Fyodor Soloview

THE WAREHOUSE

Story

Twenty years ago, when we were students at the University, my friend Michael Tubbs claimed that he’d never exercise.

“Sport is a pure waste of your time, energy and money, and I can’t think of anything more stupid than to watch sport programs on TV.” Michael told me that when University staff tried to involve him simultaneously in running competition, weight lifting and fishing.

“A person should get his adrenaline level from his job and life itself.” That was his credo and he embodied his ideas, creating the big shopping center. All his enthusiasm was directed into transforming a small warehouse in downtown Seattle, which he inherited from his father, from a convenient notion store to a giant department store with its own catalogue.

Now he was a bachelor in his forties, shabby and good-natured. When his new secretary Kate Hopson, slender and graceful as a dolphin, started to pass him day after day in her skin-tight skirt, Michael became restless. He was terribly in love and couldn’t say a word, fearing an accusation of sexual harassment.

At that point, he called me for advice. “Look, man, I have to lose weight, pronto. I’m ashamed. She has such a great body and I’m just a potato sack. But I won’t exercise.”

I came to the rescue. “When did you start putting weight? Exactly when you stopped moving boxes and put yourself into that fancy office of yours. Come on, let your muscles work! Start again to unload containers, take care of the garbage bins . . .”

“Thanks.” Michael hung up.

The next time I heard from him was a year later, at his wedding. He was in great shape, just like his bride Kate. Michael was famous nationwide by then. On his way to the better body he earned about a million bucks and, as he told me privately, uncovered a thieves conspiracy at his own warehouse.

Michael hadn’t been insulted by my great idea of changing his career as a president of a successful corporation to become warehouse loader. He took it seriously, because he always trusted his friends.

First of all, dressed in the plainest of clothes, he knocked on every door in the neighborhood, trying to get a part-time job as a loader at any store or warehouse. He was rejected everywhere, despite the superb references he gave for himself when anybody called his office inquiring about “this guy Michael” who had just quit. Had he really worked for the company as a loader for twenty years and was it true that he was paid ten dollars per hour?

Desperate to find a job as a loader (and hoping to learn how business was going at his competitors) Michael tried his luck at his own warehouse. Nobody at the warehouse knew him personally, and he hoped this time to be a success. He was rejected again.

Michael made a decision then and there to improve production at the warehouse by hiring more part-time workers for the night shift. He also arranged to have all resumes sent to him personally for the final decision. After collecting more than a dozen resumes, Michael ordered the hiring of himself, using a fake name, of course.

As he put on his ugly loader’s uniform every night, Michael began to notice that he was starting to lose weight, but at work things were not going so smoothly. The warehouse supervisor, Oscar Moore, didn’t even try to conceal his dislike and suspicion towards the new employee. “How could I possibly hire such a swine,” wondered Michael. On the other end, he stopped controlling the hiring process, entrusting it to his purchasing manager Greg Wells.

“Mind your own business,” Oscar kept saying to Michael, “or you’ll be fired. Do what I tell you to do. If I tell you to unload, unload; if I tell you to clean the mess, do it. Don’t touch any documents; that’s not your business.”

So Michael started to study the way his warehouse was managed, facing difficulties and harassment. A month later his weight was noticeably lower, his breath was lighter. His emotions for Kate became stronger and stronger. Nobody at the company suspected that the big boss worked as a night-shift loader.

For Michael this “new” job was better than exercising. He wasn’t just losing weight, he was using his time towards a business purpose. As time passed, he started to suspect that it wasn’t exactly HIS business he was dealing with. There were a number of boxes received and unloaded at his warehouse that he had never ordered. Later, he discovered, these boxes were being loaded on trucks with his commodities and taken away somewhere.

But even more than that, Michael was upset with the reaction of everyday people to his appearance. Clients to whom he delivered their purchases saw him as a deprived person, wearing a hideous brown uniform.

He was getting small indications of what these people might think about him – here is a clumsy, forty year old loader who could lose his job any day because of his age, or that moving a heavy refrigerator up to the second floor one day he’d miss the step and the refrigerator would roll down the stairs, breaking both the rails and his legs.

