It's now April, I've been layed off from the Welded Tube Department of LTV Steel for 6 months, gone through one bartending job and I am not happy with the second. While browsing the want ads in the Beaver County Times I see that 84 Lumber in Beaver, PA is hiring "Associates" to train to become Managers. Chris, one of my best friends through high school and the best man at my wedding, who had also worked in the mill for a summer while attending college, was now employed at 84 Lumber Company as a programmer in their main offices in 84 PA.
I'm so confident after a phone call to Chris that the next day I quit G's and I'm in Beaver filling out an application and being interviewed by an 84 district manager. The good news is that I'm hired, the bad news is that they expect ALL new hires to relocate. I explain that I am married, have an 11 month old son and a home that I had bought only 4 years ago!
They decide, because of Chris I imagine, to bend the rules a little for me. I won't have to move immediately but they do want me to commute to the Mars, PA store and then when I progress from being an associate to the next step, Assistant Manager, I will be expected to move. Every time store personel get a promotion at 84 Lumber, they are expected to move to a new store.
The district manager also asks me what would happen if the mill should call me back to work. At this point I don't believe there is even a remote possibility of that happening so I tell him that if they hire me I will stay on no matter what and that I am looking forward to the opportunity to manage my own store some day.
So I shave my moustache and cut my long hair, company policy you see, no long haired hippy types allowed. Joe Hardy runs a tight, militaristic organization. I'm happy to do this though, because I'm getting out of a bartending job that I hate, I'm moving into a position with a good future, and I'm very grateful to Chris for having put himself on the line to help me out. He's a true friend and I'll never forget that he's done this for me.
I also go out and buy a brand new red 1983 'vette!!! Loaded!! Four speed, cassette player, sunroof, etc. it was BEAUTIFUL. After all, I'll be driving about 20 miles each way to my new job every day and the 1977 Ford Fiesta that I owned had seen much better days. I wasn't much for preventive maintanance in those days and most automobiles that I owned went straight from me to the junkyard. The Fiesta was no exception.
The Chevy dealer in Beaver had a nice '83 Cavalier stationwagon in the showroom, and Jan liked it a lot, but when I saw the 'vette I knew it had to be mine! After only a little haggling over price, we said good-bye to the Fiesta, loaded Joey's baby seat into the back seat of the 'vette and away we puttered!!! Yeah, that's right, I said backseat, and indeed we puttered for sure. It wasn't a Corvette silly, it was a Chevette, but I loved it just the same.
So it's early May, I've been at the lumber company for a couple weeks, I look dashing in my 84 uniform and I'm ready to conquer the world. A trailer truck had arrived in the middle of the night and the manager tells me the first duty of the day would be to unload the truck, full of barrels that had been cut in half and that we would be selling as planters. It was spring and we were getting ready for the big outdoor product push that would be coming.
Out to the truck I go, throw open the trailer door, and the smell of whiskey just about knocks me on my ass. The barrels had just come from the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee. The distillery uses new charred oak barrels for every batch of whiskey that they make, and they sell the used ones off. How about that, I'm still learning things about the liquor business even though I'm not a bartender anymore!! 84 had bought the whole lot of used barrels that year and I had the pleasure of unloading them into our parking lot. That was the only place we had room for all those barrels. I swear that by the time I had finished unloading that truck, I was drunk just from the fumes. I might have left bartending, but the odor was certainly still with me!
The new job was working out pretty well. The pay wasn't great, but the possibilities of advancement were exciting. Then it happened.
It was a busy day about a week and a half before Memorial Day. I was in the yard helping a very picky contractor sort through 2 x 4 studs that he was buying for a home he was remodeling. We spent a lot of time going through the whole pallet of studs. Any of them that had the slightest bow, or too many knots, he would throw back on the pile. When we finally had loaded his truck with all the perfect studs that he could find, I started walking back to the office to complete the paperwork on this sale. The manager came riding by on a forklift and as he was nearing me he yelled at the top of his voice, "RUN". I looked at him and said what?? I wasn't quite used to being spoken to in this way! He stopped the forklift, gazed at me with a crazed look in his eyes and repeated, again at the top of his voice, "I said RUN!!" Well indeed, I broke into a trot, but I'm thinking, if one of the bosses in the mill had screamed at me, or any employee, this way, we would have laughed at him and told him to go f--k himself!! I just couldn't believe that a boss could talk to an employyee that way, but here I was, running, because that's apparently what was expected of me here.
Wednesday, May 24th 1983, I have a day off, the phone rings, Jan answers, "Joe, it's the Welded Tube on the phone, they want to talk to you" Terry Barr, my old foreman, is on the line, he wants to know if I'd be interested in coming back to work. He says he knows it's been more than 6 months since I'd worked in the mill, and that some guys had even taken severance pays, but they've got some big orders for oil field tubing and are putting extra crews on. If I want, I can start on Memorial Day!!
The next day I arrive at work at 84 and the first thing I do is tell the Manager about my call. He's shocked and can't believe I'd want to quit. By the middle of the day the district manager arrives at the Mars store. He is irate and tells me that before I was hired I promised him that if the mill called for me to return to work that I wouldn go back and that I was going against my word to him. I explain to him that I have a wife and child to think about, and that in spite of the opportunities that may lie ahead with 84, the money at the mill was just to important to pass up.
I told him that I was very sorry, I could work through the weekend but couldn't even give him a two week notice, because by Monday, Memorial Day, I would be returning to work in the Mill. He told me I was fired and told me to leave the property immediately. I said thank you and walked to my car.
Yeah, "RUN" my ass, dickhead.
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