SRPL Reflections: Almost

Not only did I quit SRPL once I came this close to never working there and this close to be fired…twice! I often wonder what course my life would’ve taken had either of those things happened.

I was the last of my friends to apply for a job at SRPL and even though I heard exciting tales of cool new people, parties and (gasp) chicks, I didn’t jump at the opportunity. Two friends of mine started in October of 1986 and the other in April of 1987. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure I submitted an application shortly after he got the job.

Back then, my future boss had more apps than he could handle. There was a waiting list of people, mainly coming from the nearby high schools, but a decent sampling of those from other districts and Catholic high schools. I’m sure the library had a reputation as a great alternative to those top flight jobs in the retail or food service industries most teens get stuck with.

The pay was meager but if my friends were to be believed, the place represented a new world filled with possibilities. In the interim, as I waited, I found myself a position in one of those top flight industries, and it was simply the worst of the worst – the bottle redemption center at Pathmark.

I walked in and filled out an application, thinking I’d be a stock boy (no desire to be a cashier). They didn’t have any positions, but I guess they saw something special in me and offered me a job in the bottle room. While there were plenty of machines in there they needed someone who could take the stuff that the machines wouldn’t.

This is one of those moments where people who knew me just threw their arms up and said, “Huh?” I hated work of any sort, and this was as bad as it got. I dealt with the dregs of society, the freaks, the cheapskates, and the people who did this for a living. It was filthy, sticky and gross. I wore latex gloves up to my elbows and frequently had to empty the machines, fix the machines and drag the garbage to these huge trailers in the back.

This situation had its advantages though. For the most part, the machines worked and just needed to be emptied periodically. I had to take very little over the counter and I loved tormenting the customers (especially the off-center ones). They used to get so fired up when they realized I had no money in the register and could only give them redeemable receipts. Most of the time I sat around reading comics.

I hung nicknames on the regulars like “Scrounge” and “Charlie Can,” and I can see them all in my mind’s eye as clearly as if they were standing in front of me. At least the money was good!

Now here comes the real head scratcher. No more than two months into my tenure there I got the call, the call I had been waiting for. The library beckoned! And I said…..no thanks! I said no. To this day, I can’t fathom why. My best friends worked there. Cool guys worked there. Honest to God living, breathing chicks worked there. It was clean, quiet and required no interaction with the public whatsoever.

So what the hell? When my parents asked me I told them Pathmark paid better, which was true, but that reason doesn’t hold water. I’m wondering if I still was too scared of the kind of environment the library represented. I honestly can’t be sure. What I do know is that about six months later the sheen (such as it was) had completely evaporated from Pathmark and I wanted in to SRPL, in the worst way.

Problem was, I was now a senior in high school and worse yet, halfway through my senior year. My boss did not like hiring seniors. He preferred hiring people when they just turned 16 so he could have them for two years. And in most climates he didn’t have to hire seniors.

Fortune smiled upon me as several employees had recently left and he found himself, really for the first time in many years, understaffed. I had resubmitted an application (not sure exactly when) and he called me, asking if I was serious this time. A sheepish “yes” and I was on my way!

That was not the end of my good luck. Generally, people were “released” from SRPL upon graduation from high school. Selected individuals were invited to become supervisors if they stayed home for college and if my boss liked them. I think based solely on the fact I stayed home for school my boss allowed me to stay. Otherwise, the job would’ve lasted a mere eight months.

Now all I have to do is keep the job. Easy, right? Actually I came close to being tossed on my ass a few times in those early years. I was promoted to supervisor status because my boss needed a body. It was not based on merit. I needed a bit of seasoning, to say the least.

My problem was not realizing the eyes of the place were upon me at every turn. I lacked subtlety, to say the least. Without getting into the sordid details one night I was nowhere to be found with my girlfriend and her Dad came up to the library looking for her, as her shift had ended almost an hour before. Wow, that was stupid. So incredibly stupid. It’s not to say that others didn’t “mess around” in the building. I was just incredibly dumb about it!

Of course my boss was told and he tore me a new one, but I survived. He sort of understood (the whole “I was young once too” thing) and let me off with a warning.

A little more than a year later I did something that, in his mind, was a thousand times worse. I embarrassed him.

Our reputations still had not improved to this point and one Friday I accompanied my fellow supervisor (and buddy) on a lunch hour jaunt all the way to Nassau Community College. Needless to say, we were gone more than an hour. When we returned my boss’s sister (and the library’s chief busybody) confronted us and altered out time sheet to reflect how long she thought we were gone.

Now to this day I dispute the amount of time she claimed we were gone. Yes, it was more than an hour but she claimed we were gone for one and three quarter hours. I knew it was more like one and one quarter (OK, maybe 1:20). I was so annoyed she changed the time sheet, but rather than plead my case to my boss the next time he was in, I changed it back, and worse than that, I informed the bookkeeper and brought someone from the “outside” into this fracas.

What transpired next was the closest I came to being shown the door. My boss went through the roof. He hated anyone else on the staff knowing his internal business (except for his sister the spy). He got his hands on me and reamed me out Old Testament style. My Dad never yelled at me like that. He used the F-word and everything!

It was like in those movies when the stereotypical African American police chief is screaming so loudly at Eddie Murphy or Mel Gibson that he begins speaking in tongues and goes totally incoherent. I emerged from that meeting cowed and terrified. He got his hands on me before my “accomplice” in the matter and when I told him what happened he told me he’d take the blame and offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb since he had another job and I didn’t.

He met with my boss and offered to quit but by then my boss had calmed down, so they worked out a one-month “suspension” for him and (another) warning for me but no punishment. It allowed my boss to save face with his sister and the rest of the staff and be seen as taking appropriate corrective action without ruining our lives.

The importance of those moments has never been lost on me. I spent the next five years proving to my boss he didn’t make a mistake by keeping me and I more than validated whatever faith he placed in me. Our relationship evolved into something really wonderful and I consider him one of my great mentors. I often say that he saw the potential in us we couldn’t see in ourselves and I think that’s why, even in his apoplectic states; he didn’t can me, when he did others in similar situations.

So I came this close to never working there, to working there for eight months or to being fired after less than two years. Yikes.

I just needed a little seasoning. :-)