right then and there, but $5.25 an hour was still a lucrative deal I couldn't abandon just yet. I went back to work not long after the incident. I had spoken to the detective and tried to identify the suspect's mug shot. Around that time, there was a series of similar incidents. The suspect was named the "brown bag bandit", although I don't recall him having a brown bag. Maybe he was just really ugly. I must have grew a pair after that, because I felt invincible after it.
At the store, I followed a man who was clearly shoplifting in the store. He went out to a waiting car, where another gentleman was in the driver's seat. The green Cadillac just stayed there, making no attempt to flee the scene of the crime. I walked past the car towards the rear, nodding my head in a friendly manner to the occupants. I pulled my pen and paper and started jotting down the license number. As I was doing so, the passenger side threatened to shoot me with his gun. "Go for it," I said, continuing to get the plate number. As I walked back to the store, I said to the man, "Have a nice day." I called the police and reported the car and they showed up and arrested the men, removing the merchandise. Pretty stupid on my part, but I didn't care.
Not much later after this last incident, Mike was fired. The new manager, whose name was Sharon (if I recall correctly) was a Belmonts holdover who came from one of the other stores. It was discovered, according the Brenda, Mike's assistant manager, that Mike and another manger at another store were stealing merchandise and reselling it at the flea market. Items like dollar cleaners and other junk. I'm not sure if charges were filed, but he was no longer employed with the store.
After about a year and half on the job, I decided it was time to move. Although all the drama, crime, and fiscal woes made for an unforgettable first job, it was too much to handle. I left the store and started working at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum for the concessions operator, FanFare/Fine Host (which went bankrupt after unscrupulous activities at other locations). After about two years, Newberry's was closed due to the
bankruptcy of parent McCrory Corporation.
You haven’t broken any explicit rules, but you have been warned for posting unnecessary pictures and clogging the discussion. Please refrain from passive-aggressively baiting Ohio State fans, or you will be banned.