4 posts tagged “tony”
It was two weeks ago monday that I took Tony to the emergency room at 12:30am (below, isn't he cute?) because he was so sick with what he thought was the Hiney (or H1N1 or Swine Flu). Two days later I came down with the same thing he had. Now two weeks later Tony gets a call from the hospital that the results are back and YES INDEED Tony tested positive for the Hiney! Of course there is nothing to worry about now, since we have both been better for more than 10 days and we aren't contagious, but of course old mother hubbard thinks he has a temparature again.
Tony started getting a cold Saturday night. He was in his "sick mode" all day Sunday, which consists of constantly asking me if he has a fever and moaning that he "doesn't want to die." Of course this time he could throw in the H1N1 (or Hiney, as he calls it). So I also got the constant "do you think I have the hiney?" And we run through the symptoms and decide he doesn't. I'm not saying he's not sick. He does have a fever and is obviously not feeling well. I just think he overreacts a bit. I made him red chile mexican chicken soup for dinner last night and he was asleep by 9:30. I went to bed about 10:30 and was deep asleep at 12:30am when he woke me up saying he had unberable body aches and felt really hot and needed to go to the emergency room.
So it's Friday morning. I hate Friday mornings because I have to drive Tony to the gym in the city and he has to be there by 6:45am to see his trainer. So he gets up, puts on his workout clothes, grabs his gym bag, and is ready to go. I, however, have to take a shower, figure out what to wear, watch some news, take ten minutes to put on each sock, etc. So Tony is always annoyingly after me with "hurry up" "we are going to be late" "what is taking you so long" and I hate it. I have never gotten him there late, so I don't know why we have to go through this every week.
Anyway, this morning, I'm all dressed and ready to go except for shoes. I grab my brown Tsubos. I go to put the first one on, and the inside looks funny. It's bright white, with glue spots. I don't remember the insides being so white - i thought they were dark, so i figure the insole must have fallen out in the closet. I am about to go rummaging through the closet looking for it, when I notice the other shoe looks the same inside. I'm thinking, the insoles couldn't have fallen out of both shoes, at the same time. They must have come this way and I never noticed. I am sitting there looking at my shoes, pondering why I don't remember them looking this white and unfinished inside. And also wondering why a $95 pair of shoes would look this shitty inside. And then Tony is on me again, "why are you sitting there staring at your shoes? I am going to be late!"
Then the thought hits me and I ask him, "did you take the insoles of my shoes out?" Of course he answers no, why would he want the insoles of my shoes. So I put them on anyway, depsite my misgivings, and we head to the car. Once I'm on the pavement walking in them, I can feel every pebble and crack in the concrete. I'm thinking that something definitely feels different about these shoes. So before I get in the car, I ask tony again if he took my insoles. He gets all offended that I would ask him again, when he already told me no. Why do I not believe him?
Drop Tony at the gym, find a parking spot a couple blocks from work, and get out and start walking. OK. The insoles have definitely been removed. It feels like I am walking on two pieces of cardboard taped to the bottom of my feet. Like Jesus sandals. I wait until I know Tony is done with the gym and call him. I ask again, did you take out my insoles? And now he says it, YES, sorry. "Why did you take my insoles?" "My new shoes are a little too big for me and i didn't have time to stop and buy insoles." "Why didn't you just tell me that the first time i asked? I would have worn a different pair of shoes if I knew!" "I knew if I told you the truth, you would spend another ten minutes deciding which new pair of shoes to wear and I thought we would be late."
Can you believe that? I took off my shoes and looked more closely, and he totally RIPPED the insoles out of my favorite shoes. He'd rather have me walk around in pain all day than be late for his trainer. What is up with that?
My goal for 2007 is to dress better, not that i'm a terribly sloppy dresser, but i think i need to upgrade a little beyond my old navy rut. some nice items, maybe it is time to actually buy and wear a jacket or two, throw in a scarf. so last thursday i took a half day off and went shopping, hitting a huge sale at club monaco, where i bought some very nice stuff for very cheap. i got home around 3:30, just in time for the Oprah/Judge Judy battle for my eyeballs (Oprah won this one, by getting me all teary with Will Smith talking about his movie the pursuit of happyness).
i hadn't heard from tony in hours, which is unusual, so i called him on his cell, which he didn't answer (also unusual). i tried him every thirty minutes for the next hour and a half, and finally on the last call he answered, but sounded very upset and mysteriously said that he couldn't talk but he had something really important to talk to me about in a few minutes. hmmmm.
well, about 30 minutes later, he calls to tell me that he was terminated by neiman marcus.
not to go into a lot of details here, but here is a little summary of what happened. it's very sad and makes me very angry. i'm assuming since i have only about three occasional readers, tony's potential new employer, bloomingdale's, won't be reading this. is that a safe assumption eve?
