The J Parade

There were 4 employees with the same first name at the office supply store. Three of them were managers and the other was a former manager. Their first name was a common name but the funny thing was that their last names were in order of the alphabet: J.A., J.B., J.C., & J.D.

It was always a confusing day when all of them were there together and we had to refer to them by the first letter of their last name. There could not have been more of a difference between them. Everyone had their favorite J and their least favorite J.

J.A.

J.A. was a previous manager. He was very hard working and you could tell that the job was slowly but surely killing him. The fact that he once was a manager meant that he really couldn't make any mistakes but on the other end he wasn't a manager and when he went out of his way to help, the rest of the associates were puzzled. "Why is he working so hard?"

He had another job and only worked weekends at the office supply store but he acted as if that was his only means of income. He was constantly running around, sweating and just being genuinely helpful. There are a lot of stories about J.A.'s personal life that I can neither confirm nor deny.

The best way to describe J.A. would be the underdog in a movie. You want him to win so badly but you know that there is something about him, maybe a personal demon or a family crises, that seems to be hindering his progress. It was a possibility that he was really creepy or that he was a total shut in who lived with his mom. Either way no one really knows. He kept his personal life to himself mostly and anything negative you hear is just a story (very juicy stories though. I might actually write about them because it got pretty nasty).

J.B.

We should all know J.B. by now. As a manager he was one of the "cool" managers because he was young. He was the same age as myself at the time, 19, and because he was more foul mouthed than our other managers, he wasn't so bad to be around.

That is until he opened his mouth. He let "tech manager" go straight to his head. He talked down to a lot of the employees even thought most of us were the same age or older than him. We really weren't quite sure what to make of J.B. On one hand he was the young, cool, funny manager. On the other hand he was power hungry, racist, a horn dog and a kiss ass to the store manager. For every good quality in J.B. there were five bad ones. He could've made you laugh extremely hard only to be followed by him trying to get into your pants, saying the president should be shot, tattling on you for a mistake that you made, wielding a false sense of authority and disrespecting his girlfriend.

J.B. was his own kind of a guy. I've never met anyone like J.B. before in my life. He truly is one of a kind. To me he will always be the cowboy boot wearing, death metal listening, gun toting, cheating republican who I once was forced to consider an authority figure.

J.C.

J.C. was the J that I disliked the most. He was old, mean and just really seemed to hate his job. He was a manager but he desperately didn't want to be a manager and due to the store being so understaffed all of the time he continued on as a manager until they could find a replacement(something that never happened).

J.C. was mean from the first moment I met him. He told me a few hours into my first shift to take a 15 minute break in the break room and by the time I found it he came to find me to tell me that my break was too long. He also once told me that he wished my department, the copy center, didn't exist. He thought it was just space that could be used to make the store a lot less congested and thinks "the whole damn place needs to be shut down."

I could move past the fact that that he was a grumpy old man. I could even let it slide that he basically wanted me out of a job if they closed down my department. My biggest issue with him was disrespect. I currently am a manager and I treat all of my employees with the same respect. Sometimes I'm a smart ass about it but I would never not help them or try to make their work any harder. J.C. gave no shits about the copy center and he made it a point to throw a monkey wrench in the works whenever he could.

There was one instance where I was so mad at J.C. that I wanted to shake him. I was the only one working at the copy center and I had an entire counter of people. The store was basically empty with the exception of the people at the copy center. I was so swamped that one of my customers thanked me for my work but said she would go over to the other registers to get rung up for her copies because she could see how busy I was. When she got over to the registers J.C. walked up to her and told her that his section of the store will not ring her up and she needs to go back over to the copy center.

The customer pleaded with him letting him know that she just wants to pay for her copies and not be a bother to me because I had six people waiting at the counter and four people needing help at the self-serve machines. He still refused and she was forced to come back to the copy center to ring up. As I was running back and forth I stopped to see her at the counter once again.

Working Girl: Is something wrong with your copies?
Woman: No. The manager over there is refusing to let any of the copy customers ring up over there. He said I had to come back here.

I was livid. I couldn't believe he stopped this woman from ringing up with someone other than myself knowing that I had every customer in that store and there was no one to help me. I let him know how unprofessional that was and he shrugged his shoulders like he didn't care.

