I Sang for Ken Montero

They made me sing for the CEO. I sang Chicago and Celine Dion for Ken Montero. Not the report you were expecting? It was a night of laughter, embarassing stories, and chocolate dreams.

We were all standing in the front of the store waiting for Ken Montero. A huge mass of black huddled together. Then we had to move cause we were intimidating the customers. All the managers from the core stores were running the store. So we stood, waiting, brushing the lint off and wondering. Suddenly the strains of Mi Amore came floating through the mall. "He's coming!" Cheers, wolf whistles, blushing. "Congratulations!"

OK, that's getting way too sappy and poetic. I hope we entertained all the hapless mall customers who stood outside staring openmouthed at the crazy people carrying a stereo and wearing "Papa Ken's Pizza" aprons and those weird chef's hats. They actually did bring pizza, which was taken to the back room. We did introductions and other fun stuff, and then we carpooled to Carabba's. At least they didn't expect us to act surprised.

Two of the high-up-there people were sitting at a table when I got there, and, of course, we didn't want to sit with them cause we'd heard about how strict they were, how everything was going to be inspected, yada yada yada. Well, we ended up becoming the Diva table; if you'd picked the craziest people (myself included) in the store and put them together basically.

They did ask us a few questions about how we liked working at the store, our majors, our management team. We all were honest and gave glowing reports, that our managers aren't afraid to be real, scrub the floors, listen to us telling them what to do. Kathleen was so paranoid about what we were talking about, whether we were behaving. Except for the story about our jobs being on the line, we were actually really complimentary towards her. Poor woman. I wouldn't have wanted to sit next to the CEO all night.

Eventually everyone wondered what all the fun was about and wandered over to our table, even Ken Montero. They had been talking about how I was always "singing as I ripped into the boxes," and asking me to all night. So I did. For the CEO, and my whole store, and a bunch of other VIPs. I don't know how I get myself into these things, but I didn't screw it up.

So it turned out to be a much more fun evening than any of us had anticipated from the horror stories the managers fed us all week. I don't think any of our effort prettying the store was wasted, but I'm also glad we did have fun. The managers' table took the liberty of guaranteeing we'd do it again next year. Urgh. There were a lot of pictures, though, so hopefully I can get my hands on a few and post them so y'all can see these people I'm always talking about. I really do love this company!