Then Michael got the idea that brought him an extra million dollars. At his day job as president, he hired a designer to create a new, bright and comfortable uniform for his warehouse employees, something between sport clothes and a military uniform, with good solid sneakers. It was a kind of uniform which would transform a plain loader into a champion runner and weightlifter simultaneously. Upon completion of the order, Michael had all employees of his warehouse, including himself, dressed in this new outfit.

The response of people was fantastic. Even Oscar had a few compliments for the unseen boss “who finally started to think about his employees.”

In the new uniform, Michael was ready to go for a date with his sweetheart, but it was still too early for that. Instead of dating, he patented this uniform, naming it “Working Sport,” launched a big advertising campaign on TV and sent samples to every important company which sold uniforms. He started to get orders, first from Seattle companies and then from all around America.

Michael was selling a great number of his uniforms to the middle-class Americans who were desperate to get extra part-time jobs as loaders, window cleaners, landscapers or bicycle messengers. In these kinds of jobs they saw their chance to lose weight while being paid for it.

Michael became so involved in his new enterprise that he was ready to quit his night job at the warehouse, but two reasons kept him there. He still wasn’t satisfied with his body and he wanted to uncover the mysterious affairs with his merchandise.

Sometimes Michael would be loading containers with shipments of the new uniform, now being sent everywhere in America. To his surprise, these uniforms disappearing from the warehouse were listed on the purchasing manager’s report as uniforms being used by the company employees. The picture was clear to Michael, but he preferred to wait for a better moment to divulge it completely.

A few days later a truck with goods arrived, but it wasn’t completely unloaded. The next morning the driver was to move the remainder to a different location. Where exactly, was for Michael to find out. He started his own investigation.

At dawn he opened the door of the warehouse with his own set of keys and locked it behind him. He was wearing his favorite uniform and his sneakers didn’t make any noise as he walked across the concrete floor. He unlocked the truck, loaded an empty freezer box inside and climbed into it, making holes so he could see out. Shutting the door, Michael made sure that it was properly locked. He had some food with him, in case the truck did not leave for hours.

At nine in the morning he heard the voices of the loaders. The truck door swung open, and he saw Oscar and Greg, one of his purchasing managers, discussing delivery of the merchandise. They loaded more boxes and locked the door. The truck left the warehouse.

Forty minutes later the truck stopped. The door was opened and a team of loaders unknown to Michael started to unload. Fortunately all of them were wearing his creation, the “Working Sport” uniform.

As soon as it was convenient, Michael climbed from his hiding place and started to unload the truck, pretending to be one of the team. However, the warehouse manager noticed the stranger and approached him. Without wasting any time, Michael burst into a run. He ran through the store, where there were just a few clients, and left through the front door. Looking back, Michael read the name of the store – “Magnum Electronics.” It was one of Michael’s competitors.

Thinking about the discovery he had just made, Michael had to keep his mind on his running too, because the crew of loaders from Magnum was still following him.

For about a half a mile he ran in the streets. He noticed that one of the loaders was following him in a car, but he escaped, taking a narrow path between office buildings. By that time Michael recognized that he was at the South Mall in Tukwila – a Seattle suburb. There was no hope of finding a taxi or even a bus. Everybody in the neighborhood came to the mall in cars.

Michael decided to try to reach Costco, which was another half mile away. He sped along the sidewalk, cutting the edges, trying not to be run over by cars. He maintained a 30-second lead from the crowd of four loaders behind him. Michael and his pursuers resembled a group of joggers following their leader, shouting for some reason “Stop, you bastard!”

Only now did Michael fully realize the real profit of his work at the warehouse. Never in his life had he run that fast for such a long distance. He was able to do it now. At the door to Costco Michael spun inside, waving his membership card to the girl at the entrance.

