Well, the Monday workday rolled around. Instead of my usual early arrival for the purpose of getting everything ready ahead of time for opening, I decided to give it only ten minutes. Of course, I still left the house at the same time. Needed to find a free parking space and also walk up to the main store to get the key, something usually not needed on non-holidays (the candy maker unlocks the door bright and early on normal weekdays). When I arrived at the factory store, why was I not surprised to find everything in dire need of attention? Everything! So, I washed the outside windows first and then headed indoors. It was time to open but so much needed to be done. I decided to open a few minutes late (ten) and fill the taffy 'boat' first. The taffy boat is actually a large rowboat, sectioned off in to fourteen bins. The bins are full (or should be) of the various flavors of taffy. They were all half empty or less. This meant lots of back-breaking filling. The 25 pound boxes of taffy are stored below the boat, five of those had no more than a handful left in them so I had to head for the taffy room shelves to get more full boxes.
As I was filling the taffy boat I heard a knock on the window. It was the taffy puller, showing up for work. Wonderful, that meant an even busier day as while he is 'on display' working in the window, crowds gather. Inside and out. In good humor I mouthed "GO AWAY!" then opened the door to let him in.
The rest of the filling had to wait until after the store was open and there was a lot of it to do. Not just candy, but boxes and bags. Then there was cleaning all the interior glass and retrieving dead gummy bears from the window display (where they didn't belong). I noticed that the owner had left a terse note for the Sunday crew (two work on Sunday) that they were to stop shooting elastic bands around the shop (he'd evidently found many), that they were there to WORK. I decided to write my own note - to the owner. I first wrote a list of everything that I had to do that morning (he probably noticed some of it while he was there to open the registers), including filling over twenty other candies, some that were completely empty, besides the taffy. Then I added a note that I had spoken to the manager and had her approval to close the store that evening without doing any filling - nothing. It was intentional and never something that I would normally do. Truthfully, even though I was there as the only clerk, on a holiday, with the taffy pulling and wrapping attracting crowds of people, who then filled the shop constantly from 11 a.m. until a slight slow down at 5 p.m., I could have found moments to fill stock (I actually did some as needed to avoid empty trays). I had a constant line for 6 hours! I am so glad that's done! I'm not claiming to be super clerk or anything. It's just that when there is that moment to grab, you can't just stand and stare. You have to work. Today I'll be turning in my time card and picking up a paycheck. I'm curious as to what the owner's reaction will be.
6 comments:
The owner will probably give you a piece of taffy and say, "gee, you're sweet!" ;-)
Story of my life.
I'm in the mood for ruffling things up at bit.
BTW, whenever the owner gets on my nerves, I turn to him and threaten to tell his mother. I remember the owner when he was about 5 years old when I managed the store back in the late 70's.
UPDATE:
Heads will be rolling. Evidently even the owner had done filling of the 1 lb. boxes of taffy since Sunday's crew had not taken care of that, either.
Will it matter, ultimately? Doubtful.
Now "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief. Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef!"..so we used to sing all those days ago at school.
Your taffy must be what I call Toffee?
If you keep topping up your taffy bins, don't the old taffies get stuck at the bottom for years and years?
You want to watch out Deb, you may end up working on Sundays as well!!
Yes, taffy and toffee are the same.
Each bin is dumped and rotated once a week so that there is never too old stuff sitting there.
I did once find a dead fly down the bottom (yuck, don't tell ;D)
I will add the following to my last comment. All the taffy is individually wrapped.
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