The end of retail the beginning of wholesale.

My big break came when a friend of mine turned down a job offer to run a wholesale book business. He could live on the draw the offer and the base salary wasn't enough. Hey, I'm used to retail wages so it was a step up for me.

The job was marketing and distributing books to schools.  Mostly classroom reading material (such as classic and modern literature books). We also sound new and used textbooks, mainly to private schools. The public schools got their textbook from state agencies.

I was in full charge of a branch office. The owners were in Brooklyn and I was opening a Dallas office. We were an independent company. I was soon to realize I found the perfect job. 

I was almost totally autonomous. The owners left me with the keys to the building, two folding chairs and the telephone laying on the floor. Time to get started. Little did I know this would be my career for the next 20 years.

The end of retail.

Well, I was realizing that retail was becoming a dead end career.

Some of what was happening was that as one moved higher up the rank, there would be a built-in roadblock  The management system was that at every level the person above you wanted to keep his job and protect his position. This culture evolved in several chains, The person above you wanted only to surround themselves with people who were incompetent. This accomplished two things. One was that at least temporarily their position was secure. Two it made them look better by comparison. This kind of de-evolved into survival of the un-fittest.

I could postulate on several reasons how this developed but suffice to say it just did.

Escape or slide into the mediocrity rut and self-protection mode of firing competent people and keeping the losers around for job security.

I had to find a way out.

Next steps.

Well Its been a while since my last blog post. I am going to try to be more active.

I was called out of retirement to do some consulting for my old company. That and working at my business development role for an I.T. company I have been prey busy post retirement.

Since my blog started out journaling my work and career history I will add a paragraph or so.

In the late 70's a retail career was not the promising fast track it once was. Too much transitions and buyouts. You would climb the ladder then the company or store chain would sell or merger and one would be back at the bottom again.

I tried many things to move out but now in my early 30's the possibility of a new career seemed a daunting challenge. Back in those day's the 80's it was still old school, you started down a career path and you followed it for life. There wasn't a fork in the path so to speak. So I had to re-invent myself and that became the framework of how I want to move next in post retirement. I want to be a life coach.

Moving up and away

Back in the 70's most shoe departments were leased by big shoe company's retail divisions. Shoes were a better fit for this type of arrangement. The buying power and know-how of a national organization was superior to trying to do the special segment of retail in-house.

So I went to work for U.S.Shoe's retail division Cincinnati Shoe Company. I became the companies troubleshooter and development specialist.

This was a fantastic experience for someone in their early 20's in the '70's. I saw retail operations for the inside. I got to learn how to manage people as well as all the other areas such as merchandise display, add copy, human resources, sales, training and coaching and the variety of functions and skill sets needed to be successful.


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Upscale as I knew it

Well after 6 months learning the shoe business in the bargain basement an opportunity arose for me to become assistant manager in the upstairs classy departments. We had women's shoes on the third floor with the fine clothes, jewelry, and cosmetics, children's on the 4th floor with the toys and pet department. Men's shoes were on the street level with candy and perfume and assorted other departments.

I got to wear a suit and tie and actually work with a class of people who to me seemed upper class and well bread. When you come from a small working class town, being able to go to work in air condition, wear fine clothes and well basically not come home dirty and sweaty, it was a sense of refinement. The funny thing is is that the farm and factory workers made as much money as the retail folks. It wasn't about the money to me it was about not being a "blue collar" worker.

Well, I was doing just fine and really enjoying the experience for the most part. I loved selling in the men's shoe dept during the guy who was a fixture there with his own book of trade went to lunch. He was a very classy guy and the guy I wanted to emulate. I wanted to be a gentleman. This was the closest I could get.

Shoe buisness

I had about much fun as I could stand running the departments at the discount store. They worked me 80 plus hours and paid my for everything over 40 hours "off the clock" they pain me in merchandise and that was no time and a half and no store discount. So one day I had enough of the fun and games and walked out.

My next job was in a basement discount shoe department of a large grand old department store. I am talking about the kind that was a city block long seven stories high. The old downtown anchor stores that housed all the accounting, buying, and all the other offices on the top floor and the rest of the store were the retail operations.It had the grand old elevator with an elevator operator. All transactions were sent through vacuum tubes to the central cashier. It had everything, beauty salons, pet store, toy department. two restaurants a shoe repair and everything else a department store would have. If you ever saw the British comedy "Are You Being Served" you'll have an idea of what kind of store it was. 

I started in the discount basement shoe dept. We fitted shoes back then. I measured feet and sat on the stool when we put the shoes on the customer's feet.We had every size imaginable. Back then shoes were mostly for function above style.  The wall of shoe boxes had a ladder we would climb and a stick for grabbing lower boxes that were just above reach. 

It was old school shoe business. We even fitted the old " baby shoes" the kind that started oy with soft soles and got more rigid. That was the thinking back then. We even fitted orthopedic shoes. It was a great training ground.

My story part 2 Retail

What came next shaped the next 15 years of my life. I landed a part time job at a local discount store to earn some money to supplement my DJ job. Well as it turns out they gave me more of an immediate opportunity to grow into a department manager. Since I really had no idea what I wanted to be any way it looked like a great opportunity.

So I began my career at 19 running sorting goods, hardware and automotive departments. It was my first headlong dive into managing people, doing inventory, stocking and shelving and waiting on customers. The first real taste of retail wows was a real eye opener. We sold guns and rifles in the sporting goods department. One of my "genius" employees sold a pistol to a guy who shot someone. There was a waiting period back in that day and during the time we were waiting for the background check to come through so that we could give the customer his gun the box and the gun  somehow got switched. We only noticed this after the crime was committed and the police couldn't rightly identify the serial number. Needless to say the stuff hit the fan. On another occasion a guy had bought paint from us and was painting his house. Well he didn't buy enough so when he returned to our store to buy more we were sold out. Since we were a discount store the paint was closeout so we couldn't get any more. The guys was all hot and sweaty and he did not want to here that. He threaded to kill me if I couldn't get hem more paint (which I could not). So here come the same police who were still pissed off about the gun incident.

Retail, low pay long hours and not a prestige job. But at least it wasn't a dull job driving a train.