To disappear in the busy store was an easy task, but Michael had a different plan. He hoped, and he was right, that his hunters would not have membership cards with them. They would be deterred, trying to get temporary cards to be able to enter the store. He also hoped that they were not going to be very persuasive in their chase of a strange loader who just happened to be in their store.

With these reassuring thoughts, Michael proceeded to the telephone booth and called for a taxi. Five minutes later the cab was waiting for him at the back door of the store. He didn’t have anything to declare, so store personnel let him leave without delay. It was just in time, because his pursuers had gained entrance to the store and had started to look for him, one of them blocking the main entrance.

Michael got safely home, took a shower, changed into an expensive “president’s” suit and went to his office.

It was time to act. Michael ordered Kate to collect all the information about purchases, which Greg controlled. He asked her to make sure that Greg would suspect nothing. Knowing he couldn’t work at the warehouse anymore, he called Oscar and told him that he was sick. Oscar responded without any of the usual rudeness and didn’t threaten to fire Michael, but instead wished him luck in regaining his health and to return to work soon. Michael was sure he wanted to show him to the Magnum loaders to find out if it was him in the truck.

The truth Michael revealed was quite shocking. Greg did the purchases of all electronics for Michael's in-store and catalog sales. But he had another part-time job, which he had never mentioned at the hiring. He was also an accountant for Magnum Electronics, and later became the co-owner of Magnum. They gained at Magnum additional profit by using substantial discounts which Michael had with his suppliers, and got their inventory cheaper through the same purchase orders.

Later with the help of Oscar, who had been hired with this purpose, Greg’s merchandise was delivered to his store. As if it weren’t thievery enough, Greg left broken merchandise in place of good stock from Michael’s warehouse. Now Michael understood why he had so many broken electronics at his warehouse, taking up major space. It was more profitable for Greg to change a client’s defective purchase by using a new one from Michael’s warehouse instead of repairing it himself.

Michael decided to punish Greg and Oscar without the help of police or a court. He waited until the whole story with the mysterious loader was forgotten. He never showed his face at the warehouse again. Then at the end of October, just before Christmas, Michael made a big order. Kate found out for him that on the same truck there was an order for Greg. As usual, the driver left the truck at the warehouse for one day for unloading. The next morning he was supposed to take it to the other, to Greg.

The romance between Michael and Kate was ready to burst any minute now.

“Kate,” Michael addressed her, “wouldn’t you be able to meet me tonight? I have something important in mind.”

“Do you mean business?”

“Yes, Kate, I want you to wear sport clothes and come back to the office at 11 PM. And, please, don’t tell anybody.”

That night Kate and Michael went to the warehouse, switched off the alarm and got into the building unseen. Kate knew about the deceit and was enthusiastically willing to help Michael without a second thought that she would become the witness to a crime and possibly in danger herself.

Michael used all his strength and experience in quickly unloading the truck. He took all of Greg’s boxes of new electronic appliances and filled the truck with the broken electronics he had at his warehouse. Kate helped him with the paperwork.

Michael in his sport uniform, gracefully manipulating the loading cart was absolutely charming to Kate, and he had lost a lot of weight working at the warehouse.

Locking the trailer and switching the alarm on, Michael and Kate went up to Michael’s office, where they had a shower. It was early morning and they decided that there was no reason to go home.

That morning Michael announced that to improve the work at the purchasing department, Greg’s position was canceled and his duties from now on were under Kate’s control. The warehouse manager, Oscar, was also fired, effective immediately.

Without facing Oscar, Michael spoke to Greg and wished him luck. They were standing outside of the warehouse next to the truck that was ready to go to Magnum Electronics. Greg was relieved that the inside of the truck hadn’t been checked this morning. He looked at it leaving and smiled. Michael, knowing that there was nothing inside but broken electronic debris smiled too. They were standing in front of each other, smiling and saying their farewells.

Two months later, Michael and Kate got married.

I was Michael’s best man at the wedding. Their wedding clothes were quite unusual – a military-styled tuxedo and a sport-styled veil.

Anchorage, Alaska

1994-1999

©1999 Fyodor Soloview - 1 (907) 563-9999
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