I Was Working At The Five & Dime.

The summer of 1978 would be the first summer where I would not be returning back to school the following September. I had graduated high school and I got all of the 27 required credits I needed to earn my diploma. I was still working at the Exhibition Stadium as a vendor, but I knew the writing was on the wall. A full-time job would now be on my not too distant horizon and there would be no more selling peanuts or hotdogs at ball games and concerts. I would no longer be working to have spending money, instead I would now be working for a living.

A very common job title back in the late 70’s was a Manager Trainee. It seemed like so many companies looking for sales help were hiring for this position. I knew working in a factory or some burger joint would not be my cup of tea so maybe working in the retail sector would be something that I just might enjoy doing.

I watched many school friends quit high school to go work in a factory or at a McDonald's and they all hated what they were doing. Most of them just went from job to job and I just assumed that like my friends I too was destined also to have a low paying, dead end, minimum wage job. I figured if that was indeed my calling then I might as well be doing something I’d enjoy doing.

The SS Kresge Company was a huge American chain of five and dime discount stores. They also owned the Kmart department store chain. At its peak there were well over 2800 Kmart stores worldwide. Although the larger Kmart’s were not as popular in Canada back in the 70’s, the smaller Kresge stores competed with its arch rival Woolworth's right across the country.

I went for my interview at the head office on Carlton Street in downtown Toronto. The Manager Trainee job would be best described to me as my entry into a potential world of unlimited income. I was told that Kresge’s upper management made well above average wages. Coupled with bonuses in company stock, I was sure to be retiring a very wealthy man.

But first they told me that I needed to start right at the bottom.

As I left my interview on that afternoon, I headed back home on the subway. I had just been hired for my first full-time job as a Manager Trainee for the SS Kresge Company. I still didn't have any idea where I would be working. There were well over a dozen stores within the city of Toronto and I could be assigned to any one of them to start my new illustrious career. I was told to go home and wait for a phone call because one of those store managers would soon be calling.

Within a couple days I received a phone call from a man named Tom. Tom was the manager of the Kresge store at Danforth and Woodbine way out in the east end of the city. I had been assigned to his store; he told me he was looking forward to meeting me and having me join the team.

I was to start first thing the following Monday morning. My job would be days, Monday to Friday and one evening each week. I would be working a total of 44 hours per week and I would be compensated with a starting salary of $130.00 paid in cash weekly. Just like I had been told at my head office interview, Tom emphasized that the potential for advancement was limitless once I worked my way up the corporate ladder.

On Monday morning I arrived very early, I was now standing on the first rung of the corporate ladder. As I waited outside the store on Danforth Avenue a street I had never been on before, I remember it was a beautiful sunny morning. My commute had consisted of a small walk, two subways and it had taken me just over an hour to arrive from my apartment.

Right beside the Kresge store where I would now be working was a Woolworth's store. Both of the stores side-by-side at street level looked like relics from the 50’s era. While standing outside on that morning, little did I know just how much from the 50's era they would actually be like inside also.

Stanley who was the assistant manager soon arrived. Stanley looked like he was in his late twenties; he was wearing a white shirt with a skinny black tie. He welcomed me to the store and said he looked forward to working with me. Stanley too was climbing the corporate ladder and was probably on the third rung. Once he unlocked the front doors he proceeded to show me the most important thing I needed to do when I arrived each and every morning, rain or shine before anything else.

It was imperative that I roll out the coin operated cowboy horsey ride to the area just outside the front doors. I also had to make sure the ride was plugged in and that no part of the horse was on the city owned sidewalk. I would also need to roll out the coin operated Beaver gumball machines opposite the horse. I had to make sure they too remained within the store vestibule and were also not touching any part of the sidewalk. Finally, I needed to roll out the store awnings with a long detachable crank like device and it was okay for the awning to be over the city owned sidewalk.

It seems the store got huge revenues from both the coin operated horse ride and the gumball machines. Hundreds of dollars in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters were poured into that little area annually just outside the front doors.

Although my official job title was a Manager Trainee, I quickly realized on that first day it was nothing more than a glossy subtitle for my actual job.

I was the new stock boy.

I spent most of my day after I completed my most important first thing in the morning tasks down in the dingy, damp basement. The store was heated with oil and the ancient storage tank was also in the basement which only added to the unpleasant oily, musty smell. I was responsible for receiving and properly documenting all the items coming into the store. There was no receiving dock at the store. Instead delivery trucks would drive up the very narrow alleyway behind the store and the driver rang the very loud bell. The bell could be heard throughout the store just in case I was not at my usual basement post.

I would then need to climb up a small wooden ramp and open a large metal rollup door. The driver would throw all the boxes down the ramp while I counted them and quickly tried to stack them on the floor. For most of the larger deliveries I could not clear the ramp fast enough. I would then have to climb back up the ramp over all the strewn boxes to sign the driver’s paperwork and then close the rollup door.

