The Chip Chick

It all started one dark and snowy night......

I went to 7 Eleven on West Ave one night at 3 am to visit a friend that worked there. I told him I needed a job. I was 19. He had inside information that the Frito-Lay driver was about to quit. Something in my adventurous mind clicked. I can do that. I drove the next day to Ann Arbor Frito warehouse to apply for the job. I got hired, right out of high school. They needed minorities and I happened to be one. I was a female. I drove the route for a year until the pressure got so bad that I left. At the time there was only 5 sales persons in Jackson County. Four middle aged white men and myself. My route stretched from downtown Jackson, Polly's on Spring Arbor Rd., Francis St. and everything south of there on US-12 from Clinton to Jerome. It was one fifth of the territory. It was a huge job for a wisp of an 19 year old girl to do. I hung in until the company removed $1800 from my pay to cover an inventory shortage that arose when I could not do an inventory due to a 6ft. snowstorm in 1978. I could not get to the warehouse. One of the other issues that I remember is that my Regional Manager had me meet him at the restaurant in Holiday Inn, for a "6 month review" and shortly after dinner he wanted to know if I would like to go up to his room. 

I met a guy while driving the route and shortly after that married and had three children. That is another story for later. When I filed for a necessary divorce, 10 years later...I was waiting tables and did not make enough to support us. I went to work at a bridal shop doing alterations that also did not pay enough and had no health insurance for my sons. Another story for later. I got desparate to make enough to live on and jumped up on the dock at the new warehouse for Frito and asked what the chances are that I could have my job back. After extensive testing in Plymouth, I got hired again. $50,000 a year with a 401K and benefits including health insurance for the children. 

I was in the "let's do this" mode and I did. Soon after I got trained in the current way they do things, I was assigned a new route assignment that they had just brought on board. I would deliver to Airport Road Meijers, Sam's Club and the Kroger on Argyle (the day they opened). It was called TDD (total direct delivery) and my job was to decide what to order for the three stores every day and send the order in to Dallas. It would be sent to Plymouth they would put the order in a semi and bring it to me the next morning. I checked it in and filled the shelves. I was what was called the lead sales rep. for my stores. 

My average sales per week were about $12,000. A driver that delivered to smaller stores via the van style truck ran about $5,000 a week in sales. At this time the same territory as before now had 15 sales persons. Thirteen men and two women. In the warehouse on the wall every week they would post the sales of each driver in order of who sold the most. For three straight years my name was always on the very top. I was the one that you had to knock out to get to that position. 

This was not an easy job. Very demanding and took a lot of time. Our days were long. I would start at 5-6am and needed my stores looking great by Noon. The stores all wanted them to look good by 7am but that was impossible. I would get back to the warehouse by 3 to send the order, every day. Then go back out to all three stores to fill the holes. Then into the back room or behind the store to tie up all the empty boxes in bundles of 25 each. The driver picked them up in the morning. There was a lot of contact with my sales manager, the store manager, the receiver, the grocery managers and more. I merchandised all the product and controlled the back room stock. Can't have too much or too little or you would be in trouble. Just right. I had it down to a science. Just stay out of my way!!

If you had been given an End Cap (the rack space at the end of an isle) you better be back at the store a few times a day, that stuff emptied fast. I used to say if you put dog poop in a zip lock bag and put it on an end cap, it would sell. 

It was a man's world, that I tried my best to infiltrate. There were issues. I remember once the grocery manager at Meijers was telling me that I took up too much space in the back room when my order came in. They were big orders. My argument to him was that by the end of Sunday it was all gone out of the back room, so I don't think I order too much. He looked at me and said, "Fuck that!" I responded with, "I don't think a business conversation is the right place to use language like that." He apologized and said, "You are right, I will refrain from doing that." We continued the conversation about the back room space with the receiver, the store manager, the grocery manager and I. When we settled on how to solve the problem he looked right at me and said, "Can we fuck now?" I had no response. I was dumbfounded. You can't really talk back to them. They had the power. 

The one other time that I remember clearly was when I needed to ask the grocery manager if I could hang a big Race Week banner. He knew it was coming. To ask him something he usually gave you 3.2 seconds for the sales pitch, then he was gone. So, I draped it over a stack of pallets and had the 2 second request ready. I went and got him and asked if there was a space big enough to hang this banner. He walked around behind me and said, "Your ass looks big enough.". Again I did not have a response for his behavior. I did not find it funny. He must have. 

These are the two stories that stick in my head because of the emotional feeling at the time. There were many more minor ones. I started having nightmares about him. It was actually disturbing me. The pressure was pretty heavy. One afternoon when I could not deal with it, I was in the break room and saw a notice above the phone that said....if you are having trouble with any employee we don't tolerate that and would like to know, so we can resolve it. I wrote the number to the main office in Grand Rapids and called it the next day, at home. I told them some of the issues and abusive behavior of his. I really thought we would have him in check soon. Things would be alright because people should not be like this towards others. They asked my name and who I worked for. I was not comfortable telling them that. I could risk losing my great job. 

