Adventures in retail, Part three: Ramon (1064 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.79 on 21 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ashlee (View user info) at 2005-01-10 12:53:18 EST
It occurred to me recently that in some of my stories about our favorite retail photography studio, I come off a little like one of those tortured, "the whole world is out to get me" whiners. After all, I've really only touched on the way customers and management alike had mistreated ME, while ignoring the other employees. Well, I certainly was not the only lackey to take more than my fair share of abuse. Not by a long shot.
I can somewhat understand the owner's tendency to assume that most of the workers were less than competent. Throughout my time there, I worked alongside a kleptomaniac, a low-level schizophrenic, a not-so-low-level bipolar chick, a pathological liar, a few slackers, and a "functioning alcoholic." So I, along with the other capable employees, was a little wary of each new face, and can't reasonably hold that same wariness against Louis. However, once a new employee had demonstrated that they are not only able to do the job, but actually quite good at it, I and the other workers accepted their abilities and relaxed our worried scrutiny. Louis did not. Every single employee there, even those who had been there awhile and had proven their talent, was nitpicked by him. Every mistake, no matter how small, was grounds for discipline. His favorite was to remove a person's commission, for one appointment or for the whole day, depending on his perception of the severity of the offense.
There was one employee in particular that he would single out.
Let me give you a little background. The first time I met Ramon was a Saturday. I'd been there about three months, and I went in for the normal Saturday routine. About half an hour after the store opened, he came in and headed straight for the office. In the next few hours, I observed him training with the camera in the photo studio. I thought it odd, since new employees were usually started on Mondays. Saturdays had always been too busy to train people, but here this guy was.
It took a couple of hours, but finally I got the chance to talk to him. His name was Ramon, he told me, and he had worked in the store for some time. About a year ago, he had left, and now he was back. He needed the opportunity to practice his photography, and this seemed as good a place as any.
Ramon became very popular in the store. Being one of only two male employees, he was quite a flirt. Often, he would hang out with some of us outside of work. Most often, it was Katie, the manager. They spent more and more time together, becoming very good friends. Katie's husband didn't like this. Neither did the owner. Anybody who knew either of the two pretty well knew there was nothing going on, but there was no convincing Louis to stop making his snide comments about the pair.
His comments soon turned to attacks. He instituted a rule that management was not allowed to socialize with employees. This annoyed a good part of the staff, as Katie was well liked, and often a part of the group that went clubbing on Thursday nights. Louis also came down a lot harder on Katie professionally. This would eventually lead to her stepping down as the manager.
However hard he was on Katie, Ramon was treated ten times worse. He was quite efficient with technology, and had a side business that paid him sixty dollars an hour to repair people's home or office computers. Louis took advantage of his abilities at every turn. When we switched to a different program to handle customer accounts, Louis required Ramon to go with him to all six of the stores he owned and set up the computers on the new system, and network the computers in every store. For six dollars an hour. As mentioned, Ramon was employed with us solely for the purpose of practicing his photograph. Like most of us, he loved his job, Louis being the only downfall most of the time. He wanted to keep it, so he did as Louis asked. As long as Ramon's abilities continued to make him indispensable, Louis wouldn't fire him. Without him, Louis would have to pay someone WAY more than six dollars an hour for the same thing, and that man was one cheap little bastard.
Some time later, Renee was hired. This is of little significance, except that Renee was good with computers. Not as good as Ramon, but good enough. Now, Louis no longer needed Ramon. He couldn't just up and fire him for no reason, so he tried to make him quit. Ramon was fairly easygoing, so the owner's head games didn't really get to him all that much. It annoyed him, sure, it would annoy anybody. But, much to Louis' chagrin, Ramon never lost his cool.
Late one Saturday, Louis approached Ramon. He told him that one of the photographers had gone home sick, and would probably not be able to make it in the next day. Ramon was not scheduled to work, but Louis needed him to fill in. I was standing a few feet away, and this next, I heard firsthand. Ramon told Louis that he had to attend an event at his church that day, but that he would try to make it to the store afterwards. It turned out that his church event did not end until after five, and the store closed at six. Ramon never made it in that day. With a little manipulation of the story, Louis had his grounds for termination. He claimed that Ramon had promised that he WOULD be there that Sunday. The assistant manager, ass-kissing twit that she is, corroborated his story, despite the fact that she hadn't even been in the store that day. I tried to stick up for Ramon, but it was my word against theirs, so there was nothing I could do.
