Chapter 6: Soak Up The Sun

Twist & Shout died. Twice, actually. And I can say with absolute certainty that if they were to open again tomorrow...

...You better believe I'd go back. Getting paid to sit around and do nothing and eat free pretzels is well worth the lack of job security if you ask me.

Right before T&S closed, I had gone on vacation to California with Brent. We stayed with my aunt and uncle in Huntington Beach and had an awesome time. I mean...an AWESOME time. We'd ride our bikes downtown, go to the beach every day, go to LA, rollerblade, everything. Tons of fun. I guess that's kind of what led me to Pacific Sunwear.

Now, PacSun was not an easy job to get. It will go down in history as the hardest I had to try to get hired. Disney World was easier. I'm not even joking. I wanted this job. I wanted it bad. Cool clothes, cute girls, good hours. I needed it. And it was at a mall. I was 17. Working at malls was still cool. Now, I learned later on that I was not supposed to be hired. Nothing against me, but they were fully staffed. They didn't need anymore people. But I called and called and called and finally assistant manager Mark (down in history as one of the best bosses ever) gave in and interviewed me.

Things got a little sticky here. You see, my teacher, Mrs Laine, has a daughter who worked at PacSun. And I was privy to some information that I probably shouldn't have been privy to. Mostly, that the manager at Pacific Sunwear, Steph, was a huge and raging bitch. Now, I probably should have kept this little fact a secret. Especially to Mark. Especially during my interview. You'd think that having 5 jobs already I would have known better than to say "I hear the manager is a huge bitch!" in my interview. But baby, I don't play by the rules.

Luckily, Steph was promoted to District Manager, meaning she was no longer working at the store. However, Mark really seemed to enjoy the fact that I brought her up and how I heard bad things. Well, Mark told Katy. Mrs Laine's daughter. Katy yelled at her mom. Her mom yelled at me. Now not only was I getting yelled at in freaking SCHOOL for something I said in a job interview, but Katy was actively protesting my getting hired. Looks like I fucked that one up.

Or not. Mark seemed to like me, and Katy quit when she started college, so I got the job. Katy came back eventually. But after 3 weeks of ice cold silence we became good friends. We laugh about it now.

Now the biggest problem with Pacific Sunwear at Twelve Oaks was the fact that they couldn't find a manager. We had three, yes, three assistant managers, but no one person in charge. Now, logic would suggest that one of the three, yes, three assistant managers be promoted to manager. But for some reason or another, this never happened. In fact, for the 9 or so months that I was there, we only had a manager for the first few weeks. It was Dana. Everyone loved Dana. I didn't hate Dana. I know you expected me to. I mean, Duane and Stan certainly left me with a certain disdain for authority figures, but I couldn't hold that against Dana. There were just some things that got to me.

1. She didn't pronounce it like "Day-na," she said "Dan-ah" Which drove me nuts.

2. She was obnoxioulsy passive agressive at times. "You need to go to the bathroom? Hmmm I would have figured you got that done when you came in 10 minutes late..."

3. She often would insinuate that I was gay. "Pinapple and ham on pizza? I always thought that's what gay people liked..."

Don't get me wrong. Dana was alright. She didn't suck. But when she got offered a better job at J. Crew and took it, there were no tears here.

From then, Mark was kind of in charge. Basically he was the store manager in the sense that he made the schedule, dealt with pay, went through paperwork, and did everything else a store manager is responsible for. The difference is he didn't get paid extra for it. He was definitely bitter, which was entertaining. We liked working with Mark.

The other two managers were named Mike. Mike and Mike. Oh, I'm sorry. Michael and Mike. Michael was the closeted homosexual who liked to talk about his days as a successful model to anyone that would listen. Mike was...well. We'll get to Mike later on. I liked working with Mike. He was just as cool as Mark. At first.

So yes. My three bosses were Mark, Mike, and Michael. Huey, Dewey, and Luey.

I also worked with Katherine who was insane but in a hot way, Katie who had just moved from California and desperately trying to move back, Matt who I actually worked with at Twist & Shout, Anita who might still actually be working there, Sean who was either from South Africa or Australia and told me the best joke I've ever heard, Amanda who was there when things got shitty, and got me my next job (Chapter 7), and some other people I don't remember. Oh and Barb. Barb rocked. I hear she married Mike. Or was it Mark? Maybe it was Michael. Doubtful.

I liked working there. I guess it's hard to write hilarious stories about shitty things that happened because for the most part....shitty things didn't happen.

Until Pat.

Yeah. Just like every story has a villain, every retail store has a manager. Although I see Pat as the enemy, I also see him as the victim. The victim of circumstance. He was old. And the manager of a youth retail clothing store. Pretty shitty circumstance.

Pat had his own way of doing things. And he did not like when his employees went about them in a different fashion. Regardless of if the employees' ways were quicker, easier, more convenient, or more productive. If they were not his way, he resented it. I'd love to go into the whole drama of it, but it's the same as my other jobs before PacSun and my jobs after PacSun. Pat liked the new people, hated the old people. Old people hated Pat. I referred 2 people, Brent and Sara-Beth, who were getting paid more than me and getting scheduled twice the amount of hours.

Here's a quick lesson for you. When operating anything, the most expensive thing is paying the employee. Whether you own a thrift store, McDonalds, or Disney World. The bulk of your money goes to paying the working man. So explain to me how giving more hours to the people who get paid more makes any sense economically? It doesn't. You're right,

So Amanda got me a job at Leslie's Pool Supply where she had started working. For a while we worked at PacSun and Leslie's. Since both of us usually worked a maximum of three hours a week at PacSun, it definitely was not hard to juggle both jobs. Then one day I was supposed to work at both places at once. I went to Leslie's. And I sure as shit didn't call PacSun. And I never went back in to work again.

About a week later I went in and asked Pat for my paycheck.




Prologue: A few years later I moved to Kalamazoo and tried to get a job at the Pacific Sunwear near Western. The manager wanted to hire me, but since I was in the system as non-rehirable, that didn't happen.