Another friend of mine told me about her quitting her part time job in West Oakland, back in the day. This was when she was in her twenties, ahead-of-her-time progressive, and worked in a well-lit, educational, safe and friendly Sex Shoppe in the late 1990s/early 2000s. This shop sold sex toys, porn videos, how-to advice books, BDSM paraphernalia, latex clothing,(think body gloves) stripper clothes, and all kinds of other plain old vanilla kink. It was owned by a married hetero-couple who told many of the six or seven employees of their sexual escapades, living the lifestyle as bonafide swingers. My friend – let’s call her Jill – worked as a sales clerk for over a year for this couple, but ultimately ended up quitting when they cut her hours. She was professional, and gave two weeks notice which is more than I would have done in the same situation.

As Jill recounted this story for me in support of this blog, (thank you very much JS!) she had to go into detail about her medical condition(s). She’s long suffered from many ailments that I can’t even name nor imagine, and back then she had told her employer about a new medication she was taking. Thinking on it now, Jill wondered aloud why she’d even bothered to tell her employer, because it really wasn’t their business, and, ultimately the employer used this knowledge against her. Hindsight, is of course, 20/20.

*YCTTJASI

Today there are laws that prevent the employer from using your medical condition as a reason to cut your hours, or treat you unfairly. What happened then, though – was that the employer told Jill he thought her new medications were making it difficult for her to concentrate, and her performance was suffering. Therefore, he wanted her to work less hours.

Jill really was incensed at this news, and felt that his archaic, remedial and unusable homemade Index Card System for tracking customers’ video rentals was to blame. Or at least partially to blame! He’d repeatedly worked with the whole staff to get them to understand how to mark – with pencil – then erase, what movies their regulars rented. What? That made no sense and the staff shared this inside joke as they tried to do their best with the system, and the customers.

Jill talked about how much she loved working with shy, or self conscious customers asking embarrassing questions, helping them to feel educated, smarter about sex, informed and confident in their choices. She really believed in safe sex, using condoms, helping folks to shine a light on a place that, for some, is full of shame and drama. Her memories of working with “Wally” the owner, and his Index Card System were comical now, over twenty years later, and that shoppe has long since closed. In fact, the owner had cut the hours of everyone on the staff, Jill learned later, because sales were slow and business was down. It was a cost-cutting measure that had nothing to do with her new meds, or her levels of concentration or perceived job performance! Jill was right to trust her gut, move on.

Even feeling slighted, cheated and misunderstood, Jill gave the employer the benefit of two weeks notice before she quit. I’m pretty sure had it been me in Jill’s shoes, I would have shortened my hours instantaneously and on the spot…let the owner work with his own Index Card System.