How I gave myself a happier Thanksgiving by quitting a job.

Many years ago I managed a gourmet meat and cheese shop in Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, MI. It occupied the same spot Yankee Candle occupies today.

I made every effort to prepare and sell the very best foods, but I was eventually reprimanded for discarding food that could still be sold at full price.

And so I sold Kona Coffee beans at $12/lb that had been sitting for months in a Plexiglas dispenser. And meat with the scum scrubbed off. And stale bagels rejuvenated by 10 seconds in the microwave (but were hard as a rock when they cooled). And ancient Lindt chocolate bars that had been on the shelf so long the fruit fillings had dried into a grainy sugar paste.

The last straw was the shrinkwrapped gift packages we were preparing for the Christmas shopping season. The ingredients looked a lot like their Hickory Farms counterparts, but were cheaper and tasted dreadful.

Most of the packaging was cardboard and green straw, the prices were exorbitant, and the vacuum-sealed cheese and summer sausage were shelf-stable through Armageddon.

After cheating thousands of people, I couldn't take it anymore, and just before Thanksgiving, I quit.

I was working three jobs at the same time, so the decision wasn't hard.

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I recall what was probably my most heroic (and enjoyable) moment in gourmet retail: The mall had been put on alert during a tornado warning, and a handful of customers and mall employees were forced to stay in the store. No one was even allowed to dart across the hallway back to their own store, or peek around the corner.

I took the opportunity to build a little goodwill by giving away free cups of coffee. Everyone loved it, the threat passed, and we all felt a little friendlier.

Everyone except the owner. When he found out, he was not in a friendly mood at all.

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The owner had once told me a story how he'd used a cigar box as a cash register in his first business venture. Seems he'd been a salesman for a long time and was a seasoned pro. He was also a plagiarist. I later read the same story in a business magazine in his office.

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The owner had the same name as a former US president. Someone told me he could sell you your own shoes. I'm sure somewhere he is doing just that.

[2014-11-20]

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