My Motley Crew
being a cast of characters for any future Radio Shack lore
there are some people mentioned below, about whom I may have something incriminating to say. their names will be censored, Victorian style.
Rich may be known to thingsihate readers; I can't remember. he is a fortysomething former engineer who allowed his skills to become outdated, landing him in the Shack. RS management boasts that their employees can show a customer how anything in the store works. as anyone who's ever visited one of their stores knows, this is a filthy lie. a few people know most of the stock, like myself and roomie Sean, but Rich was the only one to have all-encompassing knowledge, and he actually knows WHY they work, as well. this can be troublesome if another electronics aficionado wanders in, as they will discuss ham radio for approximately four hours. more, if the customer has ever been in the Army or Air Force. Rich has fallen off radar towers, been jilted in love, had his teeth messed with by those fabulous Army dentists, and is in general a man of the world with many stories. he runs on coffee and Marlboro 100's, eats at least 3 Goya jalapeno peppers per day, and some days, nothing else. TJ (see below) has put forth the theory that Rich's chest cavity is literally a cavity, devoid of organs and inhabited only by pepper juice, coffee oil, and tar.
TJ is a smart fellow. he was my boss when I first started, and he quit having put in less time en total than I did. smart fellow indeed. he now plays a lot of Pokemon and studies astrophysics. he succeeded where Dino failed, having actually set me on fire with a thrown match. the best way to do this is to throw it in the same motion you make to strike it - it should be fluid and graceful - and, as it exits your hand, yell "HODUKEN!" I believe, at the time this occurred, we were supposed to be counting inventory.
D---- was the most incompetent human being I have ever worked with, and I've worked with a few. he even lacked the capacity to walk without bumping into large, immobile objects, and basically managed to wound himself by way of clumsiness so frequently that Sean and I made a game of counting the number of times he did so each day. he violated the Code that we salesserfs followed, namely, he took returns without stalling, lying, and becoming belligerent (not necessarily in that order - it's an art form, be creative!) and, despite the fact that he never sold anything, stole customers from people. his urge to do this was so great that when we were all sitting in the back room smoking, he would crouch by the stockroom door, with his head handily lined up with the doorknob. when a customer entered (or exited - he didn't always look, and would just take his cue from the hideously screeching doorbell) he would spring into action, and subsequently crumple to the floor with a new crater in his skull.
Lisas 1, 2, and 3 were all wonderful women who shared the same name, and were lesbians. none of them were particularly damaged or damaging, though, so their amusement value to readers is probably not so great. the coincidence was remarkable at the time, I assure you.
E---n... oh, Lord. she was a nice enough person, but the stream of frightening people who constituted her group of friends and regular customer base gave me the willies, from her best friend (who was a little slow and developed a crush on almost any male she was acquainted with for more than ten minutes) to her former employer (she used to drive limos, according to her, and be a prostitute, according to popular rumor), a large ogre. I swear to God, this man was some sort of hairy fantasy humanoid. he had the magical ability to become enraged if a small part was out of stock, and we had to block the door open for an hour after he left to let the odor waft away.
then there's E---e, the source of the rumor about E---n. picture him, if you will, as a typical South Philly Italian dude, except the typical regional accent is filtered through Alf's voice. it was weird. he was always in trouble, for offenses ranging from not working to sexual harassment. the story behind this is that some little kid stuck her tongue out at him, so he responded in kind. who knows. I hope he didn't do anything untoward, though. his dad had three rusted-beyond-restorability '39 Pontiacs on their lawn, which is wicked cool.
J--- was my boss for a brief period of time, a coked up former paratrooper with whom I used to go drinking. E---e was constantly pissing him off, and one night, J--- had to be restrained from going to his house, pounding on his door, and presumably, pounding on him. he would bring along a cronie of his who was a poor choice for a drinking buddy, as alcohol made him suicidal. I think now that hanging out with these two was the most depressing two months of my life. we all went to a strip bar one night, which was possibly the least erotic place I've ever been, and I still can't hear The Vengabus without having painful flashbacks.
finally, we come to S-----, who preceded TJ. I only met her a few times, since she had been managing a Philly store for a year before I started, but she did come in a few times. I will let circumstances speak for her, rather than my own experiences: for months (and this is after she'd been gone a year), people would poke their heads in the door and ask me, "is THAT WOMAN here?" there are many less-amusing things known that proved her foulness, but let it be said that
she became involved in fisticuffs with customers on more than one occasion.
