Great Times At Store 724 - Manchester, NH

[Travis-Store724]

I ran into a former cashier today at Wal Mart, made me think about the fun times we had at the Manchester store.

Our manager Dave White was my favorite boss ever. 

I remember when I had just started working there, some big boss who didnt come around often was going to be coming in a few days, so they had me peel the tape outlining then main loop aisle as well as the aisles separating Mens/Womens and Womens/Childrens, than I had to retape it all before they came in to wax the floors the night before the visit. I have never spent so much time on my knees in my life.

Our store trainer (cant recall her name, but she traveled from Wells Maine to work everyday... dedicated!) she gave me a huge stack of A+ cards after that.

I really miss Ames, not only did I enjoy working there, but I loved reinvesting parts of my paychecks each week.

And the company was a real class act. Back in 1999, when my home burnt and I lost everything, Ames gave me a giftcard to help me begin rebuilding my home life.

[jmcnamara96]

Was this the Ames on Hanover St. or Elm?

[Travis-Store724]

Was this the Ames on Hanover St. or Elm?

Hanover

[Zayre88]

[Travis-Store724]

Heres a humorous story.

One week we had someone in the store for several days. He had a display at the front of Mens where he was demonstrating some knives. Every fifteen minutes or so he would go to the intercom and announce his next demonstration. He would start with "Attention Ames shoppers"  After several days hearing this over and over and over many employees were annoyed with it. We got enjoyment out of making fun of the poor guy.

Well one day the shopping plaza was evacuated because of a gas leak at the other anchor tenant Shop N Save, formerly Alexanders and now Hannafords.

The fire department sent everyone to the end of the plaza near McDonalds, we were all standing around chatting and not looking forward to all the drops that we would now have to take care of because of abandoned carts in the store.

So anyway a large group of us are standing and talking and we happen to notice that Knife guy is getting ready to light a cigarette.  Josh Smith, one to always have some humor near the tip of his tongue calls out... "Attention Ames Shoppers   BOOOOM" we all start laughing drawing the attention of workers from other stores who didnt get the inside joke.

[Travis-Store724]

This is another humorous bit. At the time it felt a little bad laughing at it, but what could you do.

It was the early period after 9/11 when all the Patriotic merchandise was rolling in. Anyone who worked at Ames at the time knows what Im talking about.  We had one of those huge main aisle displays filled with stuff.

One item was a Red, White and Blue bandana that had "These Colors Dont Run" Printed on it.

One day a customer returned one, the associate at the service desk that day refunder her money and filled out the damage/defect slip for the item. Under reason they wrote "These colors did run" the person had washed the bandana and the ink ran all over it.

[Travis-Store724]

We liked to have some fun after closing. We relaxed some and tried to have a stress free period as we cleaned and got ready to leave.

Well one night in 1999, around Halloween, I had a Anakin Skywalker costume mask at the service desk. I was going to see if there was a costume without the mask, at the same time I was taking a uboat with me to bring out back afterwards. So Im in the front aisle that runs across the front of the store between the registers and the clothing sections. I step onto the uboat, slide the mask over my face and grabbing the uboat handle start pushing up speed as if I were on a skateboard, I proceed to fly across the front of the store as I cry out  "I WANT TO BE A JEDI"  Im just glad camera video phones weren't the thing back then.  And yes, I was lectured by the manager for my recklessness.

[d_fife]

guess what this Ames was?

[jmcnamara96]

guess what this Ames was?

A Richs ......i assume that was the question you asked what it was previous to ames

[TRJ_22487]

Yes indeed.