#punk rock thrift shoppe

[zaddybutter]

So I open the store April 1st and I wasn’t sure I was even gonna be ready for a soft opening by then but I figured it would be a nice little personal goal for me because my last two April 1sts were traumatic. Last year was the day we had a threesome with Sage and then he ended up never leaving my house and then the year before that my mom called while I was cooking at The Cure Cafe and said that she just seen on Facebook how my father died. Ironically because I never really got to know him but I was probably just about to meet him for the first time at my uncles funeral. Well he wouldn’t be making it now. He died riding my uncle’s motorcycle back home to Florida.

April 1st sounded like a good day to open and I figured if it didn’t work I would just tell people “just kidding”, I think I’ve only opened like 3 1/2 days since then, like full days and I’ve already almost made rent in my credit card sales which is really nice. I’ve definitely spent a lot more on stuff in the store so I wouldn’t call it profit yet but if it goes like that all summer, it looks like I could actually sustain this lifestyle. I was really nervous to go into the store and I was planning on keeping at least my bar shifts at Bovino’s. I figured if I worked every Tuesday/Wednesday I could do the store the rest of the week and I’ve been telling everybody that and then the very first day I open the store I went to work that week and my boss Brea texted me that she was gonna take me off Tuesday/Wednesdays cuz “what are your store hours gonna be?” I was like well I based them around working Tuesday/Wednesdays I told you that. She asks if I want to just focus on the store for now and she’ll take me off and I was pissed. I was scared to lose that and I felt like I just got out of the kitchen and that bar wasn’t gonna be a lot but it was a good way to stay in the loop. I felt like I don’t really fit their vibe especially now that I wasn’t doing the kitchen for them. They were just looking to get me out and I got real spicy with her. Also I said if I was gonna keep either day that I wanted to keep Wednesday cause we were gonna start doing karaoke on Wednesdays and then me and the karaoke DJ were both shocked to hear her respond with “well that’s just gonna be once a month now I don’t think I wanna do them weekly” and then she’s saying she never agreed weekly but for some reason we both thought weekly and then half the staff thought monthly. Whatever, her family backed her up and the DJ had to be professional about it but he called me really upset, and I was already feeling like I was on my way out, so I went off on her about it, like “they’re flaky and I can’t advertise some thing once a month” and that I had been telling everybody weekly cause events like that in Stroudsburg don’t really take off once a month and that you’re kind of dooming it to fail like you don’t believe in it. I basically begged to stay.

The next 48 hours were brutal. I went to work that night after that and there was just more petty bullshit. I’m standing right there and I had offered some samples from a beer tank that I thought was done. Apparently everybody loved it but it wasn’t carbonated and I didn’t realize. Instead of just telling me, they texted their dad and then he shot me a message so I apologized to him but I even said like “hey sorry but why are they texting you? She’s standing right next to me” so I had beef with that. He didn’t answer again and then my coworker heard them saying that they needed to get rid of me over like a free beer or something when i just provide really great service. I know when I can upsell somebody like crazy by giving them a little bit of something else. It worked out great for all involved, but my “bosses” don’t really have customer service skills.