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Alexander’s memories - working at Alexander’s in the 1980s... ! Nothing to do with Mopars!
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0:00
hi there today I'm dressed up a little
0:01
bit because I want to talk to you about
0:03
something other than cars and that is a
0:06
couple anecdotes from the brief time I
0:08
spent at Alexander this is my ID card
0:10
from when I was there and you may or may
0:13
not remember Alexanders if you're
0:15
younger than I am you probably don't but
0:17
they were a local chain of department
0:20
stores somewhere between Kmart and
0:22
Macy's if truth be told closer to Kmart
0:25
I worked there fairly briefly for a few
0:28
months and that was an interesting job
0:31
because the application had you take an
0:33
honesty test the honesty test took about
0:37
I would say most people would do it in
0:39
about an hour and it was clearly an
0:41
honesty test and it was clearly uh not
0:45
testing any skill other than if you're
0:47
lying are you at least consistently
0:49
lying and that was
0:51
interesting and then they asked me about
0:54
my previous work and I told them I'd
0:55
worked at a fast food uh sort of fast
0:58
food restaurant called r
1:01
and I had worked at uh the shoe store so
1:04
they already had somebody in shoes so
1:05
they assigned me to House wears because
1:07
since I had work at russler I must know
1:09
everything at all about pots pans and
1:10
kitchen wear and they did not train me
1:13
on the one thing I really needed to know
1:16
in their 3 days of training which were
1:18
basically if we ever catch you stealing
1:20
we will send you to prison we don't care
1:22
if you take a single stick of gum we
1:24
hate you and we'll send you to prison be
1:26
honest they didn't really want their
1:28
employees to do their best they just
1:30
wanted them to show up on time and not
1:32
steal anything and to that expectation I
1:36
think that most of us did pretty
1:39
well so I was there and it didn't take
1:42
very long before I realized that the one
1:44
thing I needed to know which I had not
1:46
been trained in was what to do when a
1:48
customer says they need to use the
1:50
bathroom and the answer sadly was you go
1:53
to another store because we don't let
1:55
you use our bathrooms uh one of the
1:58
interesting things is that we had a dad
2:00
General Eclipse mini computer system
2:02
which I believe at the time cost about
2:04
$100,000 in every store and the original
2:08
purpose of these mini computers which
2:11
were pretty sophisticated for the time
2:14
we're talking a long time ago was to run
2:17
the time card system and mostly to run
2:20
the cash registers however they got rid
2:22
of the computerized cash registers
2:24
pretty quickly and went back to the old
2:25
style manual ones so we had this mini
2:27
computer in each store which is as far
2:30
as I know was used just for the time
2:31
clocks and maybe for inventory night
2:35
everybody all the cashiers had to stay
2:37
for about an hour or two as they
2:39
reconciled the registers you couldn't be
2:41
a penny above or a penny below digital
2:44
time card uh punch thing over here you
2:46
know it it's really kind of funny so my
2:49
time at Alexander ended because uh using
2:53
these digital time clocks uh twice I
2:56
showed up there a few seconds after my
2:59
shift was supposed to start so about 1
3:02
minute
3:03
late and uh then the third time I
3:06
realized I was going to be a minute late
3:09
I just turned around in the parking lot
3:10
and said well there's no point in my
3:12
showing up just to get fired is there
3:14
and I got to keep my time card for what
3:16
it's worth which is as far as I know
3:18
nothing the one other interesting thing
3:21
about this shop was the cafeteria they
3:23
had really almost no benefits unless you
3:25
work there full-time for ridiculous
3:27
number of years but everybody could
3:30
partake in the cafeteria which worked at
3:32
cost it was kind of fun because uh I met
3:36
a couple nice people there and we were
3:38
friends for a while
3:40
afterwards and oh yes I found out the
3:44
markup on picture frames is that you
3:46
take something at 17 cents and you sell
3:48
it for $7.99 that was interesting the
3:50
one time that they accidentally put the
3:53
wholesale prices out into something that
3:55
the employees could see anyway that's my
3:58
memories of Al Anders for what it's
4:00
worth which isn't much I hope that you
4:02
enjoyed them if you worked at
4:04
Alexander's I hope that you'll comment
4:06
if you worked at one of our competitors
4:08
I hope that you'll also comment and if
4:10
you shopped at Alexander I hope that
4:11
you'll comment
#People & Society
#Mass Merchants & Department Stores