the Leathermines

(read Shift Work)

There is never a lighter side @ Grade-B

It is a good thing that Grade-B with Service in the back exists.

I had started to work there for pay off and on as the Pizza joint started to implode.  I was the lucky one because I had the fallback of Service when the manager started to do his shenanigans with my hours.  Most of the other long-timers didn’t have that, and it started to show.

The management announced that the location was being bought up by a competitor, which led to about a week of utter chaos.  One of the new guys had been brought in knowing that this was coming up, and he was trained to take over the shift manager’s slot, at almost half the pay.  Gary, the guy with the most hours into the place, was crying as he begged for more hours as the manager oozed meanness without any sort of guile to cover it.  I saw it happening, and let it.

I know that is not a good thing to say.  I was not as supportive as I might have been to the other shift workers, but I had gone through it before, and knew that once it was announced, it had been a done deal for over a month.

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Shift work @ “Grade-B”

It is not strange to find little shops in metropolitan areas that are not quite liquor stores, not quite convenience stores, not quite fast food take-out.  They can go by many names, but most people would recognize the name Bodega.  Any are mysterious in how they are arranged, most are magical in how much stuff is enclosed in those store fronts.

With the one I work in, the bodega is just the beginning.

It was an idea of Chef to have a place only Service workers knew about. You have to know about it to even know what door to go through.  That was how I got a job here, and how my career changed for the better.

I had gone past the place for a few months after it opened.  It was a crowded storefront, just like other ‘everything’ stores, and was from the beginning.  It always seemed to be open, even after bar-time.  I started going in after my shift at the pizza place just to pick up a few things, mostly cereal and milk.

There seemed to be a changing crowd and once or twice I saw someone in chef jacket looking at what was on the shelves.  It never was empty.

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