It was Memorial week and I had a semi of Lays that were on sale for $1.99  behind Krogers and Meijers. We were going to empty those semi trucks of extra product in a week. It wasn't easy. My sales that week jumped to $37,000. I had extra help from a temporary company and that wasn't enough. I called the boss in the morning and requested more help. It was a ton of product and it would be hard to be three places and keep the end caps full. He sent over my Union Steward to help me. We worked together for the next few hours, haulin' ass. 

A few days later, the pain in my ass grocery manager, passed me in an isle and pointed at me real mad and said, "WE NEED to TALK." I said OK. 

Next thing I know my boss paged me to come to the warehouse. When I got there he said he had arranged a meeting to talk about an issue. I went into his office ready to talk. He came in a while later and asked me to go wait out on the dock. In his office was him, my union steward and a Teamsters guy from Detroit. I was not real comfortable at this point. 

They talked for a half hour or so while they left me out on the dock. When they called me back in I sat (really nervous) in the chair, crossed my arms and said I would like my union steward in here with me. Something was going down and it did not feel good. My boss said, "We can't do that because he made management today." Oh shit!!. 

They informed their top sales person that they were going to fire me. "For what?" The answer was....."For not tucking your shirt in today." How would you know that? Your union steward informed us. THIS is Bull Shit!!!!  The meeting was brief. I don't remember much of it. Kind of like when you are in a car wreck. 

The next thing I remember is the Teamsters guy from Detroit (with the gold Cadillac with gold wire wheels out in the parking lot) taking me over to a table to sign the arbitration papers.  You can fight this and get your job back. As he helped me hold the papers his fancy suit drew back and I could see the full arm tattoos that the sported. I was a little scared girl at this point. 

I went home and could not believe how fast that all happened. My date for the arbitration in Detroit, at the Teamster Hall was a month or so out. I prepared my case and planned on going there alone. The night before I was to go, my oldest son Brad (about 19 at the time) refused to let me drive there alone. Smart one that Brad. I thought I could do it but I was pretty mentally shook. My hands sweat that whole way to Detroit. I got worse every mile. It might have been the worst thing I have had to endure yet. Brad stayed outside in the car and I walked into the Teamster Hall alone. I found the room and entered to see a long table that had Teamsters guys on the right side of the table and every level of manager from Frito on the left. I am surprised  that the  President of Frito-Lay isn't there. They all had brief cases full of documents and I was the scared little girl in the room that wore a fancy dress and heels to the event. If you know me at all, that was very out of character. I could barely speak. I was asked to tell my side of the story. Then some other guys spoke. It is kind of a blur to tell you the truth. They adjourned the meeting and I went home. "We will send you the findings in the mail."

Weeks went by. No mail. 

Finally the envelope came. I wanted my job back. I was jacked. The contents of the envelope was one piece of paper on Teamsters letterhead and the only sentence written on it was..... Arbitration Denied. I guess that was the end of that. 

I filed for unemployment and got the full amount for 26 weeks. $300 a week. The unemployment office determined that not tucking your shirt in was a good reason for termination. 

I went to 7 lawyers (starting in Detroit, Ann Arbor and finally in Jackson) in the next couple of years. They all would sit across the desk from me, in their fancy offices and tell me that I had a case of wrongful termination but they could not (for various reasons) take the case. They would however refer me to the next one. I found out later that if they refer me and I ever win, they would get a percentage. 

I was so upset by the whole thing and pretty much broke that I looked into it and found out that three stores in Jackson paid you if you found any stale in their stores. $1 per UPC code that you found. I knew (from working with them) that most of the other drivers never rotated their stock when they merchandised the product and all the stale dates went out on Tuesday. I would go into the stores and fill carts full of stale product, take it up to the service desk and make $20-$30 on their stale policy. I knew they would not put it back up on the shelf and the driver would have to give them credit. I was pissed at the whole lot of them. I did that for a year or so. One day I got a letter in the mail from the headquarters in Dallas. The letter was a cease and desist. They wanted me to stop this stale policy thing. I guess I signed a legal paper when I hired in that I would not take anything that I knew from when they trained me to use it against them. It scared me for a minute but I went and did it a few more times. Just to say, "You are not the boss of me."

I stopped any thing that had to do with them to heal myself. I was so ridden with anger and anxiety that I physically went numb from the waist down. I was very disturbed by the fact that someone can do a kick ass job and others can be so disturbing that I can't sleep at night and when I attempt to solve the issues....I am the one that gets screwed. 

I am not angry any more, really. I mean it. Well, yes I am a little. I was good at that job. I should not have been let go. The worst part was that ass that ratted on me for not tucking in my shirt. He was the one person there that was supposed to be there for me, not against me. 

One of the main lessons that I learned was, that world is all about "Watch your own ass."  I really don't want to be a part of that world. That is one of the reasons that I work for myself. 

I ripped up my Teamsters card and burned it.