Rich may be known to thingsihate readers; I can't remember. he is a fortysomething former engineer who allowed his skills to become outdated, landing him in the Shack. RS management boasts that their employees can show a customer how anything in the store works. as anyone who's ever visited one of their stores knows, this is a filthy lie. a few people know most of the stock, like myself and roomie Sean, but Rich was the only one to have all-encompassing knowledge, and he actually knows WHY they work, as well. this can be troublesome if another electronics aficionado wanders in, as they will discuss ham radio for approximately four hours. more, if the customer has ever been in the Army or Air Force. Rich has fallen off radar towers, been jilted in love, had his teeth messed with by those fabulous Army dentists, and is in general a man of the world with many stories. he runs on coffee and Marlboro 100's, eats at least 3 Goya jalapeno peppers per day, and some days, nothing else. TJ (see below) has put forth the theory that Rich's chest cavity is literally a cavity, devoid of organs and inhabited only by pepper juice, coffee oil, and tar.
TJ is a smart fellow. he was my boss when I first started, and he quit having put in less time en total than I did. smart fellow indeed. he now plays a lot of Pokemon and studies astrophysics. he succeeded where Dino failed, having actually set me on fire with a thrown match. the best way to do this is to throw it in the same motion you make to strike it - it should be fluid and graceful - and, as it exits your hand, yell "HODUKEN!" I believe, at the time this occurred, we were supposed to be counting inventory.
D---- was the most incompetent human being I have ever worked with, and I've worked with a few. he even lacked the capacity to walk without bumping into large, immobile objects, and basically managed to wound himself by way of clumsiness so frequently that Sean and I made a game of counting the number of times he did so each day. he violated the Code that we salesserfs followed, namely, he took returns without stalling, lying, and becoming belligerent (not necessarily in that order - it's an art form, be creative!) and, despite the fact that he never sold anything, stole customers from people. his urge to do this was so great that when we were all sitting in the back room smoking, he would crouch by the stockroom door, with his head handily lined up with the doorknob. when a customer entered (or exited - he didn't always look, and would just take his cue from the hideously screeching doorbell) he would spring into action, and subsequently crumple to the floor with a new crater in his skull.
Lisas 1, 2, and 3 were all wonderful women who shared the same name, and were lesbians. none of them were particularly damaged or damaging, though, so their amusement value to readers is probably not so great. the coincidence was remarkable at the time, I assure you.
E---n... oh, Lord. she was a nice enough person, but the stream of frightening people who constituted her group of friends and regular customer base gave me the willies, from her best friend (who was a little slow and developed a crush on almost any male she was acquainted with for more than ten minutes) to her former employer (she used to drive limos, according to her, and be a prostitute, according to popular rumor), a large ogre. I swear to God, this man was some sort of hairy fantasy humanoid. he had the magical ability to become enraged if a small part was out of stock, and we had to block the door open for an hour after he left to let the odor waft away.
then there's E---e, the source of the rumor about E---n. picture him, if you will, as a typical South Philly Italian dude, except the typical regional accent is filtered through Alf's voice. it was weird. he was always in trouble, for offenses ranging from not working to sexual harassment. the story behind this is that some little kid stuck her tongue out at him, so he responded in kind. who knows. I hope he didn't do anything untoward, though. his dad had three rusted-beyond-restorability '39 Pontiacs on their lawn, which is wicked cool.
J--- was my boss for a brief period of time, a coked up former paratrooper with whom I used to go drinking. E---e was constantly pissing him off, and one night, J--- had to be restrained from going to his house, pounding on his door, and presumably, pounding on him. he would bring along a cronie of his who was a poor choice for a drinking buddy, as alcohol made him suicidal. I think now that hanging out with these two was the most depressing two months of my life. we all went to a strip bar one night, which was possibly the least erotic place I've ever been, and I still can't hear The Vengabus without having painful flashbacks.
finally, we come to S-----, who preceded TJ. I only met her a few times, since she had been managing a Philly store for a year before I started, but she did come in a few times. I will let circumstances speak for her, rather than my own experiences: for months (and this is after she'd been gone a year), people would poke their heads in the door and ask me, "is THAT WOMAN here?" there are many less-amusing things known that proved her foulness, but let it be said that
she became involved in fisticuffs with customers on more than one occasion.