Cheese Market of Shame

Today we bring you a tale of humiliation, low wages, and moldy dairy. David Serchuk is now an editor at Forbes.com, has a blog of his own about being a dad and being in Brooklyn (http://www.brooklynbabydaddy.blogspot.com), and still has an issue with Emmental. 

 

It didn’t start off as such a bad day. 

True, I worked at the Ninth Avenue Cheese Market, in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. True, I was paid $6 an hour. True, I was 30 years old.  

But if I just concentrated on the work, it was okay. The Turkish owner of the market, Pondo, seemed to like me. I ate all the cheese I could sneak, and there were several friendly shop cats to keep me company.

But if it wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t so good, either. Pondo could be kind of a jerk. Once, for example, I tried to hoist the heavy wrought-iron gate onto the back of the store as he watched. 

“You are weak, like little girl,” he said.

But mostly the market signified failure. I had been a journalist one year before, covering the financial world. Though it was kind of boring it paid the bills. I chucked that to intern at National Public Radio, which didn’t pan out. And then my old job was no longer available. 

Now I was broke, and basically paid in dairy products. 

Then one day Alicia, one of my former co-workers from the journalism job walked in. 

I knew it was her because her hair was so blond it was almost white. She had always been nice to me, but I couldn’t let her see me like this, in an apron. I hid behind a counter as she bobbed around the market, praying Pondo wouldn’t call on me. I was ashamed. It had all gone wrong, and I didn’t know how it would get better. There wasn’t much future in cheese. I prayed she wouldn’t recognize me.

She didn’t. 

After she left I got out from my hiding. A customer needed coffee, now. I was summoned.  

Taxi Cab Confession

The post below comes from Dale Waldt, who is now a consultant in the world of publishing technology. He hasn't had to fire anyone for years.

I was working at a big publisher, head of a department that had offices in NYC, DC and upstate NY. There were several people upstate I was directed to layoff. The wizards in HR set a date for corporate-wide downsizing. Something vague about improving profit margins and being "lean". It struck me that profit margin is another way of saying bigger bonus for senior execs and that I was the henchman that had to rationalize their decision. Of course it snowed that morning and I couldn't get a plane to fly up and layoff my four people. 

I called my HR VP. I wanted to delay it and go when the weather cleared. She said no. Gotta do it all at the same time she said. HR logic. Said I had to do it over the phone. People all over the country getting canned and I have to be the one jerk who can't even do it in person.

I jumped in the cab and headed for LaGuardia anyway, but only got a few blocks before turning around and heading for my office.

The call went about as well as expected. I was called a few colorful names like chicken shit and asshole. I couldn't argue. I didn't even try to explain, just mumbled something about the snow and that I had no choice.

I had spent weeks trying to make their exit packages as strong as possible. But they would never know. We had worked together for years. They did nothing wrong, just victims of across the board cuts. Percentages. I had turned 4 colleagues into new enemies. This wasn't the first time I felt sick about being a mid-level manager. All accountability, no power.

I left the company within a few months.

My Worst Day

This is an excerpt from my book, Typo. It's kind of depressing. But that's why it was my worst day at work.

I went in his office, closed the door, and offered to buy him out.

“And what would I be?”

“You could be chairman emeritus,” I said.

“How much?” He sucked his cheeks in tightly.

“Seven hundred thousand. We’d pay you seventy thousand a year for ten years.” It was less than half his pay, but, I thought, a fair deal for his half of the company. I would have been happy if someone had offered it to me.

“Not enough,” he said. “Two million.”

“Seven hundred thousand. And you have to sign this before I can draw it up.” I presented him with documents to transfer voting of his shares of stock to me. He said no. I told him again to sign.

He got up to leave and I put my open palm on his chest. Aside from when I’d hauled him off that bed, it was the most we’d ever touched. I tensed, resisted his weight, my arm straight. He pressed his cowboy boots to the floor and put his hand with its long yellow fingernails around my wrist. I prepared to put his skull through the thin office wall.

He released me, turned and collapsed in the chair.

“Is this what you want? Is this it?”

“Sign,” I said. He signed, stabbing at the page, and then put his head in his hands and cried. I left him to tell the employees. When I came back five minutes later, he’d snuck away. I had fired Dan.