The Proud Heretick
A seemingly wise, paradoxical aphorism just popped into my head a few minutes ago about my dismissal from Chapters:Yesterday, I saw greater respect and even more gratitude shown to me by my fellow co-workers and ironically from the upper management team following the initial, jarring experience; something which might never have happened if I just continued going about performing my daily routine like everyone else.
I earned a notable business reference, inspired first-hand the fear and awe that even petty truths can inspire, and underwent something on a small, corporate scale that is tantamount to martyrdom--a Frygean mythical experience if I ever knew one.
I have lost nothing as a result of this experience but gained a new sense of liberty.
posted by Davyth | 11:15 PM
4 Comments:
After a two year stint at Chindigo, I was ready to hand in my notice in January of 2004. That Christmas, I was not only given a comtemptible paucity of shifts, but a friend wh owned another, unrelated store asked me to help out for the season, which I did. I unwittingly missed a couple of shifts, my only blemish in my 2 years there. I showed up on boxing day and the General Manager, whom everyone hated beyond measure, called me into the office and, being very by the book, she "let me go." Co-workers who saw me afterwards remarked that they had never seen a happier man who had just gotten terminated. It worked out well since they did the work for me.
BTW, which location did you work at? I was at no less than three locations.
By the end I could work thoroughly at Cash, Fiction, Magazines, Lifestyles and Receiving. In fact, I ran the magazine section at the Box Uno store for over a year - guiding and keeping the section intact when they launched their new, troublesome computer system - before giving up in frustration with always picking up after my co-workers' messy carelessness. I was also a likely candidate for cash supervisor or head of receiving before I found the other job.
I did everything properly without supervision--and that, I think, is why I never got along with the new manager. She was a politician, a talker, that is, a bad rhetorician, who talked a lot and meddled too much in things she didn't understand. And when someone called her bluff, or staved off her nosiness, she went on the ignorant, vengeful offensive, pulling the hierarchical trump card on workers like me, who were knowledgeable, pragmatic, hands-on people with real experience.
Dude, I mean which location (e.g., Yonge and Bloor, etc).
Yeah, the last GEneral manager we got at the store (the one who canned me) started a mass exodus: people who had been there for years just kept on leaving. She was very "by the book," and of course, they always know more than you.
Man oh man are chindigo employees underpaid. Maybe not cash, but I was on the floor doing about 4 jobs at once.
Square One.
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