To add insult to injury, Louis never personally fired Ramon. Louis was a gossip, and the whole store knew that Ramon no longer worked there by that Tuesday. And instead of stepping up and telling him, that same assistant manager told Katie (who, at this time was just a regular employee, having stepped down as manager two months prior), that since she would likely be the first to see him she could "go ahead and tell him he's fired, if you want." Now, it's been awhile since I've been in any kind of supervisory position, but I'm pretty sure it's unprofessional to have someone learn of their termination from a peer when they are sitting in Denny's. Even more unprofessional was that everyone else knew he was fired before he did. Not to mention that he'd never done anything wrong in the first place. All these factors together added up to one pissed off Puerto Rican.
Unfortunately for Louis, he didn't realize that Ramon could access the store's network from his home computer. The first thing Ramon did was to remove his copy of Adobe Photoshop, which he had let the store use in order to save Louis some money, from all the store computers. He then proceeded to make a few minor changes that resulted in the program he had installed to handle customer accounts refusing to open. His final touch was to cause all three computers to crash. At noon. On a Saturday.
Since nobody in the store knew how to fix the problems, Ramon was called in. Without the ability to prove that he had been the one to cause said problems, Louis had no other choice than to ask (nay, beg) Ramon to repair the problems. Being a reasonable guy, Ramon agreed to do so. For sixty dollars an hour. Somehow, he made it take five.
In the end, Louis lost most of the day's appointments. Some of them rescheduled, but he still lost a substantial amount of money, in addition to what he had paid Ramon to fix the computers. And since everyone in the store works open to close every Saturday, and he wouldn't send us home because he needed us to be there once the computers were fixed, he had to pay all nine employees to sit around and do nothing for most of the day. Louis, who hates losing money more than anything, ended up saying goodbye to probably around ten thousand dollars that day. His pride was also taken down a peg as the rest of us watched him hop around, screaming and looking like he might explode at any second.
The moral of the story? Don't fuck with people who are smarter than you.
User Reviews
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-03-19 16:15:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by NocternalDragon (user info) at 2005-03-19 15:37:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
That is so true, When I ussed to work for a store in the mall (Which will remain nameless - but they had an automotive, appliance,lawn and garden center, clothing, shoes, and jewlery) Anyhow they wanted me to set up there new Av system for electronics all computer based of course for my measly $9an hr when I normally got $65 well little did they know I added a little prog that would crash the system randomally every few days for an hr at a time unless I told it not every week. Well they fired me for the stuiped reason ive ever heard (Not haveing a proper collar on my shirt) so to this day they still cant figure out why there whole tv section crashes on them. Take that fuckers!
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-13 19:20:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2005-01-12 09:53:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Let me know when you'll be posting "Adventures in Your Pants".
Because I like to jackoff.
Submitted by QueenAshlee (user info) at 2005-01-11 13:13:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Uhhh.... sure?
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-01-10 22:30:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
want to slow dance?
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2005-01-10 17:33:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:54:58 (#)
Ranking: 2
PWND indeed.
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:45:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Nator (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:45:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by QueenAshlee (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:30:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:07:09 (#)
Ranking: 2
Does Louis wear a top hat?
I am sad to report that he does not.
Submitted by xenon (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:21:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
not bad
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-01-10 16:07:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Does Louis wear a top hat?
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-01-10 15:42:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Ramon is my hero.
Submitted by Lyric (user info) at 2005-01-10 15:18:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh my, this is all shades of great.
The stupid thing is, there's a Louis in every fucking store.
Submitted by Kracka (user info) at 2005-01-10 15:18:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by MrWillard (user info) at 2005-01-10 14:20:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:54:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
PWND indeed.
Submitted by bossk (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:41:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Having worked for an asshole store-owner, this gave me a warm feeling in my shriveled black heart.
Submitted by Sassmasterr (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:14:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
haha! fuck louis. cheap-arse bastard.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:13:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
HAHAHA PWN3D
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2005-01-10 13:01:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Well done.