Have It Your Way---If the Manager Says Okay

I've been contemplating getting a part time job. I applied at Ace Hardware, but they haven't contacted me yet. this is another happy-happy situation for me. If the call me, I'm happy and if they don't I'm equally happy. When I was threatening, but had not yet quit Tedious Systems, I longed for a part time job where I had no responsibility, like Ace Hardware. The lovely Mrs. Sneed pointed out to me that I was unlikely to be happy in a menial job, because I don't like being told what to do, especially by a moron who thinks he's smarter than me. She is, of course correct, I hate being told what to do. One of my all time favorite movies is, Lost In America, the Albert Brooks film about two hard-charging yuppies that chuck their corporate jobs and hit the road in a Winnebago, to find inner peace. It turns out to be a disaster, as you might expect in an Albert Brooks movie. There is a great scene in the movie where Julie Hagerity brings her "boss" home from the Der Weinerschnitzel, where she is working. He is an 18-year-old guy named Skippy who confuses being manager at Der Weinerschnitzel with an actual accomplishment. It is at this moment that it finally sinks in on Brooks that he has screwed up big-time. It has been my experience that managers in general and managers in retail in particular, are often insecure thugs. That's why Ace Hardware, at least the location near me, appeals to me. The place is full of old people like me. When someone is managing an Ace Hardware at sixty, he or she has no aspirations to move up the corporate ladder. When you think of the people you supervise as humans rather than stepping stones, you treat them a lot better. I asked around at the store over the past few months and the people working there have had nothing but good things to say about their jobs. Of course, when I contemplate a part time job, I think of a dozen things that conflict with working, so I may never actually do it. In the same vein, I took Mr. Sneedlet One to the McDonald's around the corner from the house for lunch today. As I posted once before, I can't buy him a Happy Meal unless he is the only one eating. If I eat, I have to get him the same as me or he demands mine. Sneedlet has either gone nuts or is in a hideous behavioral phase, because he is a monster a lot of the time. Today I ordered us both the chicken strip combo meal and after we found a seat and got settled, he discovered to his dismay, that the adult meals don't come with a toy. This is a crisis in the life of a four-year-old, especially this four-year-old. Being the resourceful guy that I am, I figured that I would just go to the counter and explain the situation and ask for a toy. After all I reasoned, I spent more than the cost of a Happy Meal on the kid anyway. At the counter, I was waited on by a nice young woman named Paloma, Shift Manager, according to her badge. I was thinking that this was good because she was the manager and wouldn't feel constrained by some McDonald's Happy Meal-only toy rule. I presebted my case to her and after a minute of thinking about it, she went to where they had a giant box of Happy Meal toys, plucked one out and dropped it into a Happy Meal box. Trying to be helpful, I told her I didn't need the box. I swear that a look of panic crossed her face and she motioned with her head at another woman standing nearby. In an instant I realized that the shift manager at McDonald's doesn't have the power to hand out a Happy Meal toy, so she has to disguise it as an actual Happy Meal. Unbelievable. Poor Paloma brought the box to me and whispered conspiratorially that the "manager" would bust her if she found out. I gotta wonder what the shift manager is empowered to do? I'm of the school that thinks that if you intend to call someone a manager, you should let them manage. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky