by TJ Seitz
then pressuring them to work overtime if needed.
It was not unusual for young workers to put in between thirty and thirty-five hours a week (or more) during the school year. As long as the kid and their parents had no problem with the situation nothing ever came of it.
Wally would even work midnight shifts on weekends and holidays when asked; which was also not legal because he was under eighteen.
The grizzled, chain smoking night crew chief, whom everyone referred to as The Green Dobber (because his nose was always running) liked him and would sometimes request Wally’s help whenever any of his regular staff called in or quit. Wally did not need any training or supervision so Dobber only had to assign him a few aisles to take care of that evening then let him go at it.
Wally learned early on from the other night workers to not ask too many questions and just avoid the smelly old man with the lit cigarette and slicked back hair, unless he wanted more work.
Jim Smith was the person in charge of setting up the front end section of the store Saturday nights. He also asked for Wally’s assistance on occasion.
Smitty, as most people called him, initially trained Wally when he first started working at the store. The seasoned clerk was a good teacher and Wally quickly mastered the responsibilities of his new job.
The two complimented each other and could accomplish a lot together in a short amount of time. Management never noticed how efficient they were and assumed both worked their entire shifts accordingly.
Smitty was expected to convert the front end over in eight hours. When he was alone he could finish the task on time if he skipped breaks and hustled the entire shift, but when Wally helped they easily completed the job in half the allotted time, at a much more leisurely pace. Leaving them with several hours to hang out in the manager’s office un-accosted by the two or three other employees in the store and the handful of customers who occasionally showed up.
While loitering in the room they’d talk about the books they were reading and argue politics; eating Lay’s Salt and Vinegar potato chips, Hostess Ho-Ho’s and Stoffer’s French Bread pizzas pilfered from the frozen food section (then baked in the large bakery department oven at the back of the store).
Sometimes they’d browse through employee records in the file cabinet or poke fun at the ugly night cashier Smitty nicknamed Ghoul.
The woman was pale, almost albino, with grey buck teeth, scraggly long white hair and yellow eyes. Her skin had no wrinkles so it was not possible to determine just how old she was.
Most people averted their eyes when talking to her. It made them uncomfortable to look at her directly. No one knew her real name or made an effort to ask her.
Ghoul was so skinny that she looked like a pile of animated bones. She also was not the sharpest tool in the shed and had almost no personality. The dull, mono toned voiced lady was reliable and did her job fine, but beyond that no one had the desire to find out more, probably because there was not much more to her.