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Honored Contributor
Posts: 20,019
Registered: ‎08-08-2010

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't

While not as dramatic as some of the great stories here already, I was a retail store manager in the 1990's. It was not a glorious job, and I shoveled sidewalks, cleaned bathrooms, mopped floors etc. right along with my crew, on a daily basis, and happy to do so. 

 

One day, we had a bat that was hanging right above our entry door into the store. It was out like that in broad daylight, just showed up one day, never there before. 

 

I called my district manager, as I really felt it unsafe (and I'm scared to death of bats), asking for permission and a purchase order number to call an exterminator. 

 

I was told to climb up there and knock it off myself. 

 

I didn't do it. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 20,019
Registered: ‎08-08-2010

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't


@Carmie wrote:

Back in the early 80's, my husband was a police officer in the town we lived it.  They had no way to communicate or make phone calls if they were in their vehicle, except to converse with the county dispatcher who could relay a message to another officer or make a call and relay a message. 

Anyone who owned a police scanner could hear the calls.  There was little privacy, but they could ask somone to get on a different frequency if they had to, but it was not that effective.

 

They would use pay phones if they needed to call a person while they were in their vehicles. There were no cell phones. My DH carried a pocket full of dimes for this purpose.

 

Often, if it was a big emergency, they would knock on my door and ask to use our home  phone and a few times they just came barging in...scaring me to death.  I learned to keep the door locked.

 

Today, they have computers in their vehicles and cell phones.  


 

 

@Carmie 

 

This reminds me of my dad, who was a police officer in the late 50's on through the 60's. 

 

There were no computers in the cars, no cell phones, not even the two way radios for many of them back then. My dad actually still walked a beat in the flats (industrial and bar district) of the town, with no partner either. They were just kind of hung out there on their own. There were more pay phones back then, but not really much help in emergencies. 

 

He graduated from walking a beat, to being a motorcycle cop (not the greatest job in Ohio in the winter, when they still had them on the road all year long), to getting a partner and a cruiser. He really thought he had made it big by then! LOL

Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,019
Registered: ‎10-22-2018

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't

@SeaMaiden  Why wouldn't they let you send your order slips down in the elevator? Did you also have to go down and up to take a customer's payment to the cashier?

Honored Contributor
Posts: 23,835
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't

[ Edited ]

@PickyPicky3 wrote:

@SeaMaiden  Why wouldn't they let you send your order slips down in the elevator? Did you also have to go down and up to take a customer's payment to the cashier?


@PickyPicky3   Good questions!  No, the bell hop was only for food...it was not set up for sending  orders. thus THE STAIRS.🙁

 

 No, no stairs  for payments by customers.  We did have cash drawers upstairs in the waitress station. So, we could do cash payments.... and we had the old credit card sliders back then to do the credit card payments.

 

Each waitress had her own cash drawer  with a "bank" and with your own key...given to you at the start of the shift.  You  were responsible at the end of each night to tally up all your sales.....and take your tips...(you had to report them of course)and then return the cash drawer with the " starting cash and the money you took in for the night.


it sometimes took an hour at end of shift to do your "bank"...and I was usually exhausted. But, the money was GOOD$$$$. I would make easily Two hundred dollars a night  in tips plus my $1.95 an hour wage.  Not bad for those days!  Of course by the time you tipped out the Hostess...the bus person...the kitchen and the dishwasher...that took a chunk of the tips.  But they all worked hard too and you could not do it without them!  

Thanks for asking! It brought back a lot of memories!

 

If you were short cash....it came out of your tips! It was a huge responsibility to be your own cashier as well as waitperson!  

Respected Contributor
Posts: 3,019
Registered: ‎10-22-2018

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't

@SeaMaiden  I also waitressed a lot, but in earlier years than you. I liked it, but one problem was if a party walked out without paying, they deducted it from your pay. The whole check, including the restaurant's profit.

 

I remember coming out of the kitchen in an expensive restaurant and my tables told me a big, boisterous (drunk) group had walked out. My boss heard the ruckus and told me to run out to the parking lot and confront them. I went out, but thankfully they were gone. What did he expect me to do?

 

The boss would not waiver in his deduction policy, even though I was in the kitchen. I stayed because like you I earned good money there. So unfair. And illegal even then. But if you complained, you would be forced to quit.

 

I believe this practice no longer happens today. 

 

 

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Honored Contributor
Posts: 9,745
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: The Good Old Days......That Weren't


@hckynut wrote:

@PickyPicky3 wrote:

@hckynut   My post about my 1960s hospital job had nothing to do with the ADA. It was about a major hospital in a large city that felt it was "good enough" to bring women in labor into the hospital through a dirty basement via a "gong show" transport system. I never could get an explanation of why they couldn't enter through the ER, nor could I get the hospital to at least clean up the basement and put better lighting in that area. I was an 18-year-old parttime clerk with no influence. 

 

 

 

@PickyPicky3 

 

Sorry I went of track with a long post that was obviously off topic, no excuse other than me being dumb. 

 

I will say, at 18, you appeared to be similar to me. You were one who saw a bad situation and decided to act on it. If like myself, most working around me, chose to complain to me, and remain passive.

 

Unlike your situation, I got lots of "explanations", most of which didn't make even close to common sense. Most answers I got were "it's been like this since", just as well said Adam and Eve.

 

Many that directly effected my work environment, I pursued up the "chain of command". Over time and years, I got many of these "it's been like this since", changed to meet the changing atmosphere of the jobs and the types of machinery.

 

Sorry about going off on you in my other post. The ADA in my situation mentioned, was misused by our City Officials, to bluff most those that attended their Public Meetings, designed to get feedback, while misrepresenting the facts about the ADA.

 

 

hckynut 


 


@hckynut Maybe not where you were but I was working for civil service, later for a large corporation that dealt with the public and then a congressman.