First job and first paycheque: Kmart next to McDonald’s, London Ontario, Spring 1969
In April 1969, the brand-new McDonald’s on Oxford Street, in my hometown of London, Ontario, went on a hiring spree. This august establishment, a source of civic pride for many Londoners since it was the first of its kind in the entire province, attracted a spate of adolescent applicants – or, shall we say, supplicants – from across the city, and especially from my high school, Oakridge, which was located nearby. I had just turned 17 and was hungry, as it were, for such a high-status part-time job.
A number of my friends and acquaintances were hired by the pioneering fast-food icon; I was not. My panicked trembling during the rather cursory interview undoubtedly deterred the suitably beefy selection person from taken me on board the Big Mac express.
The disappointment generated by this rejection was of short duration. I promptly applied at the K-Mart department store located at the shopping centre recently built right next to the Golden Arches and was hired on the spot, effective immediately.
(The hiring bar at Kmart was obviously far lower than at McDonald’s.)
The helpful supervisor to whom I was directed inquired whether I had any experience in retail, specifically in selling footwear.
Quaking with trepidation, I explained that my retail experience was limited to pre-pubescent curbside peddling of lemonade.
As it happens, this blank resumé represented no liability whatsoever; the supervisor simply observed that I was indeed wearing shoes; I’d obviously been to many a shoe store; and I would simply learn to assist customers on the job.
So off I lumbered, sporting an official name tag, to the footwear section, where I vacillated wretchedly in anticipation of utter defeat and ignominious dismissal.
But I soon discovered that the name tag bestowed inordinate authority and that, gaining confidence with each triumphant transaction, I merely had to calibrate the BS bazooka to fine mist and shower potential buyers with accolades for their own perspicacious choices.
For the time it took to peddle the product, the shoe of status was on the other foot.
After 17 years of tiptoeing barefoot over hot coals ignited by ineptitude, I was at last, for a brief and shining moment, fully and protectively shod. Although an Emperor with No Clothes at Kmart, as far as my status and self worth were concerned, I was no longer quaking in my boots.
Your friend,
Robert
Robert McBryde – robertmcbrydeauthor.com
