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January 29, Friday - Snowed all day and grew colder. By the time i got home it was 15°. Bought groceries - $20.72. ($161) Have a cold, too.
January 30, Saturday - Temp - 5°. Feel miserable. Should have stayed home. Customer reported me to Johnson because I checked too fast! Got back a stolen check. Tomorrow has to be better.
The idea that a customer would report you for moving too fast is only foreign if you've never worked with the public. There were simply some customers that wanted you to pick up one item at a time, enter it, and wait for their approval before you went to the next item. At that rate, a full basket of groceries, which would set you back $30 or more, would take twenty minutes instead of five. Ain't gonna happen, sister. Over the course of my career with Kroger I was reported for checking too fast, sacking too fast, wearing my hair too long, wearing an offensive after-shave, and maintaining a snarky attitude. I can refute everything but the attitude problem. I was then, and now remain, a committed smart-ass. I can usually only say two serious things in a row. After that, I go for the laugh. I was never written up by my managers, because they knew how hard I worked. Such is retail. The Johnson referred to is Kenny Johnson, the store manager at 31st and State.
The stolen check coming back is totally mom's fault because she trusted her gut instead of sticking to company procedure. Customers filled out a signature card with the store they did business with, and once checked and approved were given a number to use when they wanted to write a check. A card for my account might be something like S-390. If one of your checks came back, your card was pulled and put in the provisional file. Even with the number on the check, it still had to be approved by the head checker, head grocery clerk, or a member of management. If all the pieces weren't in place, it was incumbent upon the employee to turn down the check. If they took a bad check and it hadn't been cleared, it could come out of their check. It's some really nervous shit when a check comes back, even more so when your name is on it.
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January 31, Sunday - Today is better. We have a chance of getting our money for the bad check. Byron put his name on the check after I made the statement that I would pay for the check. I appreciate it but I take full responsibility for my mistakes - stupid as some of them are. Took my prescription to Schneider yesterday. Will get my glasses next Saturday. Blizzard warnings out for tonight. Signed up for vacation the 14th of June. May go to Colorado.
Mom is still battling the bad check, but Byron Scanlon, the store co-manager has stepped up and taken mom's side. Byron would be the first Kroger manager I worked for the following year at the store at 61st and Leavenworth Road, also in Kansas City, Kansas. Mom set me up with that store and Byron to help me keep my car on the road, even though it was almost fourteen miles from our house on the Missouri side. It paid $1.40 per hour - fifteen cents above minimum wage, but then again, gas for my thirsty 1957 Pontiac Hardtop was only 32 cents per gallon. I worked an average of 25 hours a week. You do the math.
Wait, Mom didn't get her glasses from McBratney?
Blizzard warnings = busy grocery store.
Mom always tried to put her vacation sometime in the first two weeks of June. I was usually out of school by June 19 or so, and the weather for road trips across Kansas wasn't unbearably hot. It took a full day to get from Kansas City to Limon, Colorado. Most of the trip was on US 40, a two-lane that stretched from Topeka, the western limit of the Kansas Turnpike, to the Colorado line, 400 miles away. The speed limit was 45mph, and the distance you could travel without hitting a small town was limited, to say the least.
Now, where was I? Whatever, here comes February.
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