first of all, let me say that i have been with antonio for nearly 13 years, we've been married for nearly 8 years, and i have watched him, through hard work and determination, go from a 7$ an hour salesperson at the house of blue jeans on 6th and market, to one of the top salespeople at neiman marcus, selling the most expensive designer women's apparel in san francisco and making $65K a year. those of you who know tony will find it hard to believe that he is a hard worker, but i know, that at his job, he gives it his all. neiman marcus RECRUITED him from Saks, named him rookie of the year and the store director wrote him a personal thank you for getting to annual sales of nearly $800K his first year.
so it all starts with his number one customer, who we will call Oh Hale No! (OHN for short). She lives in the east bay, way down past hayward, and doesn't make too many trips into the city. she buys big the regular stuff, jeans, skirts, dresses, sweaters, but she also buys many big ticket items - we're talking $10K all the way up to $75K for furs, jewels, handbags, etc. needless to say, OHN was good for tony's commissions, but also good for Neiman Marcus sales. and OHN kept making these purchases on credit, Neiman would keep upping her credit limit so she could make these purchases.
also, since OHN lives way down past hayward, she rarely comes into the store. she calls tony and tells him she needs a purse, or she wants gold shoes, or she needs a new white jacket, etc. tony would describe things to her over the phone, she's want to see them, so tony would sign them out through security, bring them home and OHN would send her assistant up to our house to pick them up and take them down to OHN. a day or two later, the assistant would bring back what she didn't like, tony would sign those back in through security and charge to her account the things she kept. so there were a lot of expensive items going back and forth, in and out of the store. and tony did some of the same things everyone else there does for their clients, little shortcuts, not following every single rule.
also, the way the store works, things like this happen. he sends a pair of jeans, size 8 down to paula. she sends them back. tony takes them back to the store. they get put in the storeroom just off the floor, waiting to be retagged and put back on the floor. items like that filled these rooms, and sat for weeks before going back out. and say there is someone else helping their customer, they are looking at the same jeans in a size 6. they like them, but they want the next size up. the salesperson can't find an 8 on the rack. so she checks the back room, and there is a size 8. but they are not tagged for sale yet. so the salesperson sells the size 8 to the customer, but scans in the size 6. so now the size 8 that tony checked out and brought back in is "missing." you get the picture. theoretically, there should be a log in security where the jeans were signed back in. and tony should have a receipt from security saying he brought them back. but he brought back ten items that day and other people brought back items too, so lots of stuff is going in and out, and the security staff is not very high paid, and noone is paying much attention to all the details. and hundreds of items that show up in the computer are not to be found in the store, they are "lost" as well. yes, maybe some have been stolen by employees, some by customers, but many of them have been mis-scanned, mis-labeled, etc.
it also doesn't help that tony probably didn't have much patitence for the security people, and he probably was not well liked by them, because if you give him a hard time, as they probably did, he'll give it back. so they were probably out to get him.
almost done. so OHN wants to buy a $75K watch, but needs her credit limit raised. this time the decision goes all the way to headquarters in dallas. and after looking at her history, i think they freak out a bit. so the decision is made to cut her off.
then a week later, tony is called into hr, and security is there with a list of "violations" tony has committed and he is terminated. he was interrogated for four hours, they are asking him what happened to this item, where is this item. while they couldn't prove any specific item was stolen by tony, there were the jeans. women's jeans. in fact, all the items were womens clothing. why would tony be stealing women's clothing? oh, according to them we were running a big store on eBay selling it all. which of course they can't prove and if you know tony and i, the idea of us running a store on the computer is pretty ludicrous.
bottom line, tony never stole a single thing. he worked his ass off to keep this really demanding client happy. yes, to make commissions for himself, but also to make sales and profits for the store. he didn't take any shortcuts that aren't taken by every other person who works there. maybe he took them more often, and his attitude towards the security staff didn't buy him any friends there, so that was probably a lethal combination. but if they went through all the records of each staff person and what they signed out of the store and what they returned, and if they tried to track what had happened to every one of those items, they could come up with something on EVERY SINGLE EMPLOYEE. the system is just to imperfect. but for some reason they tried to use tony as an example. as he has heard from his friends still there, everyone has "cleaned up" their lockers and shelves (which are full of unsold, unreturned, items that were not handled according to procedure), and everyone is being extra dilligent about every last detail and procedure. so obviousley they weren't this diligent before, tony has been used as an example, everyone will be careful for a while, then it will all slide back to the way it was, and has always been.
so anyway, sorry for the long post, i guess i am kind of venting. i feel horribly for tony. he worked very hard to get to neiman marcus and he worked very hard for neiman marcus. and he never stole anything, but they treated him like a criminal. he's never been fired from a job until now. so to all my readers (all 2.5 of you!) DON'T SHOP AT NEIMAN MARCUS!!!!!!!! BOYCOTT!!!!
