Somewhere around 93 or 94 I left the backbreaking sweatshop deli I was working in and took on what I thought would pay my bills while I pursued my desire to play guitar in a band. I started working in a bookstore. I had friends who worked there, and compared to what I was doing previous, it seemed like a fucking dream. The store offered a 40 hour work week, full health and dental benefits, and an overnight and relatively unsupervised shelving shift.
Friday was my last day.
Yes, I took an 8 month hiatus in order to escape the boss who had taken things over and was promptly running the place into the toilet. Nonetheless, I was right back in it after that and since then I have remained in not only the same business but the same store.
That's almost 15 to 16 years in one place.
I am guilty of many things in my life, and if you know me then you are probably able to expound on this, but one thing no one can accuse me of is being an unreliable employee.
Did I love the place, is that why I stayed so long? Was I getting paid like a champion? Did it help me grow as a thinking human with expanding creative interests?
No, I didn't really stay for any of those reasons.
Sure, I love books, and yes, I enjoyed the environment in general. The store I worked in was an old movie theater, built in 1939, and turned into a fully restored theater/bookstore in 1989. The original art deco murals are still there in all their pastel glory. I have been all over that old building, under the floors, in the crawl spaces upstairs, in the area beneath the stage we called the dungeon, on the roof - you name it. I know that building well. It is a part of me.
But the company that operates my store is building a new megastore just up the street and in this economy, and with the theater's declining sales, it was just a matter of time before the boys in New York shut her down.
She still has a few months left in her, but for guys like me, in management, it became time to find other options.
You see, my position was already filled at the new location, so that meant I had to make other plans if I intended to remain with the company.
The transfer I hoped for took shape months ago, but there were so many dominos that had to fall in order to get me to the store right by my apartment. I knew that this meant a couple of things. I knew that it might not happen at all and that if I got my hopes up too high I could find myself starting from square one. I also knew that if things did fall together that it would probably happen quickly.
Thursday brought a conference call that led to a hint that the final move was in place, and from there my boss made a few calls and, boom, Friday was my last day.
I am excited to still have a job, and I am excited to move to a profitable store, and I am excited about being so close to home that I can ride my bike to work. But despite all that, I am actually a little sad to leave the theater behind.
There has been a lot of speculation (often fueled by the parties involved) that the theater will be torn down once it is closed.
What a fucking tragedy.
Houston is the kind of place that for whatever reason doesn't seem to value its architectural history. I'm not sure why, but there you go. The company that owns the theater knows that without the bookstore there to anchor the center, that it will be difficult to justify keeping the place open in a business context. Now that the economy is in such dire straits, and from a total layman's perspective, it doesn't look good for the future of the theater.
On the wall in the theater is a photo from opening night, 1939, and there is a huge crowd out front enjoying the festivities and preparing to go inside and catch a Jack Benny film.
She may not survive through 2010.
Life is full of milestones.
In the last two years I have had my share.
I have spent a fair amount of time wondering how I would leave the theater, whether it would be through me moving on, getting promoted, getting fired, or dying, or what-have-you. And now, it is over and done.
Tomorrow morning I start at my new store and take this story to the next chapter.
Sure, it means little to you, maybe it means nothing to you, but for me it's a big deal.
Then again, it's just a job, and I'm glad I have one.
There, there's your boring proletarian post from me.
The theater is a special building, and I have worked with some genuinely amazing people over the years. I will miss the place, but I am moving forward, and a la-di-fucking-da.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
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7 Comments:
Shit. I wish you would have told me; I'd have come down, shot the shit, literally shit on a couple of people, and maybe taken you out for a beer. I think I'm one of few people who can sort of relate. I don't have as many years logged in the place, but certainly a large percentage of my so-called-young-life was spent in the place. Your connection is deeper though, because you spent so long in one building, with one crew, one with one eye. I was actually planning on leaving a giant "You In?" sign I found on your windshield, but now it will be substantially more difficult. Good luck with the new location, as well as the new annoyances.
That is impressive and totally alien to me. I haven't worked at one place more than 4.75 years.
I have fond memories of that theater - standing in line for Empire Strikes Back being the most vivid. Yet I never was comfortable shopping for books there, partly because the bright lights in the theater just seemed wrong.
I think you might appreciate the biking to work. I made a pretty drastic vocation alteration so as to avoid a long commute and never looked back.
maybe you should write an album like Paradise Theater... tonight's the night you'll make history....
anyway, that sucks if they tear that down, but wouldnt it be cheaper to re-purpose it? it must be all up to code and all, and unless they are thinking of tearing the whole block down to build condos or a skyscraper I'm not sure i see why they would tear it down. I'm sure a starbucks or any other inane kind of store would fit just fine in the theater. though maybe that would be worse...
It appears I have my work cut out for me at the new place, which is a good thing. There's room for improvement. I missed biking to work and look forward to getting back into it.
If they put a Starbucks in there it would be the biggest one I've ever seen by a long shot. That won't happen anyway as there are already so many in the immediate area.
There's the one in the store now, the one up the street, the one in Randall's, and then the two catty-corner to one another at West Gray that Lewis Black famously joked about in his stand-up CD, remarking on how it's a sign of the end times.
More Starbucks, in other words, would be a bad idea.
Maybe a first day wrap-up later if I can figure out how to make it interesting (highly unlikely, I know).
Not having to drive to work is awesome. Being able to do it in houston, is quite an achievement, congrats.
As for more starbucks? what? you dont think we need more? how about one on each corner of an intersection? that hasnt been done yet... and the biggest one? sounds like a dare. You do know you live in texas right?
Wow.
Well, congrats on the new, much closer position. If yer bikin' make sure to wear a helmet. Houston don't like bicyclists!
So what's happening to the 'lesser lights' of the Alabama Theater Book Stop?
The denizen's of the theater underworld, you mean? It's sort of up in the air if you listen to le grande fromage, but personally, I think they are the herpes of the company: they never go away, and their symptoms are just plain ugly. They'll probably go to the new store as part-timers, which will put a big dent in their plans to cockroach their way into B&N eternity with 40 hrs and cushy weekday hours. We'll see. What do I care, eh? I'm outta there!
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