The 5 Bitches

There were five of them.  Five head strong women like me, who were superior in their own minds and loved talking down to the employees. 

Bitch #1.  I’d like to start with the Head Bitch Jill.  Bitch numero uno.  She’s been there since almost day 1 of the Store opening.  She runs the paper work – inventory, accounting, human resources, pay checks, whatever.  She never smiles, never says hello, good morning, see you later, hey you.  You ask Jill a questions and she gets pissed off.  Forget about asking about your pay check, especially when you get shorted.  And that happened often. 

She always acted like it was my fault she forgot to pay you those hours or sign you up for that transit check.  Nasty with a capital N she was.  She liked to write in all CAPS, too.  

SHE WAS ALWAYS YELLING AT YOU.   

She made life at The Store so pleasant.  She never spoke nicely to you.  She spoke at you, usually raising her voice.  Ah, the memories.  She's ironically not there anymore.

Bitch #2, Melanie.  Melanie was the GM.  That basically means she did nothing all day.  To this day I still don’t know what she did on a daily basis except steal all the left-over wine from the events the night before, because after all, she was entitled to them.  He main function was discipline, because Bitch #3 who’ll I’ll get to in a minute didn’t like confrontation, so Melanie did all her dirty work.  For example, one night an event was going on in the kitchen, but the store was still open.  We were sending orders down to the cellar, but no one was filling the orders.  The cellar guys were mostly upstairs playing their bus boy rolls. So I called over to one of the Mexicans and said, is anyone downstairs?  He said yes.  Later, Melanie pulled me into the small room to tell me that I couldn’t yell at the Mexicans.  I must have missed something because no yelling was involved.  What she really meant was I was not allowed to ask a work related question of the Mexicans and gave me this whole lecture about the Owner and how he was an immigrant just like them and that he protected them.  It had absolutely nothing to do with anything.  She eventually was fired.  She was an idiot.  But, that came from Bitch #3.

Bitch #3, Gertrude.  Gertrude dresses all in black every day.  She must have owned 5-6 black skirts, never pants, 5-6 dark shirts, black stocking, black shoes, black leg warmers for when it was cold.  She reminded me of Ms. Haversham in Great Expectations.  She went home to an empty apartment, no relations and was miserable all the time, probably stuck in life by some past memory or event that changed her.  She was in charge of the floor staff and the events – booking, compensation, contracts, chefs, and execution.  She had a curt way about her and some of the things she said and did were outrageous.  My fondest memory was with Roberto.  Roberto was a slovenly Italian.  He always smelled, his shirt wrinkled and his hair mussed up.  I’m not sure what set off Gertrude on this specific day (or most of the days), but Roberto was scheduled to leave for a class about 4:30-5pm.  About 4pm, she demanded that Roberto go into the kitchen, take off his shirt and iron it – at his place of business she demanded that he iron his shirt in the kitchen – where we ate.  And he did.  Roberto did whatever she said.  He was her bitch and he knew it.  But she was crazy. 

When I came on board, she was cold to me.  Cold is the perfect word to describe her. 

Bitch#4 was the first female Chef we had.  The only time she spoke to me was to yell at me so I stayed as far away from her as possible.  Thankfully she left on maternity leave and never came back.

Bitch #5 was one of my colleague’s, Tina.  She was young, rich, an amazing salesperson, super knowledgeable and that’s all well and good, but she knew it.  Thankfully, she wasn’t pretty or she would have had the whole package.  She also had most of the top spending customers and when The Store decided to abolish salaries and go commission only, she had her paycheck set.  She was not nice to me at least for the first year and I’m pretty sure she was screwing the President of Sales, but whatever.  It was hard not to communicate with someone you stared at everyday since she sat across the picnic table at me.  She went on to become a big wig in the wine trade magazine business as a columnist.  I cancelled my subscription when I opened the magazine and saw her staring back at me.

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