As a result of the incident involving pushing the girl in Candy, I was "promoted" to be the Credit Manager for the Belk Columbia Mall store. They had one already at the downtown store. Instead of supervising 30 people, I had about 12 to deal with. Instead of having departments spread out in the store, this was a more confined space. Within the Credit Dept., there was the switchboard, gift wrap, the cash office, layaway, and credit. I had an office that was surrounded by glass, so I couldn't go in there and hide.
The switchboard was mainly run by two ladies at various shifts during the day, but at nights and on weekends, it was run by mostly high school and college folks. The cash office had one person assigned to it. If that person couldn't be there, then it was my responsibility to do it. Gift Wrap was run by one person, which was good, because I can't wrap presents to save my life. They always turn out messy. That would allow those receiving my gifts as knowing they came from me without having to read the cards. We had a back stock room for all of the layaways, and the shelves were organized by the letter of the last name of the person that put that item on layaway. There was one woman who put everything she wanted on layaway. So, there was one shelf devoted just for her stuff. The credit area was mostly to look up credit card numbers for those folks who had forgotten their cards. We had everyone's numbers on microfiche.
There would be days that made it hard to cope. I had a pretty bad temper, but I made sure that the customers wouldn't see it. So, I would go into a stockroom and kick a box to relieve that anger. It worked pretty well, but one day I couldn't find a box. I did find a file cabinet. Rather than hit it with my heel, I hit it with my toe. I broke my big toe on my right foot. One thing about breaking that toe, it can't really be fixed, so it basically has to heal on its own. I was hobbling for several days.
Of all the places I had to oversee, I mostly enjoyed working in the cash office. You had to count the money from the registers from the day before; make up a bank deposit; and put together the money for the registers for the next day. Since you worked by yourself, you could do the work at your own pace. The one problem with the cash room was that there was no ventilation, so you got hot if you were in there too long, so most people wanted to get in there and get out as quickly as you could. Normally, it would take about three hours to do the work in there. During Christmas, it took a lot longer.
I also enjoyed working on the switchboard. People would call into the store, and you would connect them with the department they wanted. It could get kind of hairy at times, especially during sales, but the time went by fast. I had one college guy working the switchboard one day. Someone had found a wallet on the ground and had brought it to us. I asked the guy to announce that a wallet had been found. He should have asked for that person's name to call the operator. Instead, he announced that whoever lost a wallet come to Credit. We had a bit of a stampede up the escalator to claim the wallet. Thankfully, we got it to the rightful owner.
I had some good people working for me and with me. Just as with my being a Buyer, I needed a couple of people to shadow me, so I could remember what I had done from the previous day. Those two were Debbie and Denise, who were both in college. Denise was a bit more serious of the two. Debbie was incredibly fun to be around. We went out at times. She was funny and very creative. She mainly worked nights, so when I came in the next morning, I had a long letter that she wrote about things that went on the night before. A lot of the letters would just be her rambling about her life. I still have so me of those letters. We would also go through the credit card files and pick out the strangest sounding names of real people. I really liked Debbie.
As I mentioned before, we had a woman who put everything on layaway. She tried to hide her buying stuff from her husband. She had a lot of money, as her husband was the head of a big company in Columbia. She really had an addiction to shopping. If one did not pay out the layaway by a certain time, the customer was sent a letter and the item was returned to the department in the store. We kept meticulous records of how something was paid and the balance owed. One day, I was called into the head of Operations for the store. He told me that this woman complained that I stole her money by not recording her payment and returning the item to the floor. I told the manager that I had not done any such thing. The woman was threatening to cut up her charge card and tell all of her society friends that I stole her money. Even though everyone knew this woman was a little off, it was decided to remove me as the Credit Manager, after working there a year. I was sent to the downtown store to work in Stationery and Luggage, where I had been back in the mid-1970's. I was pretty much sent into exile to get me away from that woman. So, for a few months, I worked downtown. I got to see Pope John Paul II drive down Assembly Street in his Pope Mobile. He waved to me.
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