From that point on I completely ignored J.C. I only spoke to him when spoken to and I refused to ring up any of his customers since he basically drew a line in the sand. J.C. died about a year and some change after that due to an in-store incident. I wish that all of my stories regarding J.C. weren't negative and that we could've seen eye to eye on something before he passed but we were too different to ever be on the same side.

J.D.

J.D. was an import. He was a buffer manager. He was put in our store for a few days until the company could place him in a permanent store. The days turned into weeks and the weeks into months until J.D. was actually considered a part of our staff. He was the J that spent the least amount of time there but the best one to be around. He was a fairly young guy who relocated from one of the Dakotas with his pregnant wife. She was funny and gave us an insight into who he truly was. I tortured J.D. with my jokes and he just shot them right back at me. He didn't take offense to anything anyone said and could ride the fence between manager and buddy very well. He was a great guy. He finally was put in a permanent location not too far from our store. Even though he spent less than 4 months as our manager he was a real joy to have around. He could go toe to toe with the best (ME) and still be completely professional.

Lydia Gorham

Have you ever met someone who is determined to have a bad day? The type of person who is so secretly unhappy that she has to make her day AND your day the worst she can? Well I have. Her name is Lydia Gorham.

Lydia Gorham walked into our lives at the hotel on a Sunday evening and the next morning is when we realized she was "one of those guests." By that I mean she was a problem from the time she checked in.

Lydia: Hi, I need a room for tonight.
Banana: Okay, the rate is $149.
Lydia: I need to see the room first.
Banana: Okay, I can show you a room on the first floor.
Lydia: I don't want to be on the first floor.
Banana: I understand, but in order for me to show you a room I have to show you one on the first floor. It doesn't necessarily mean you will be in that room.
Lydia: But I want to see MY room.
Banana: If you don't want to be on the first floor then you won't be seeing YOUR room but all of our rooms are the same.
Lydia: Well why can't you just give me a key?

And it continued like that for about some time.

The next morning she had complaint after complaint

"The smoke detector has a little flashing light. It was very hard to sleep with that light flashing so I got up and wrapped a towel around it to sleep. It was quite the inconvenience."

*Side Note: Yes, smoke detectors do have a flashing light. The light is the size of the head of a ballpoint pen. If that disrupted her sleep than she must sleep with her eyes open staring at the smoke detector.*

"You guys don't have whole milk? I only drink whole milk."
"I hate your coffee. It says it is Starbucks coffee. It is not."
"Your elevator smells like urine"
"If you want to keep my business you should comp my room because my stay was horrible."

We didn't comp her stay...she came back the next week.

During her second stay she didn't make any complaints about the room and even complimented the coffee. Everything was fine until all hell broke loose. As I sat in my office I heard my housekeeping manager yelling my name and then yelling at Lydia Gorham. I come out of my office.

Lydia: I'm on the computer and she is washing dishes and it is loud. I don't understand why she has to wash dishes.
Working Girl: It is her job.
Lydia: I understand that but I am paying money to stay here and she needs to stop or close the door.
Working Girl: The kitchen itself is normally 80 degrees. The dishwasher reaches 400 degrees. She cannot close the door.
Lydia: But I don't care I want her to stop. At least for 15 minutes
Working Girl: I will tell her to pause for 15 minutes. When 15 minutes is up she will start washing dishes the same exact way she was washing them before. You have 15 minutes.

She stayed on the computer for 30 minutes and then got up and checked out. Before she checked out an older couple who is staying at the hotel came through the lobby. We were all friendly with one another. When Lydia checked out she asked me "Why are you guys so nice to them? What's the point?"

That's 2 points in the Bitch column. Now to win the game...

Her third stay, which came two weeks after her second stay, is when she lost her mind. She started bullying the other guests because we are generally nicer to them than we are to her.

There was a woman staying at the hotel with her 2 children, both of her children are special needs. When the woman was getting on the elevator in which Lydia Gorham was getting off, Lydia turned to the woman.

Lydia: Fucking Bitch!

Then walked away. There was no reason for that. Two people in passing saying nothing to one another does not call for an insane person to turn to the other and degrade her.

After Lydia got off the elevator she walked over to the front desk.

Lydia: Why do you let those type of people stay here? It's really bad for business. This isn't Section 8 housing. It's a hotel.

That comment, and her previous antics, got her put on the "DO NOT RENT TO" list. The list that only the most disgusting of human beings get the chance to make.

There is a special place in Hell for people like Lydia Gorham.