One of the many important life lessons I learned during my three year tenure at K-Mart was just how systematic and pervasive misunderstandings can become. I also learned to hate Freud.
As apparel receiving supervisor my tasks were: (1) unloading the apparel trucks, (2) entering all the apparel merchandise on the computer, (3) hanging up or folding each section's (e.g. girls, mens, etc. ..) clothes onto roll-bars or carts in the back receiving area, and (4) calling sales associates to come get their full roll bars and carts (I had to process a lot of non-hanging or folding things such as window blinds, hair accessories, cameras, watches, jewelry, rugs etc.) out of receiving and onto the floor. Sometimes I got to announce blue light specials. Also for some reason, I had to stock the diapers in the morning. This was a lot of work, and our store manual said that I was supposed to have one full-time and one part-time employee under me helping me with the stuff. But it was just me in the back with the non-apparel receiving person, the four mentally retarded people who did non-apparel pricing, and for half the day the social worker who managed the mentally retarded people. The receiving area was cavernous and we didn't interact very much.
K Mart and K Mart Apparel are two different companies both owned by the S.S. Kresge corporation. The store employees belong to one or the other. I was the only male working on the apparel side of the store. The other employees were two elderly white women, a middle aged Thai woman, two Vietnamese women, and five African American women. We were a noble sisterhood, but as the only guy I came in for a lot of teasing, which was generally fun and made the day a lot less boring.
Unfortunately, one of the teasing tropes could have been dangerous to my health, as it involved a sales associate with a very large and perpetually angry security guard boyfriend. The associate (call her "V--") was the woman in charge of stocking the part of the store including women's underwear. Possibly due to my puritanical upbringing, it always embarrassed me when I had to call her on the intercom (something like "800 to receiving, 800 to receiving") and V-- came back to collect all of the folded and hung up undergarments.
Unless you've worked retail, you have no idea how much merchandise goes through one of those big stores every day. It's a staggering amount, and I'd process hundreds of large boxes each day. This translated to I don't know how much underwear each week. So I'd be standing back there at my station in the dimly lit receiving bay folding and hanging box after box of women's underwear. If my colleagues came by while I was folding it, they would say, "Ooh you better watch out he don't steal it" or "What are you doing back here in the dark with all that, Jon?"
I don't think at that point in my life I gave off the vibe of someone who would steal or otherwise deface women's underwear. I think they were just teasing me. But I'd still get horrifically embarrassed, turning red and stammering as if I'd done something wrong. And then when V-- came back to collect all of the folded and/or hung bras, panties, and lingerie I would still be visibly embarrassed.
After I'd worked at K-Mart for two or three months, the hazing let off, and no one joked about me stealing or otherwise defiling the underwear. But my embarrassment while making the daily underwear hand-off to V-- continued, and somehow out of this all my apparel colleagues began insinuate that I had a crush on V--. At first they were joking I think, just having fun telling me about her boyfriend. But somehow the joke morphed into accepted wisdom throughout the whole store, and there was nothing I could do to dissuade anybody from it. This affected every aspect of my day. For example, since V-- was African American, the non apparel receiving employees would do things like sing "Brown Sugar" sometimes when I went in the room. My apparel colleagues would take me aside and with complete seriousness say things like, "Jon I know how you feel about V--, and it's not right that they tease you about it. But you need to watch out about that boyfriend of hers."
Let me say this clearly- Anyone who thinks Freud hasn't poisoned public consciousness has never had to be the only male working the Apparel side of a K-Mart. Whenever I protested that I wasn't attracted to V--, my colleagues just took that as more evidence of my attraction. It was like some dumb analyst who won't believe you when you say the woman in your dream last night was not your Mom, and he just arches his eyebrows and says something like. "If it is not your Mother, then why do you feel compelled to insist that it is not?" Well, duh. Maybe because it was not my Mother. But as we all know, for Freudians the vehement denial is just more evidence that it is in fact your Mother. You can't win. Just give up.
I don't know how this denial trope entered popular consciousness, maybe Phil Donahue, but it sure did ruin a couple of months at K Mart.
I could not win, and of course all of this made the daily underwear handoff even more painfully embarrassing. Note that before I found my inner Angus and learned to just generally rock out at stuff, I was so shy that I would hyperventilate while trying to speak in public. When you put Freud up against shy, Freud is going to win every time. It's the story of my adolescence.
That this went on for four months or so is good evidence that being a retail associate isn't sufficiently mentally stimulating for the average person. If V-- hadn't gotten ballistically angry when the store manager made her rearrange the part of the store with all the carpets, it might never have ended. I was dragging a big carpet to the stack when I saw her screaming obscenities while throwing door mats at the apparel manager's head. I actually don' t think they would have fired her, but the next day she gave her two weeks notice. Dealing with the weird guy in the receiving bay with the underwear was one thing, having to rearrange carpeting was just too much though.
At V-'-s going away party (which the manager attended) all of the apparel associates made sure that I had to sit across from V--. This was O.K. until the pituitary case boyfriend showed up and sat next to her. He kept pulling her close for a kiss and rubbing her arm and stuff while staring at me. When she'd move back over to her seat he'd raise his eyebrows and kind of nod at me, like "what you going to do about it?" Once again, I couldn't explain that I'd never been attracted to her, and I had to just sit there and try to be casual and friendly.
I feel defensive writing this now. Look, I really did not have a thing for V--. Why doesn't anybody believe me about this? Stupid Freud; I still can't win.
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