Once all the boxes were stacked, I would begin the never ending task of opening all the boxes. There were no computers back then so each item had to be looked up on the master preprint from head office. Once I found the item and code, I would make up a price sticker with the ancient hand operated pricing machine. If the item was a towel, garment or clothing, I needed to stick the price sticker on a cardboard ticket. I would then take the cardboard ticket to another machine that would fire a pin into the material, securing the price ticket.

I always seemed to be wearing Band-Aids since I was the victim of many errant pins that got fired into my fingers instead.

After the items were priced I placed them all back in the boxes. I then took the boxes up onto the creaky old wooden sales floor and placed them within the proper aisles. One of the older women responsible for the aisle would merchandise the items on the appropriate shelves or racks. The whole process of receiving stock and putting it up on the salesfloor was a very tedious and time consuming task.

Outside of myself Stanley and Tom, everyone who worked at the store was an older woman. I was the youngest person working at the store and I knew almost right away that I would have no girlfriend work colleague while working at that store.

Every day I got an hour for my lunch. If I decided not to take a lunch, I could not go home an hour earlier. If I worked during my lunch I would not be paid any extra, so needless to say I always took my hour lunch. In the beginning I would grab my lunch at the Dinette lunch counter located right inside the store. I got a staff discount, but all the stools at the counter were usually full especially during the busy lunch hour. The staff could not sit at the counter if customers were waiting. The lunch counter Dinettes were a very popular attraction in all of the Kresge stores. They were an all day meeting place for older shoppers to socialize while enjoying the Big Bite special and a coffee.

I found myself most of the time eating my lunch in the basement, but it wasn’t too long after I started working there before I found myself a little diversion. What would be the little diversion that would always help me get through my mundane day?

A frosty, ice cold mug of draught beer at lunch.

The Western Country Restaurant was located right across the street from the store. Every day I had one of the lunch specials with a mug of draught beer to wash it all down. I had just turned eighteen, the legal drinking age. I would scurry across Danforth Avenue at noon to be greeted by the owner and a frosty pint. For most of my lunches I had just the one beer, but on a few occasions I would have a second one. I guess I would have been considered a good customer because many times the owner poured me my second draught on the house.

After I ate my lunch, I would still have about a half-hour or so to kill. Most days I went back into the basement and listened to the radio. Although I never did, many times I felt like just having a little nap especially after drinking a couple beers.

On Fridays, one of my weekly duties was to clean the french fry oil at the lunch counter. More than anything else, I hated cleaning the oil in the fryer.

First, I had to wait for the oil to cool down enough so I would not burn myself. Once cooled I would pour the oil into a bucket through a filter a few times. The filter trapped all the sentiment and burnt crispy bits from the dozens of french fry orders that previous week. Every couple of weeks the oil became too dark and it would have to be changed completely.

Changing the oil was a much easier job since the old oil was simply poured into a bucket. A company would come by to pick up the dirty oil and properly dispose of it. I simply added chunks of white, greasy, vegetable shortening into the empty fryer and once heated it would liquefy into clear fryer oil. This was always a messy job as the oil would always splatter on the tiled lunch counter floor making it very slippery. I then needed to clean the complete floor with a damp mop and degreaser.

I hated how I always had an audience on the busy Fridays. I could just feel the customers sitting at the lunch counter peering at me, their eyes fixated on my every move. I could only imagine what would have happened if I had ever spilled one of those buckets of dirty fryer oil.

I now wish I had.

I never really liked my job working at the Kresge store. After about four months I had enough and was debating whether to quit and find another job closer to home. One afternoon Tom called me into his office, I had been promoted to the second rung of the corporate ladder. I was moving up from the basement to the sales floor. I was now a sales clerk and I was being transferred to the Jupiter department store on Markham Road in Scarborough.

Jupiter?

It might as well have been on fuck’n Jupiter.

My commute each way would now consist of a small walk, two subway trains and now a long bus ride was added on. The small increase in pay didn’t even come close to making my extra commuting time worthwhile. It was however a promotion, my first promotion and I gladly accepted it.

I only lasted three months at Jupiter.

It seemed like I was spending almost as much time commuting weekly as I was working. Plus the fact my new boss Hank was a complete asshole just made my decision to finally quit the company very easy.

By 1994 the SS Kresge chain of five and dime stores disappeared from the Canadian retail landscape. All of the stores were closed. I can’t help but think had I stuck it out, what rung on the corporate ladder I would have reached. That is before the company pulled the plug on my potential for earning unlimited income while on my way to retiring a very wealthy man.

What a crock of shit that was.

For me being a Manager Trainee was nothing more than a dumpy job working in a dumpy store.