On or very near this date thirty-five years ago, the man
pictured above was promoted to be the manager of a store in a major retail
chain where I worked. I was working as a
security manager while taking doctoral seminars at seminary. It was apparent from the beginning that the
new manager relished having power over the lives of his employees. When he was introduced to store employees,
his first words were, “I’m the boss now, you’ll do things my way or you can get
the hell out!” Then he exclaimed that
the store was filthy saying, “I guess you’ve all been here so long that you
don’t see dirt.” You could tell right
away that public tongue lashings were his preferred management style and worse,
he was a studied practitioner of the “drip, drip, drip” method of employee
abuse.
After my first private conversation with him I knew that my
days on this job were numbered. One of
my responsibilities was to maintain records of who had keys and alarm codes for
the store. I also monitored who disabled
the alarm whenever the store was closed.
My new boss informed me that he wanted keys to the building and the
alarm code. That seemed odd to me. The previous manager had neither keys nor
alarm codes. There were at least six
merchandise managers who rotated opening the store at 6:00 AM and closing the
store at 10:00 PM or later. The store
manager kept office hours. So, I asked
him why he needed keys and alarm codes.
He informed me that he could not get all his work done without working
on Sundays (this was during the era when “blue laws” kept most retail stores
closed on Sundays). That too sounded odd
to me, so I decided that he must be testing me.
I said, “It is my responsibility to protect your integrity and
mine. If you are in and out of the store
on Sundays, then there will be times when I will be watching you as you come
and go.” My new boss was rarely at a
loss for words, but for a moment he was speechless and his face turned
red. Then he bellowed, “I’m not paying
you to watch me.”
As soon as this conversation ended I was on the phone with
the Regional Security Manager hoping to find an opening for a position at a
different store in the district. He
advised me to “lay low, play dumb” and keep an eye on my new boss saying,
“Company auditors have been trying to catch him for years, but have never been
able to find anything.” I decided that I
would keep my eyes open until the end of that semester at seminary and then look
for another job.
The next day one of the highest level managers advised me
that he heard my new boss on the phone asking the District Manager why he
needed a security manager. At the end of
the conversation he heard him tell the District Manager that he would have to
use the “drip, drip, drip” method on me.
That meant that, on a daily basis, he would make working for him so
miserable that I would quit. Normally,
he made life most miserable for me once a week at the management meeting. There I discovered that, in addition to my ordinary
duties, I was assigned to correct every problem that arose. Every day, when new merchandise arrived on
the receiving dock, it was my job to see that it got out to the floor. Periodically, when Company shoppers left, it
was my job to see that the hundreds of items they bought were cleared through
accounting and returned to the floor.
The list went on and on. On more
than one occasion I nearly told him to take his job and shove it, but by that
time other people were counting on me to make a case against him.
Within two weeks of his arrival, I began sending Regional
Security written reports of my observations of the new manager’s behavior. It was immediately apparent that every
department head was under intense pressure and that pressure quickly transferred
down the chain of command. Mature, long- tenured, high performing female managers
and employees were abruptly resigning.
Their replacements were attractive young women fresh out of the manager
trainee program. Low quality jewelry, not approved for sale in
Company stores, was coming in the back door and the vendor – once she could
extricate herself from his bear hug – was placing the merchandise on display
herself. He promised a single mother who
had done some modeling that he would help her land some assignments with the Company’s
advertising department. She agreed to
pose for a private photo shoot with him, but was so embarrassed about the kind
of photos he took that she never returned to work.
All of that information was of interest to Regional Security
but nothing prompted them to action until I informed them of some pictures that
I took. Pictures I took of the store
manager entering and leaving the store while it was closed on a Sunday
afternoon.
Less than a week before I took those pictures I learned that
the new manager had appointed me to be responsible for maintaining security on
the firearms that were on sale in the sporting goods department. The firearms were kept in a high security
storage area with the key under the control of the sporting goods manager. Previously, my duty was only to double check
the monthly inventory of the storage area.
Now a shotgun was missing and, after the fact, I was being held
responsible. With federal reporting
requirements necessary, somebody’s head was going to roll. He thought he had the excuse he needed to get
rid of me. So did I. Fortunately, after searching through weeks of
cash register tapes, the missing firearm was found misplaced in an unsecured
area in the lay-away department.
That incident convinced me that I was not going to last
until the end of the semester. I
encouraged my wife to accept a job that she had been offered, hoping that it
would pay the bills until I could find another job. A couple days later, late on a Friday afternoon,
she called me at work to inform me that the physical she took for her job
revealed that she was pregnant with our second child. Before I was off the phone, one of the
managers was in my office to tell me that he heard the store manager tell
another manager that he was going to lay me off the following Monday and
eliminate my position. That meant that I only had one more chance to
see what he was up to on Sundays when he was alone in the store while it was
closed.
I monitored alarm logs daily throughout the new manager’s
tenure. I knew that he usually spent a
couple hours in the store while it was closed on Sunday afternoons. I took pictures of his coming and going with
my 35MM camera and a telephoto lens on
one Sunday only. There was nothing to
hide behind but a chain link fence at the end of a long parking lot. Fortunately, he did not see me as he entered
the store. His hands were clean and his
pockets empty when he went in. Neither
were empty when he left.
As he was leaving and locking the door, he turned his head
and looked across the parking lot between us.
His knees buckled when he saw me taking pictures of him. Once he was in his car, he drove up to the
chain link fence I was behind and honked at me before driving away.
The next morning, before the store opened, the manager had an
underling ring up a sale for him for candy he took the previous day. He had also contacted the District Manger to
inform him that I had pictures of him at the store when it was closed. The District Manager then contacted the
Regional Security Manager to inquire about my investigation. By noon that day, I had my pictures developed
and both the District Manager and the Regional Security Manager, along with a
team of company auditors, were at the store.
Store records listed as in stock three briefcases like the
one he carried out of the store. None
had been sold, but none could be found in the store. The manager did not admit to stealing any
briefcases. He did admit to the Regional
Security Manager that he had not paid for several different items that were in
the briefcase as he carried it out.
The most incriminating evidence was uncovered by company
auditors. When they interviewed the head
of the store’s accounting department, she told them that on the day the new
manager arrived he told her, “I’m crooked.
I’m crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but the auditors will never catch
me.” Then, under threat of losing her
job, he told her how he wanted her to cook the books – a scheme that chose a
different vendor each week and defrauded them of two thousand dollars.
By the end of the day, the new store manager was looking for
employment and I was getting an unexpected merit increase.
I have spent thirty-five years reflecting on the different
ways that people I knew responded to this incident. Up and down the chain of command there were scapegoats,
victims, bystanders, and perpetrators. I
got a very thorough education in the techniques of employee abuse. I learned how powerless workers are in the
hands of autocratic bosses. I also
observed how lightly those in authority viewed the boss’s handling of people in
comparison to their concern for how he handled property.
One Baptist deacon’s response made a particular impression
on me. I was shocked to see a man of
seeming integrity so eager to become a willing accomplice to the abuse of
employees trying to preserve their dignity under very trying circumstances. He helped prepare me to see through the pious
personas of bullying preachers in both the Southern Baptist Convention and in
the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Since that time, I have no use at all for those who practice and/or
condone “drip, drip, drip” methods of employee abuse.
