The year was 1985, I was out of money for college, tired of working all the time to pay tuition, tired of being tired so I dropped out of St Ambrose College at the end of my junior year and started looking for  full-time work in order to save money. After 3 years of working all the time to pay for school while trying to maintain romances and friendships and drinking too much, I wanted a break to just work, save money, and have some to spend. I wasn’t looking for a career or something long-term, I was looking to make money. I didn’t have a plan except to finish college eventually (and then what? I was not sure and you could argue, still am not any closer even 30 years later). My high school friend, Todd, worked as an assistant manager at a women’s only Thom McAn shoe store in SouthPark Mall Moline, Illinois. He recommended I come to work there. He helped me get an interview. I actually don’t remember interviewing for the job, but I’m sure I did and likely it was with James P. the district manager. I do remember getting hired very quickly. Dad was pleased that I got on with a big company.

Just typing James’ name has me reminiscing about shit leaders I’ve known and how I learned from non example or said differently, what not to do, because of them. He was like so many other leaders that I have seen in my working life and not in a good way. In fact he reminds me of the person who laid me off at the EE – someone faking it until it all catches up; a bumbling white guy who doesn’t really like women except in their place. Someone who is on borrowed time in their leadership role or they report into people where that type of leadership is status quo or both. He was dishonest in my mind because he said what he thought people wanted to hear, not truth, and this included outright lies like, “You are now my highest paid manager,” when I wasn’t. He talked behind people’s back and took short cuts. He honestly reminded me of a used car salesperson, as do many from the EE. Anyway, I got the job and was made manager trainee of a store in NorthPark Mall in Davenport, Iowa working for a man named Dwayne who, to quote a line from a movie, “made caffeine nervous”.

Dwayne was my first real boss, it was, after all, my first full-time job after years of working part-time. To this day Dwayne is on the short list of leaders I worked for that were really good that I learned positive things from. He really understood the job and he reveled in teaching people to be successful at the running of a store. Dwayne was short, skinny, had endless energy (even when hung over), was bald and had a mustache. He had a habit of bringing out shoes from the back room for people to try on at such a speed that he slid across the carpet to a stop in front of them. He was a fast talker and didn’t adjust his tempo for people who couldn’t keep up. No matter where he was standing in the long big store, he yelled, “Good Morning,” or, “HI!” to anyone who stopped or even looked like they were glancing at the shoes at the front of the store. I should note, he did indeed drink a lot of coffee with sugar. He once came whirling out of the back room with shoes and simultaneously almost ran into a little kid and without missing a beat yelled, “Whoa! Slow down little cowboy!” I still laugh when picturing it. I found him to be infectious and someone I liked being around.

Dwayne was confident, quick with knowledge and wit, and constantly busy. He freely imparted wisdom and opinions about how to best run the show. He followed the prescribed training manuals and added his own reinforcement or adjustments based on how he led and managed. I never saw him not be confident that he did a good job and his sales results certainly showed it. Regularly the store’s results exceeded the prior year by at least 10% often times doubling the prior years numbers. He demanded sales focus and you could focus on sales because the rest of the store was running smoothly as well, like stock being off the floor and in its place so you could easily find what the customer wanted. He regularly said something I have repeated over and over again in my own leadership roles, “This isn’t hard, you just have to break it down into manageable units.” A natural-born teacher who likely under utilized his skills being in retail, although one could argue that success in retail means success in many other places. Retail is tough, hard work, inconsistent hours and if you survive you likely are made of something. I think the same thing about food service work. As a side note, later my retail experience is what got me hired into a government job, not my background or my degree. Someone there recognized the value of retail experience since she too came from retail.

Dwayne didn’t hesitate to teach me how to do payroll (my first experience with accounting), even though it was something I shouldn’t technically learn for another 8 months. He showed me how to run shoes in a more efficient way and explained why it was so important (makes getting shoes faster for the customer), how to keep track of all actions happening on your register (trust but verify), how to manage your safe and how to be a better sales person and sales leader. I know he gave feedback that I was really good and needed to be promoted, I heard that from Dennis the assistant manager and I also heard from my friend Todd who said more than once when we were out drinking that everyone was talking about how great I was doing and how fast I was catching on. Dwayne gave me the credit for catching on so quickly and being so ready for promotion so soon, yet, here was a man who instilled in me the confidence to manage and lead the mechanics of running a store end to end, advised me on how to do well, how to be successful, and modeled good leadership and practical management. He let me loose to learn it as fast as I could handle.

