Scorched Earth: the Government Shutdown of 2019

    

    Sweating in the cutting room beneath fans blowing a slow and steady stream of refreshingly cold, bitter air.  Trembling hands gripping the black fibrox handles of carbon steel scimitars and shoulders aching from the incessant slicing motion of the glistening steel blades.  Bandsaws serenading, matching the hum of the fans, singing in unison with rumble and roar like the war cry of a mechanized battalion.  We were a well-oiled and finely tuned machine, churning out cuts of meat like a warehouse assembly line.  The broken and busted racks were filled on each remaining slat with packages of beef and pork and pushed into the holding cooler waiting for all Hell to break loose the following day.

    We had prepared for this day for weeks on end.  I couldn’t give two shits about any other market in the company, but we would be prepared.  We had buggies full of bagged crab legs and trayed-up fish in the freezer.  I loaded the cooler down with boxes of beef and pork primals, floats of pre-packaged chicken.  We cut and processed buggies full of pig feet, neckbones, spareribs that we removed the sternum from and cut off the first four ribs to merchandise as “finger ribs” for a higher markup; buggies full of trayed-up drumsticks and thighs, buggies of turkey wings.

    With the government shutdown in full swing, SNAP benefits (food stamps) were being issued all at once instead of spread out over odd-numbered days based on the last digit of a recipient’s social security number between the 3rd-21st of each month.  To make matters even worse, they were issuing not only January’s benefits but February’s as well.  Market reports suggested that most food stamp recipients would spend the entirety of their allotment on the first day, with lingering numbers on the second and third, while the rest of the month would be bone-dry.  I told my guys “we just need to make it through three days, then smooth sailing.  Take a fucking vacation.”

    The morning of the SNAP release started out lackluster.  Everything seemed calm in the first few minutes after 7:00AM.  Then the Mongol hordes descended upon the Great Wall, looting and pillaging everything in their sight; scorching the earth as they went until everything in their path was rendered soot and ash.  By 7:30AM crowds of people began piling in, screaming “I need three $100 meat bundles!”  Each of those bundles consisted of about 45 pounds of meat.  The store manager complained “we don’t have enough buggies!  You need to empty your coolers!”  They’ll be empty soon enough, I assured him.

    Before noon we emptied all of our buggies and all of the racks.  We had a guy cutting beef, a guy on pork, a guy traying up chicken drumsticks and thighs, someone grinding ground beef, a person wrapping all the meat, and a girl in seafood steaming crab legs and making bundles.  I jumped from one block to the next, cutting pork, cutting beef, working racks and buggies.  Madness sunk deep into our marrow and seeped from our pores, flowing through our veins like heroin.  The adrenaline kept us moving and flowing, bursting like a geyser in sudden eruptions of terror, panic, fear, and anger brought about by stress and being overworked and strung out to dry like racks of dehydrating meat.

    My guys worked six days a week prior to prepare for this sea of insanity flooding into the store like a tidal wave crashing onto a small fishing village, ten hour shifts.  I worked seven, so their whines and complaints fell on deaf ears.  They would complain again when there was no work halfway through the month and I cut their hours.  They didn’t want to work, then suddenly they wanted to work.  You can’t satisfy people.  Exhausted and stressed, we soldiered on like General Pickett’s Virginians through the haze of canister shell and a barrage of minnie balls from Springfield rifles on their harrowing charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.  I felt almost as defeated at the end of the day as that ill-fated General.  I wanted to tell my manager, “Sir, I have no market!”

    In a market that did between $10,000-$12,000 on an extremely busy day, that first day we hit almost $30,000.  Customers complained to management that they had to wait in line.  Management complained to me.  “What to you want me to do?—pull a meat cutter off the block to wait on the customer?  Then the next customer who comes in won’t have any meat to buy!”  Poor Rae, my prized seafood girl, was alone to face the onslaught of steamed crab legs and bundles by herself.  She had no help I could spare.  She dealt with the brunt of it—bad attitudes, impatience, cussings for having to wait in line.  About 5PM she walked into the cutting room all flustered.

    “Just two more days,” I told her, “then we’re in the clear.”

    She did something that I never expected from her.  She smarted me off and cussed at me.  Rae was the one gem I had in my department.  She could outwork everyone and after she left a while later, I couldn’t get the same amount of production out of two-three people doing her same job.  Rae was the BEST employee I ever had.  So when she went off on me I swallowed my pride and took her aside.

    “Rae, go outside and smoke a cigarette.  I’ll take care of seafood and the bundles.”

    She left without saying a word.

    Fifteen minutes later she returned with a new lead on life.

    “I’m sorry.” she apologized.

    “Don’t worry about it.” I told her “it’s been a hell of a day on all of us, especially you.”

    I stayed until 7PM to help her out.  I didn’t want to lose my best employee over one bad day.  

    At the end of those 12 hours, we were still in fairly good shape as a department.  The case at least.  Personally and individually—beat up, broken, stressed, and in need of a heavy dose of anxiety meds, anti-psychotics, alcohol, narcotics, and nicotine…SURE!  But we survived, straggling to our vehicles like scarred veterans leaving the Somme, partially blinded and deaf, limping and sore.  We were put to the test both physically and mentally and we had record numbers to show for it.

    My department came out being second in the company, far above all the surrounding markets in the city.  The District Manager was never one to give me praise, but he let it slip to the Deli Manager “Josh was the only one out of all my stores who was actually ready.  He did the best.”  Meanwhile, during that conversation that took place outside while the Deli Manager smoked a cigarette, the District Manager yelled at me as I was leaving my car.

    “You’re getting a belly!  You need to get back there and do some strenuous work!”

    Thanks, sir.    

    The rest of the month was like walking through a city in southwestern, West Virginia after the coal industry collapsed—just empty, and you could watch the hands on the clock for an hour and never see a minute pass.  I cut everyone’s hours and they grew salty.  I loved my employees, but at the end of the day I had a labor budget to meet.  I cut each and everyone a portion of my bonuses, which I didn’t have to do, which would more than make up for the little they were losing.  They should have saved up the overtime from the first of the month to make them through the middle before bonus check time came.  I took a vacation and used my PTO to where I worked only like 30 hours a week.  I came in, did my orders, went home.  Smooth sailing.

    After that whole ordeal, I was really proud.  I was proud of my guys and proud of myself.  We met the need and even more.  I got a lot of time off I desperately needed and my bosses were not only pleased, they were impressed.  My visits from the higher-ups were rare and well-received.  They were confident in me, as I was in myself.  They didn’t show up until it was time to hand me a bonus check.  Good times…