Macy's

 Macy's bought out Rich's during my tenure there.  The main change was the name and some of the merchandise.  Basically, it stayed the store.  We still went to Atlanta for vendor meetings, just like we did at Rich's.  Those trips were fun, when we got to rarely stay over.  Most of the time, we had to go there and back in one day.  Those were the zombie trips.  Leaving at like 4am to get there for the start of the meeting, and then getting back home around 10pm.  One nice thing we usually did was to stop at a place called Social Circle to eat at a Southern-style restaurant outside of Atlanta.  I went with my supervisor on one trip.  She was African-American.  We stopped at a housing development and had the real estate agent show us around.  We just thought it would be fun to have the agent think we were a couple.  We got some interesting looks.  Another trip was for Electronics.  I went to the meetings, and my then supervisor (different one) went out to clubs instead.  When he picked me up at the end of the meeting, I had to tell him what it was all about, so it would appear that he had gone too.  He also drove very fast going back to Columbia, and we made it in under three hours.  But, the real difference that I saw between Rich's and Macy's was that Rich's was run more like a family business, while Macy's was run more like a corporate business.
 One day, I was in Housewares just after the company change.  A woman came up to my register to buy something.  She asked me if I had seen any change since Rich's had become Macy's.  With a straight face, I told her there had been one major change.  All of the employees were required to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV and then report about it the next day to our store manager.  The woman's mouth dropped open in shock.  Her husband walked up, and she told him what I had said.  He looked at me in shock, and I told him it was true.  They went away in horror that a company would make us do that.  Oh the humanity!  I would like to apologize to that couple, whoever they were, for my joke on them.  We didn't really have to watch the parade, but it was encouraged.