Fall 1994
Solon, Ohio
After my Summer at Sea World, I'm not sure why I chose to pursue a job at the Solon Kmart (pictured here, 1978) other than for the kitsch value of it. Much like Sea World, I had spent a good portion of my youth there so it was familiar. When I was younger I'd often go shopping there with my mom, and around this period of my life I was successfully stealing cigarettes from the store while on those same (less frequent) shopping trips, so I knew they were trusting. Lastly, this girl at school I liked whose mom worked there approached me and told me she had heard I applied for a job, so it was all around in my best interest.
I seem to recall it starting well enough, but they were on to me and my smirk pretty quick. I didn't set out to get fired in a few days, one thing just led to another. (Besides, my getting fired stories are always solid). I was assigned to be a cashier along with several other new young hires, and we started doing training, with the signature red vest and everything. We were asked to take turns and rotate with each other to train on the register, simulating employee and customer transactions. We were encouraged as the "employees" to compliment the purchases of the "customers" at the register, and to say things like "Hey, this is a nice (fill in the blank)." At one point this boy was playing the part of cashier, and softly muttered to whoever was playing the customer, "Nice shirt," and it was charmingly hilarious. Of course, that meant I had to up the stakes a little. When it came to my turn to be the customer, I made a finger gun point at the boy and shouted "THIS IS A STICK UP!!!," which elicited roars of laughter from the children and left the trainers unimpressed.
When it came to my first (and I believe final day) of actually being on the job, I worked at a register while being shadowed by one of the trainers. I remember it being a little rocky, because this was when people were still writing out checks, and they had to be called-in and/or stamped in one of those plastic check sliding deals. I remember a customer telling me with a smile "You're doing great, Pete!," which was the last good thing that happened there.
During the initial training, they had told the trainees that there was a method to collecting the cash from the register at the end of a shift, which involved putting it in a bag and securely storing it, and I thought I remembered that the bag was stored under the register that was being used. This is where the innocent version of me comes to the surface, because this is the type of thing that I still get easily confused by. If I'm shown something completely new, I need a little time before I can mentally grasp it, because I tend to either space out or panic and overthink things. Whatever I did with the bag at the end of my shift was wrong, and I guarantee you they thought I was plotting to steal the money.
At the end of the work day, I was called up into the supervisor lady's office, and she told me they were firing me. I was genuinely shocked, because I didn't think I did anything that bad. She told me that I didn't handle the money correctly, they didn't like my sticking up the register, and I think generally found me obnoxious. She gave me plastic bag of two work days worth of payment, and asked that I be on my way. I walked down the stairs from her office, and I felt that I had to retaliate in some manner. There was a paper employee schedule hanging off a binder attached to a wall, and I smacked it with my hand, knocking one piece of paper off of the binder. Within seconds, I heard the "BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!" sound of the supervisor running down the stairs, almost as if she was already expecting to have to further confront me. She yelled at me about what I had done, and I told her it was an accident and that I just bumped into the binder. She told me she was going to call security and have them escort me out, but I ended up being able to walk out on my own. She followed me the whole way, shouting that I was never to come back to the store again, and while I told my friends later I responded with "Fuck your fucking store!" or something, I think I just said "Whatever" and stormed out.
I had gotten dropped off there by my mom, so I took it upon myself to walk straight from Kmart, over the nearby railroad tracks, and down a hill to Burger King where two of my best friends worked to apply for a job. It was honestly where I should have gone in the first place, I'm not sure what the hesitation was about. I also don't recall how I explained to my mom that she was to now pick me up from Burger King. I worked there for a span of three years before I left for Hawaii.
One last Kmart note - I had unknowingly taken one of the red Kmart vests with me, and I was asked to return it to the store. I think at one point I had intended to, but I ended up throwing it out of the car window while driving. I looked back it in the rearview mirror, lying on the road as rain fell.
