In grad school, I knew we needed part time jobs to get through this course of study, so when I noticed that a downtown department store was expanding, I marched right into the HR and told them that I could see that they needed workers and that I was an experienced department store worker -- had worked several Christmases at one. It kind of took her aback, but she hired me.
When I asked about a job for my husband, (he didn't have sales experience but did have warehouse experience) she also hired him to work behind the scenes - maintenance and other stuff. By our second year , they promoted him to be head of a team of workers. Why? Because this was Kentucky in the 1960s and the other workers on his team were black, so they put the white guy in charge. In charge of much older, experienced men. Luckily, he was good at his job so the men already respected him, plus he was a good organizer and had been taking management courses so he was a good manager.
(After we graduated, in just a few years he became a branch manager and when computers were introduced he organized the first IT department there.)
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