Years back I was working as a shift manager for a big pizza franchise. My unit manager, one of the best amnagers I ever worked for, was fired. The guy the general manager put in charge of her store was this black guy who had the chip on his shoulder claiming that all the miseries he had siffered in life were because of racism and slavery. His lousy personal decisions had nothing to do with all of his life failures.

I had interviewed with this guy before Janet hired me for her store. This guy was over an hour late for the interview becasue he was at one of those seminars where people give talks about how everyone can make a million dollars in the next 30 days if only they buy the talkers program and follow it's simple rules for success. The first 30 minutes of my interview was this dink trying to get me to join his "team", and I too could make hundreds of thousands of dollars working for him on the side. The actual interview was mainly him spouting these idiot platitudes about how he never fired anyone, they all fired themselves by breaking the rules, or not doing a good job. The guy was a human version of almost every inspirational poster you have seen. He tells me he needs experienced people and will hire me, but he had to look at the schedule and decide when to start me.

Four days later I get a call to an interview with Janet. Having not heard back from inspration man I went to the interview, she hired me, and I started the next day. A year later after the general fired Janet because he was scared she was going to take his job he put inspiration man in our store. The guy brought over a bunch of his crew from the other store. They all looked like they had just got out of the joint for some kind of violent crime. He also hired this old woman to do our evening prep. This was 20 years back, and this lady was in her 80s. She had grown up during the depression in Oklahoma. She told us for several years their family home was a railroad boxcar. So her circumstances did not allow her to get much schooling so she was not "well" spoken. She refered to blacks as "colored people".

One of the people that was brought over from the other store was this large black kid, large as in he weighed about 300 pounds, not large like the brothers Smollett hired. This old lady said something one day he thought was disrespecting him. He grabbed her arm and told her did not care if she was an old white bitch if she disrespected him again he would knock her out. Of course she was supposed to be terrified, shaking in her shoes. THis old lady literally stood on her toes to get as much in his face as she could then told him if he ever touched her again she would go home, come back with her shot gun and kill him where he stood.

The best part was the next day when she quit. She told the manager, in front of everyone, that she had no problem working with colored people, but she was not ever going to take shit from some young nigger like that kid. Then she walked out.

Right after that I learned inspiration man was telling all the hispanics, and blacks at the store I was a racist like that old lady, and he knew it when he interviewed me. He tried telling them I took the job with Janet because I could not stand the idea of working with a black man in charge. I found it intersting he never told that crap to any of the white employees. All of Janet's employees he told that to came to me letting me know what he was saying.

This was the third store in the franchise Janet had taken from being the lowest grossing store to one of the highest. The first two she ran went to the number one spot. This store would have been number one far more regularly but the general manager would not authorize repairs we needed. Six months after inspiration man took over the store was the lowest grossing store in the franchise. This franchise had 32 store in town of pizza and taco joints. I am certain he felt it was because of racism and slavery though, not because he was a worthless manager.