By John Grindrod
Guest Columnist
The first job for which I saw my name on an actual payroll check was when I worked on a Northrup-King experimental farm in Wapakoneta.
I was 15 years old and paid a dollar and a dime an hour to thin corn, among other jobs as directed by my boss, a man named Ray, who picked up my Lima Central Catholic bestie Greg Swick and me on summer mornings in a station wagon, the kind with the faux wood paneling popular in our growing-up 1960s. The vehicle always to me smelled like black licorice because of the DDT that routinely was transported behind the back seat.
While I’d like to say that Ray provided me some great lessons which served me well in my later jobs, to be honest, I remember him as a pretty quiet middle-aged man. I suppose if I had to credit him for something, it would be teaching me that hard work doesn’t have be an anathema as long as each week you’re handed a mint-green check with more money than could be made mowing lawns.
I’ve always considered my first real boss to be a man named Johnny Donald. He was the manager of Butler Shoes in the earliest days of the Lima Mall, a time when there was such a vibrancy to malls, the new kid on the retail block in a time when Amazon was just a river in South America.
I began working there at 17 and actually didn’t mind dressing up in a pressed shirt and tie for each shift. After all, I’d seen my dad leave each day for work as a salesman of steel and copper in business attire, with his tie always Windsor knotted. Tying a Windsor was a lesson he’d taught his only son, a lesson I used for each shift in the store that overlooked the main fountain at the mall’s epicenter. While the fountain is long gone, it was once a place where retirees sat on the circular bench that surrounded that fountain with their conversations intermingling with the splash of water.
The slot where Butler was is now occupied by Kay Jewelers. On the days when I join the other older folks walking at the mall, it’s impossible for me to look at Kays or the center carpeted area in front and not think of my Butler days.
I remember so much more about my Butler experience, especially about my boss Donald, than my summer days two years earlier crawling on hands and knees between rows of corn and pulling out stocks that aligned with certain beaded colors on a long thin rope placed on each row. It was done, Greg and I were told, to allow the plants room to grow. While Greg and I were mystified as to why they just didn’t plant fewer stalks, we were gratified to be paid for the oft-stifling work we provided on hot summer days.
Donald was such an easy person to like, in large part because he was no more than a half dozen years older than his staff, a workforce that ranged in age from 16 to 21. His accent immediately made him unique in Ohio because he was from Mississippi, and his distinctive dialect played so very well here in the Midwest, where bland dialects are so pervasive. Despite his relative youth, we all accorded him the deferential title “Boss.” The music that came through the store’s speakers wasn’t the elevator music heard in many other stores. Rather, it was “our” music, like the Beatles’ White Album.
Our boss always spoke to us respectfully and actually encouraged suggestions on operations and even implemented them far more than we ever could have imagined. I remember him as a tireless worker, which, if you were a retail store manager in those days, you really had to be, especially for national chain stores where each store’s monthly performance would be scrutinized by regional general managers. If the store was open, Donald was there, overseeing the operation, dressing display windows, doing payroll and other paperwork and dying white linen wedding shoes to match dress swaths.
I worked there two years and during that time, one of Donald’s main lessons imparted involved the importance of social skills in selling a product. He often said we had between five and 10 minutes with each customer to sell ourselves as knowledgeable and competent. How effectively we were able to do that would have a direct bearing on how many sales we’d make. At $1.60 an hour as opposed to being paid our 7% commission, making a lot of sales was so very important come paycheck time. In Johnny’s mind, there was no room for complacency in a retail operation if you expected the work environment to be energized, and ours surely was.
Now, there was one lesson I consider to be the most valuable, and, to give it the development it deserves, I’ll save it for next week. Before I get back to you next weekend, I invite you to take some time reflecting back on your very first bosses and the lessons they imparted.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
