The Big K

The following is part three in a series of blog's celebrating my 20 years in the work force. Each Thursday, I will update this site with the latest installment.

I started at the Mart in August of 1987. I would work there until January of 94. That is six and a half years. That is currently my longest job streak to date. I owe a lot to Kmart. When I got married with the exception of my brother every other groomsman that stood up with me worked with me at Kmart.

Fate must have played a part in my hiring. I had to apply three times and finally on that third time I got a call back. My friend Mike Dell worked there and had talked me into applying one more time. There is nothing lower than getting rejected by Kmart so the thought of re-applying was not very appealing. However, I did apply and got an interview and was quickly hired.

I was put in the Health and Beauty and Party Goods section. I was in charge of stocking paper plates, aspirin, tin foil, and women’s feminine products. I liked the job well enough, as I was able to roam the store and hit on all the sixteen year old checkout girls. After changing jobs so much in the past year, I just wanted to find a home. Kmart was that home and I got myself into a nice little rut.

After about a year and half of stocking FDS, the Pharmacist who worked there, Sue asked me if I wanted to become a Pharmacy Tech. All I needed to do was pay the fee, (which Kmart reimbursed me for) and pass some simple test. So, I moved into the Pharmacy. It had it’s pro’s and con’s. I learned a lot about medicine and what to take and what not to. I also learned how to multi-task as the Pharmacy was usually very busy and I would be doing three things at once. The biggest plus, as I saw it was I knew just who was on birth control. On the other hand I dealt with evey old, bitter, hypochondriac in the South West suburbs.

I have a ton of great Kmart Pharmacy stories but my favorite is the kid who came to buy condoms. The kid had to be no older than fourteen and I am sure he was there on a dare. The condoms were behind the register and he came up and pointed to a box. He asked if he could purchase some of those. I then shouted “Oh you mean the rubbers.” I than rang him up and I stapled the receipt to the box. He asked if he could have a bag and I told him we were out. The Pharmacy was located all the way in the back of the store, so he had to walk all the way through the store with the box of rubbers and had to show Norma, the 80 something door greeter the receipt.

I worked with two pharmacists Sue and Joe. Joe was an older gentleman who was kind of like Mr. Gower. He was the old corner drug store Pharmacist and I equate 80% of the business we did on Joe. Everybody simply loved the old guy. He told great stories and I am truly grateful I got to work with him. I thought Sue was really cool at the time. She was the one who got me in the Pharmacy and was always encouraging me and buying me lunch. She even let me borrow her new car when my 78 Nova was not operating. Eventually we had a kind of falling out and I won’t go into details.

I also worked with Cele. She had to be in her 70’s but still “worked” at Kmart. Cele chain smoked Pall Mall’s and had that graspy old lady cigarette voice. Her favorite line to me was, “All you do is come in and flirt with all the girls.” That was true, and I rarely had a defense for it.

Since the Pharmacy was limited in the hours I could work, I backfilled in other departments to get some extra hours. When it was all said and done I worked in every department in that store except apparel, which had a different management structure.

The toy department was always chaos particularly in December. No matter what you did you could never keep the shelves from looking like a riot zone. I used to always have that “Toys headache” after working there. Domestic’s was the yarn section, which I knew nothing about. The Golden Girls Fan Club would come in asking me about yarn and I would bullshit to them the best I could. Working Hardware sucked because you had to mix paint. I ruined so many pairs of knock off Dockers that way.

I literally have a million stories from working there that time would never permit me to get into. I will have to share my favorite, however. I was working one night on the floor making my rounds. I then heard a 405 and a half page to Shoes come across the loudspeaker. A 405 and a half meant that all male employees where to drop what they were doing and report to the department that was included in the page. So, I drop what I am doing only to find my friends Chris and Wally had gotten there first. The security guard on call that night Ray, had made the page. It seems a young man was pleasuring himself with a shoe. As we pleaded with the man to stop he would not so we had to forcibly take him to the security office. He went kicking and screaming the whole way. He never even bothered to put his pants back on. So, as we literally dragged him his bare ass kept making this disturbing sound as we dragged it along the Kmart tile. The whole time his manhood was swinging in the breeze. It is an image that will haunt me to the day I die

Of course I made so many friendships at Kmart that this blog is not big enough to list them all. I joined the Kmart softball team and from that point on Kmart became a social gathering not a work place. I was in the store every night regardless if I worked or not. In six and a half years I called in sick only one time. That was how much I loved working there. Kmart corresponded with the greatest years of my life, the salad years.

It was right before adulthood and responsibility. My biggest concern was which party was I going to hit first on a Friday night. Kmart enabled me to make life long contacts and friends. I did not make huge money but I didn’t need a lot of money. The little money I made I used on cheap food and even cheaper beer. Looking back it is very hard to sum up those Kmart years. I was lucky to have had the experience to meet so many great people and make so many great friends. That would be the last job I ever worked at where I felt that way.