I handled stock for a large corporation.

I recently ran into two friends I used to work with: Bruce Madden, who worked with me in Ecommerce eight years ago or more, and Mike Heinz, who was a grocery manager back in the day when I was stocking shelves.[1] Same company but worlds apart.

I met Bruce at Panera Bread and I saw Mike at the store. Bruce stopped me to chat, but I didn't stop Mike to chat. I don't know that he would have remembered me. He was a manager and I was just a kid throwing stock on 3rd shift grocery; why bother a man at his job and make him pretend he remembered me?

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[1]
We were night stockers. That is, we unloaded trucks at night and stocked the shelves. A coworker from those days, Lowel Leifers, said he "handled stock for a large corporation." I still think that's funny. One night I threw 600 cases for Lowel when he was out sick; he had the glass and soup aisle. That's no small feat in that business. We got 6 loads a week, up to 2,000 cases per load. I earned a stripe that night that you can only get by busting your ass for a team mate.

I moved from grocery to dairy and was later told by someone I respect at that store that I was the best dairy clerk in the chain. That meant a lot to me. I took great pride in my job, and it was honest hard work.

I'm in corporate now. I showed up in Columbus one year to help a store for the holidays. I brought a box cutter, price gun and garvey and planned to go to work in grocery. They treated me like I was from outer space. I ended up sorting men's underwear most of the weekend. For some reason that section gets shopped all to heck around Christmas. Must be all the excitement makes it hard to contain ourselves.

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Started: 2013-01-13