Years ago I took on a job at the local NAPA store delivering parts. The store owner was always a jerk, but most of the time he was hiding back in the office doing whatever he did. The store manager did a pretty good job of keeping the owner away from the help, and could usually make or keep peace with the employees. When ever the owner walking into the building, it was like the cloud of doom came in with him, everyone got pretty tense, but when he went back into the office, or left the store, the cloud of doom followed him. The store was a pretty decent place to work when the owner wasn't around. It didn't take long working there to understand how things worked, and we sort of ignored the boss's rants.
I'd been there about 3 months, but was a customer before that, and I also worked at a shop they delivered to. I knew the owner on a personal level, he was pretty decent to the customers.
The store had delivery 3 routes that they did one route every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Those was usually around a 120 mile trip, and took about 4 hours. The store had 3 delivery drivers, one of which would be doing the route deliveries and the other two did the daily local stuff. I Often did the delivery routes because they took about the number of hours I worked per day, so when I got done with the route, my day was about over. I had just walked in the door from finishing one of the delivery routes, and both the other trucks were out making local deliveries. The manager asked me if I would make that one run before I left for the day. He had just handed me the parts and I was turning around to head out the door.
The owner had just walked in and started screaming at me, face to face, about standing around and not making any deliveries when his customers were waiting for their parts. The manager was trying to tell him the other trucks were both out and I had just walked in from making the route deliveries and that I had offered to take those parts to the customer even though I was really off work. The owner really lost it, and started poking me in the chest with his finger and calling me nasty names. Things were getting out of hand fast. About a minute into his rant and finger poking, I slipped the key ring for the truck onto his finger. Suddenly he was pretty dumbfounded and silent, then I handed him the parts from my other hand. and politely told him deliver his dam parts himself because I was going home, and walked out.
i went back the next day to see if I still had a job. The manager told me I did if I wanted it. Pretty much the whole crew was laughing, they told me the owner actually did do that delivery, the manager had to tell him where the shop was and told him he really did need to make that delivery. They said when he got back, he was really friendly to everyone as he walked back into his office. I decided that I really didn't want to work there after that, but I was still a customer. Any time the owner saw me after the experience, he was always really friendly to me.
Even to this day, I don't think I could deliver auto parts for any parts house, that experience from 30 years ago still lingers. To be honest, I really don't know why I didn't smack him that day.
