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Alexander’s memories - working at Alexander’s in the 1980s... !
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Feb 4, 2025
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
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bit because I want to talk to you about
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something other than cars and that is a
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couple anecdotes from the brief time I
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spent at Alexander this is my ID card
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from when I was there and you may or may
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not remember Alexanders if you're
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younger than I am you probably don't but
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they were a local chain of department
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stores somewhere between Kmart and
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Macy's if truth be told closer to Kmart
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I worked there fairly briefly for a few
0:28
months and that was an interesting job
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because the application had you take an
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honesty test the honesty test took about
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I would say most people would do it in
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about an hour and it was clearly an
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honesty test and it was clearly uh not
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testing any skill other than if you're
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lying are you at least consistently
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lying and that was
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interesting and then they asked me about
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my previous work and I told them I'd
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worked at a fast food uh sort of fast
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food restaurant called r
1:01
and I had worked at uh the shoe store so
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they already had somebody in shoes so
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they assigned me to House wears because
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since I had work at russler I must know
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everything at all about pots pans and
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kitchen wear and they did not train me
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on the one thing I really needed to know
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in their 3 days of training which were
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basically if we ever catch you stealing
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we will send you to prison we don't care
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if you take a single stick of gum we
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hate you and we'll send you to prison be
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honest they didn't really want their
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employees to do their best they just
1:30
wanted them to show up on time and not
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steal anything and to that expectation I
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think that most of us did pretty
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well so I was there and it didn't take
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very long before I realized that the one
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thing I needed to know which I had not
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been trained in was what to do when a
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customer says they need to use the
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bathroom and the answer sadly was you go
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to another store because we don't let
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you use our bathrooms uh one of the
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interesting things is that we had a dad
2:00
General Eclipse mini computer system
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which I believe at the time cost about
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$100,000 in every store and the original
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purpose of these mini computers which
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were pretty sophisticated for the time
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we're talking a long time ago was to run
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the time card system and mostly to run
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the cash registers however they got rid
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of the computerized cash registers
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pretty quickly and went back to the old
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style manual ones so we had this mini
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computer in each store which is as far
2:30
as I know was used just for the time
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clocks and maybe for inventory night
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everybody all the cashiers had to stay
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for about an hour or two as they
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reconciled the registers you couldn't be
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a penny above or a penny below digital
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time card uh punch thing over here you
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know it it's really kind of funny so my
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time at Alexander ended because uh using
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these digital time clocks uh twice I
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showed up there a few seconds after my
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shift was supposed to start so about 1
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minute
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late and uh then the third time I
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realized I was going to be a minute late
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I just turned around in the parking lot
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and said well there's no point in my
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showing up just to get fired is there
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and I got to keep my time card for what
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it's worth which is as far as I know
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nothing the one other interesting thing
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about this shop was the cafeteria they
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had really almost no benefits unless you
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work there full-time for ridiculous
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number of years but everybody could
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partake in the cafeteria which worked at
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cost it was kind of fun because uh I met
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a couple nice people there and we were
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friends for a while
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afterwards and oh yes I found out the
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markup on picture frames is that you
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take something at 17 cents and you sell
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it for $7.99 that was interesting the
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one time that they accidentally put the
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wholesale prices out into something that
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the employees could see anyway that's my
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memories of Al Anders for what it's
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worth which isn't much I hope that you
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enjoyed them if you worked at
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Alexander's I hope that you'll comment
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if you worked at one of our competitors
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I hope that you'll also comment and if
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you shopped at Alexander I hope that
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you'll comment
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