The final days of closing down this store were very hectic, long days for me. By Tuesday evening I was the sole manager for this store, everyone had headed to the new location in Opry Mills, which opened on Thursday. Tuesday was our final day of business and it went well, I had a few issues getting all the money taken care of, but nothing to write home about. Wednesday morning I had to be there at 8:00Am and the contractor and was there to start taking down anything that resembled an Old Navy, and what a peach this guy was. He was an old man with snowy white hair and a thin beard, he looked a lot like the cartoon version of Nixon, with a beard. He and I did not get along. To be fair I was very nice and respectful… at first. His crew was all labor ready workers. Guys that are paid minimum wage, recently released from prison, and will work very hard. Bearded Nixon, stood around the whole time watching, and it’s not like he had a lot to supervise, these guys weren’t building anything, they were just taking it down, not complicated. My main job and concern was to make sure all the merchandise was scanned and boxed up ready for pick up by Friday. I finished my job Friday evening. Bearded Nixon’s job was to make sure the building was clean and empty by Friday, he might finish late Sunday night, but I doubt it.
I have discovered a new TV show for A&E or History Channel, “Tennessee Junkers” Apparently the metal scrapping business is huge, since we had a lot of metal to be thrown out, there was a lot of money to be made. Word got around in the scrapping community that this store was closing and had metal… And people came. This was a combination of swamp people and storage wars. Rusty trucks were circling the store like vultures. I had the pleasure of meeting a few of these charactors, my new friend Tammy, (Prounonced Tammaaay) Had a great week getting a few good loads of scrap. Then more people and more people would show up at the back door. In this crowed there were more pick up trucks than teeth. They were stressing me out and Nixon was not helping the situation. At one point he started letting these crazies in to the store, which still had merchandise, to get some junk, I had to tell this old man, that unless they work or him, or the work for me, the cannot cross the threshold. And suddenly I’m and ass hole because “This guy says you cant’ come in…” What are you new? Is this your first job? You can’t let random people walk around in the store! Old Navy was able to get two loads worth $1200 and I wanted to go for more since the scrap yard sent us a dumpster that they would drop off and pick up and cut us a check. Nixon and his crew of roughinons were loading metal into the pickups, so I said “Hey how about instead of giving all the metal away you just throw it in this dumpster.” This did not make him happy, though I’m not sure why? He said it would be harder, he didn’t want to cut it up to fit it in there, I said what are you talking about? It’s a big dumpster you don’t have to cut anything up just put it in. He got mad asked if I wanted to do his job, I said “Walk around all day?” He yelled something at his employee with an F-bomb in it, I walked away. He later said something to me and I said, “I’m done talking to you, you have a job to do, I suggest you get it done…” The last time I spoke with him, He asked if these tables were being trashed, I said “Yep” he said “Huh?” I said “Yup.” He said “Yep, what?” It’s a yes or no question, or in this case Yep or Nope, what needs clearification? I said “Yep, they are trash.”
So by Friday evening, my job was finished, his job about half way, I told the project manager, I was done, not only with what I needed to get done, but done with this store and Bearded Nixon. The merchandise won’t get picked up until Monday, so the hired a security team to guard it while work goes on. I also have to point out that there is an Old Navy in Cookeville Tennessee, and that store manager had a team of about 4-5 people with me every day this week until EVERY piece of merchandise was scanned and boxed, I had no one else to help with this huge task. If it had not been for the Cookeville team, this job would simply not have gotten finished. My gratitude for them is beyond words.
On a side note, the Opry Mills mall is way cool, and I would love to work there, the Grand Ole Opry is barely a hundred yards from Old Navy!
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