Heart-breaking Confessions of an Assistant Manager

An Assistant Manager Defined

IF . . .

Someone in the company gets blamed for low profits
Someone in the company takes verbal abuse
Someone in the company is called on first for working overtime
Someone in the company never gets that much credit
Someone in the company is never considered for promotion
Someone in the company is always doing something for the company

Then it's a safe guess that it has to be
THE ASSISTANT MANAGER

ONE DAY WHILE GROCERY SHOPPING

Have you ever witnessed this experience: You are strolling down an aisle in your favorite grocery store and then your world is rocked by the sound of a baritone voice yelling near-obscenities in such a rhythm, you think the voice is that of a hacked-off auctioneer.

Upon further snooping, you are shocked at what you discover. This angry bear-like man is chewing the hide off of a lesser man who is almost in tears and shaking with fear. You gasp in disbelief for you were raised in a soft-spoken, moderate-living household and then your moderate life continued as you married a soft-spoken, moderate man.

YOUR EYES CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT YOU SEE

During your shopping task, you are still bothered by the scene you just witnessed, so you, in a discreet manner, ask a store employee what just happened. The employee, who is smart enough to look both ways as he tells you that the big guy is the store manager who despises mistakes made by his staff--especially those made by his assistant manager, the guy who was small in frame, taking the chewing.

Then you prop on your shopping cart and go into a daydream-like trance and during this disconnect from grocery shopping, you study about assistant managers in every job you can think of. And you wonder who takes up for them especially in situations like the one you just endured. And you also wonder if these forlorn men and women ever get a chance to "get things off of their chest?"

• "I hate it, but many is the night I have eaten my share of fresh grapes."
• "I wish my boss would open his car door and be attacked by a scared wolverine that was hiding in the front floorboard."
• "My boss doesn't know it, but the last coffee I brought him, I put some saltpeter in it. No wonder he was in such a pesky mood the next day."
• "If it wasn't for me getting arrested, I would plant a few hundred bucks in the boss' desk that just happened to come from a cash register."
• "I wish I had a way to pay "Lillie Dupree," our hot divorcee cashier, to get the boss in a few compromising positions and let me film him. Then I bet you he would treat me with some respect."
• "I so wish my stuffing the commode in the men's restroom when the boss had to take a dump had worked."
• "What if a rugged guy were to put the moves on the boss' decent-looking wife?"
• "I hate it with a passion when the boss tells those stale stories of when he was in a frat in college and broke the campus record for riding a cow he and his friends had stolen."
• "One day soon, I am going to disguise my voice and talk like my boss and call up a married woman and talk suggestively to her. I want him to take that for making me work overtime without pay."
• "Wonder where I could buy myself a couple of Boa Constrictors and turn them loose in this store when I am working at night all alone?"
• "I bet the boss would freak if he came into his office to see that someone had taken a black marker and made him into an ape in his family photo he keeps on his desk."
• "I bet I could write him a letter from a fake hot lady who shops here all of the time, but I wouldn't use her name."
• "Ahhh, I might call our corporate office from a pay phone and be a disgruntled customer who smelled liquor on the boss the one time I shopped here."
• "Next time the windbag boss tries to chew me out, I will stand and grin at him."
• "I got it! I am going to loosen the nuts on his office chair and when he sits his fat butt down he will hit the floor."
• "A stray dog who eats from the dumpster has a better life than me."
• "I hate the boss' stupid sideburns. I'd love to smear jelly in them and pour a jar of fireants on him."
• "I wonder how hard the boss' head is and if he would faint if someone threw a can of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti and took him in the forehead?"

And so goes the sad confessions of an assistant manager. Do you see an upgraded "It's a Wonderful Life" in my future?