The front door flung open and a huge, 325-pound man with a shaved head and a rough beard presented himself. Ken, the larger than life employee with just as large of a personality, had essentially deemed himself as the staff mascot. He raised his hands in the air as if he was entering a ring in a stadium of applause, mimicking his favorite pro wrestlers.
“Special K!” Alex said, greeting him with a high five.
Ken was the longest-tenured employee at Movie Madness. Though you would never guess that. He was going on at least…seven years? No one really knew. Including him. He was everyone’s favorite coworker, for all the wrong reasons. Hilarious. Inappropriate. And all about keeping things chill.
“What’s good, A-bro-ham Lincoln?” Ken said back. “You dropped out of high school yet?” Alex laughed at this. “What’s this secret staff meeting about?”
Alex shrugged.
“Wow,” Ken said with wide eyes. “Secrets, secrets…” He came around and camped out on his favorite side counter, his designated seat. He’d probably logged five hundred hours in that spot since he started working there years ago. Almost enough for there to be a gentle outline of his cargo shorts on the counter surface.
Peter walked to the front. “Ken! Hey, man!” Peter formally shook his hand.
Ken slid open the drink cooler and opened a soda. “Good evening, Mr. A.M.” Peter always laughed when Ken called him that, mainly out of fear that Ken was jealous that he had been promoted over him the past summer. But Ken actually liked the minimal responsibility. Bare minimum was his comfort zone.
“Hey, everyone,” a voice shouted from the back of the store. “Let’s meet up at the registers.” Emerging from the back was Christine, the store manager. She was short in stature, the most petite on staff. But she had the bite of a pit bull. Straight to the point. And far too serious
of a person to be running a video store. She was counter cultural to rest of the staff in her demeanor and severe lack of smiling in her life.
All five staff members came together at the front, anticipating the reason she called a meeting on a Thursday night like this. Peter stood next to Christine with his hands in his pockets, ready to support whatever she had to say. Alex leaned against the check-out computer, his arm resting on the monitor like a sloth. And Molly leaned on the front counter, still holding a few boxes of Junior Mints to stock.
Christine paused, arms on hips in her signature fashion. The staff could never read her. The last time she had a spontaneous meeting like this was a few weeks ago, to let them know that one of the employees was being fired. Literally, in the moment. Right in front of all of them. So they had no idea what this meeting would be about. Before proceeding, she noticed Ken’s complimentary snack.
She shook her head. He set it down on the counter.
“Thanks for being here, team,” she began. “I know that some of you had to come in on your night off, but the owner insisted that I share all of this with you in person.” She paused, letting the tension linger just a bit longer.
2
The News
Thursday, December 16 - 9:58 P.M.
“Is everything okay?” Molly asked. She gripped the candy boxes tightly as she began imagining all of the worst-case scenarios. That was Molly’s default. Even with having perfect grades at school, she worried she wouldn’t get into a single college for the next fall. She checked her mailbox daily. And her inbox hourly.
“Everything is fine,” Christine said. “I don’t mean to alarm you. I just wanted to get everyone on the same page before we go into the weekend. Our owner just called me this morning and wanted me to relay some information to all of you regarding the holidays.”
The staff looked at her in anticipation. She always put these unnecessary pauses in her staff meetings. They created tremendous suspense, though she didn’t intend to.
“As you know, Christmas is only nine days away…”
“That’s this month?” Ken joked. Alex and Peter laughed, as usual. Christine kept talking. “Crap. I need to make my Christmas list. Let’s see…donuts, Bud light, Transformers: Collector’s Edi-”
Christine interrupted.
“-and Christmas is always a hectic time around here at Movie Madness. For those of you that have been here for past Christmas seasons, you’ve seen that it gets pretty busy. And I know that you all have school break and family trips and everything. So our owners have taken all of that into account and are changing things for the next two weeks.”
Molly looked over at Alex, always assuming the worst. He shrugged back.
“So.” She clapped her hands. “They are going to have a special sales competition starting tomorrow until the new year. For each pre-viewed DVD or Blu ray you sell to a customer, you get a one-dollar commission. Whoever sells the most between now and January 1st gets a hundred-dollar bonus.”
The group cheered at this. Excited. Relieved. Ken high-fived Peter. Alex elbowed Molly, insinuating that he was going to crush the competition. She was just glad it was good news.
“Wait,” Alex said. “So, was that the big news?”
“Yes,” Christine said. Sighs of relief. “They wanted to keep morale up. They know how hard all of you have been working. And every year, they’re just thankful that Movie Madness has enough customers to stay open. Especially in the age of streaming.”
“…and the fact that you can just watch everything online for free now,” Ken added. “I mean, sure. It’s illegal. But who cares about ‘the law’ anymore?” Peter laughed again.
“For a moment there,” Alex interjected, “I thought you were going to tell us the store was shutting down. Or that we were all getting fired or something.”
“Not at all.” Christine shrugged. “Movie Madness is a staple in Pecos. Somehow, it just keeps getting more business every year. All these local stores around us are closing left and right. Yet here we are, year number twenty-three in the books. And it’s been our best year yet…”
“Like you said,” Alex added, “it’s a staple. Townies are faithful people. That’s why we outlived Blockbuster and Movie Gallery. I called that, by the way.”
“Everyone called that.” Molly shot back.
“So, question,” Ken said. “Back to this competition. Is there a cap on this commission? Like if I sold…twenty extra movies each shift I worked and I worked ten shifts, I could walk home with an extra two hundred dollars?”
“Good math, bro!” Alex gave a sarcastic smirk.
“That’s correct,” Christine said. “In fact, that’s the point. The owner wants to clear the inventory going into the new year. And give you an incentive to not take off all your shifts. We know how hard it is to staff this time of year. Especially with being a few team members short right now. So the hope was that this competition gives you one more reason to come in and work shifts right now.”
Christine went through a few more logistics referring to closeout procedures and holiday hours. Peter nodded in agreement with everything Christine said, like a loyal lap dog. Molly took notes on her phone. Alex and Ken’s minds phased her out and began thinking of how they could win the competition.