Sorting Things Out. Portsmouth, Virginia
When I was between the ages of 8 and 12, my father used to take me to the JCPenney Store he managed in Portsmouth, Virginia on Saturday mornings and pay me three dollars to sort coat hangers. Because I was not yet aware of child labor laws in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the early seventies, I accompanied him because three dollars back then would buy a lot of comic books and candy.
They looked like bones; thin and milky white and dumped into large card board boxes — the skeletal remains of past clothing purchases. My job to was to sort coat hangers by style and size and then organize them on long metal racks fashioned from discarded plumbing pipes. This introduction into the world of paid employment took place in the store’s stock room where during the week, employees unpacked, priced and stored merchandise before it ending up on shelves and racks downstairs.
On Saturday mornings it was just me.
It smelled of plastic wrap, cardboard and stale cigarettes. Lighting was provided by low watt lightbulbs that hung precariously from the ceiling. The had a they tendency to sway ever so slightly when the the air conditioning kicked in. The floors were polished concrete and scarred by mishandled dollies and garment racks with ornery wheels. Near where merchandise was unpacked, postage-stamp sized price stickers littered the floor in a unique mosaic pattern. The only way to remove them was to get on your hands and knees with a putty knife and scrape and scrape adding more scars to the stock room floor. (But, that was another job for another time). Looking back, it wasn’t the best of working conditions, but what did I know? I’d plug in my mom’s portable AM radio she gave me, find a top forty radio station and with a flip of a switch, Steve Miller, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt would be my work companions for the morning.
The first step in sorting coat hangers was to find out what you’re dealing with. I’d tip over the large cardboard boxes, most of which once held dishwashers and color televisions, and let the coat hangers spill onto the floor. It sounded like a china cabinet exploding. The hangers scattered about revealing that they do come in different styles and shapes. Most were simple boomerang shape made of plastic,. Others were more like triangles with thin metal cross bars at the bottom fashioned with things that looked like binder clips. There were delicate infant-sized hangers and sturdy wooden ones used for heavy overcoats designed overweight men. Wire ones, the kind you get from the dry cleaners, were rare for some reason. That’s just scratching the surface in terms of variety, but if they were all the same, I’d be out three dollars.
I’d walk around my newly created mess and begin to sort, at times using my feet to kick the families together. White boomerangs over there. Baby hangers over here. Mismatches in the far corner. Often, many would be interlocked together like magician rings, and it would take a few minutes to solve the puzzle. How they got that way was mystery just like how extension cords and garden hoses get tangled on their own.
I gathered the sorted stacks and hung them on the metal racks by style and size, a method originally concocted by my brother Mike who preceded me as coat hanger sorter specialist in the same dimly lit stock room. He’d had move on to bigger and better things like college, girlfriends, and sleeping in on Saturday mornings.
At least once or twice while there, I would hear a door open at the far end of the stock room followed by the sound of my father’s 13 inch dress shoes clomping across the stock room floor. His gait was quick and determined. He didn’t need to announce his arrival. His footfalls told me he was there to check on my progress. Sometimes he would bring me a bottle of coke and a pack of nabs.
“How ya doing?” he’d ask, hands resting on his hips like a super hero. My replies varied from “good,” “slowly,” to “almost done.” Our conversations were brief. He’d point out what was right and then countered with what was wrong. Most of the time, I received 80% “good” and 20% “wrong.” As a youngster, I took pride in the compliments and struggled with the criticism. I felt as if I let my father down because my work was not 100% in his eyes.
Looking back, my experience sorting coat hangers and then having my father review my performance was a scenario that would play out in all the jobs I’ve had since. I’ve learned that management’s role is similar to that of a parent. Both are responsible for guiding, supporting, and growing those that “report” to them. And as a employee — and as a child — you have to take the good with the bad and sort it out on your own from there.