The Manager

I want to write a little bit about my manager because she is unlike any manager I have ever had before. Some might call her a loving mother. Some might call her a person with a very big heart. And some might call her free-spirited. These are all very generous things to call Rachel. My first day, I noticed quite a few calls were for Rachel.

“Hey Rachel, Jim’s on line 1.”

“Rachel, it’s Mark again.”

“Rachel it’s for you! I think it’s Ben.”

I thought Rachel either had a lot of family members that lived nearby or she just had a lot of guy friends. It took me awhile to figure out that Jim was her official boyfriend who she lived with and who she had a child with. Her other three children were from her ex husband. But then I was confused because she was always hanging out with a guy named Mark. A brother? No.

Throughout the year I’ve been working here, there have been basically two main guys in her life: the boyfriend she lived with/father of her child and the boyfriend who she did not live with/not father of any of her children. And then there were a few temporary guys in between that would buy her jewelry and send her flowers.

Eventually I learned it was part of my job to lie for Rachel whenever one of her boyfriends would call. If Rachel was at work, you could hand over the phone with no problem. If Rachel was not at work, you would say she is busy helping a customer or on her break. If Rachel left work on the clock to go, for lack of a less profane word, “visit” one of her boyfriends, you would say Rachel just got off work but is running some errands. Then you would proceed to call Rachel as fast as you could, hoping not to interrupt anything but knowing you would, and telling her to get back to the store immediately. If the boyfriend questioned you (which only Jim would do usually), you were screwed if you couldn’t come up with further explanation to your answer.

Rachel wouldn’t get mad at us if we accidently blew her cover. She would only complain to us about how she didn’t like the guy she lived with but felt bad leaving him because of her kids but didn’t even like the other guy that much either. My manager, a woman in her late 30’s, would ask my advice on what to do about all the guys she was with. I kind of wanted to tell her to stop sleeping around and to try thinking about her four kids for once. But I never did.

I always wondered how she had time to run a whole store, have an average of three different boyfriends at once, and care for her kids ranging in all ages. It made me angry when she would talk to customers about kids because she made herself out to look like she deserved the “Mother of the Year” award.  And those moms that came into the store all bought it. Rachel might not be the best mother and girlfriend, but she is a great saleswoman.