Retail requires knowing a little bit of everything in a world where we tend to value over-specialization. I already had worked in retail and had pretty high accountability (I opened and closed Mr Neats Tux Shop on my own while in high school) but I was not in charge as part of leadership but now was a leader and I nailed it. I succeeded so quickly  in part because that’s who I am and in part because I lucked into a great leader to train me on the first go. I completed the 18 month trainee program in two months.

Something else that made Dwayne a great leader was that he knew the history of Thom McAn and Melville corporation. He knew it inside and out: how may factories we once had, how many we had left, where we started, who we were named after, how we grew, where we were growing. He knew it and shared it. He instilled pride in where we worked, clearly he felt some respect and even loyalty to a company that had grown the way Thom McAn had and he enjoyed talking about it. I repeated that history as a manager to my own teams.

I liked Dwayne from day one and he seemed to really like having me around. That may also have been because he saw in me tolerance and lack of judgment. Dwayne was gay. Dwayne was not the first (nor the last) gay person I knew or was friends with. I knew one of my closest friends was probably a lesbian. One of my oldest and still dearest friends from high school was and is gay. It was the 80’s and I understood that there was an entire culture out there that I didn’t see or participate in and I was ok with it. My friendships have always been based on more than a persons sexuality. Dwayne  had a boyfriend he kept “hidden” that he introduced as his roommate. His name was Tommy and Tommy was quite traditionally more feminine in his demeanor, actions, discussions and so on than Dwayne. In fact, Dwayne didn’t really come across as someone who back then you would consider as maybe being gay, but Tommy, you would likely think he was gay and you would have been correct. I liked Tommy as well.

Tommy was sick often: flu, pneumonia, coughs, thin, pale but would regularly spend time talking to me in the store late at night, usually when he was there to pick Dwayne up after the store closed and while we were cleaning and running the books. Sometimes he came in early and just hung out with us, getting us coffee or soda and chatting while we worked. When it was just myself and Dwayne closing, Tommy and Dwayne seemed very comfortable with Tommy coming in and hanging out. I perceived that Dennis, the assistant manager and a really nice guy but also a Christian family man, being a bit stand offish with Tommy yet still nice to him, but stand offish. I don’t remember Tommy coming into the store much when Dennis was there, but Dennis and his wife kept trying to fix Dwayne up with their female friends, that probably didn’t help build relationships.

In less than a few months after starting at Thom McAn, I was promoted and working for Gordon at the men’s Thom McAn store at the Moline mall. I had known Gordon for years, since high school. The tuxedo rental store I worked at in high school, Seno Formalwear, and then Mr Neat’s Tux Shop was next door to the men’s Thom McAn store. We talked in front of the store often. After a month at that store I was promoted to be assistant manager at the women’s store down the mall from where I was. Odd that there were separate stores like that, but I actually think it was a great concept and something Thom McAn should have done more of to survive long-term, to include separate kids stores.

Pause – I just looked for Gordon online and found an obituary that said little to nothing in the Quad City Times in 2005 that may have been him. In searching in Davenport, where he lived, I can’t find him. Sigh.

Pause again – I found his wife on Facebook and after some stalking found an older post from the anniversary of Gordon’s death. It has hit me hard that he is gone and what a shitty friend I was to not keep in touch. Although, he could have kept in touch as well I suppose.

It wasn’t hard being an assistant manager, it was just long hours. Soon enough I was  asked to move to Fort Dodge, Iowa as an assistant manager. It was the regions most profitable store because of low rent, not because of sales. I hated it there. I lived in a hotel and could not find a place to rent that took dogs. I was lonely. The people in the store looked at me like I was a freak because of how I dressed, my opinions, my assertion in getting sales and so on. In addition, I found out I was pregnant. The store manager, an overly religious person of little tolerance, did not like me (he had made it clear he didn’t like Dwayne either so likely didn’t like that I was a product of Dwayne’s training – sound familiar? common fucking story in corporate America today – hate the history of who someone has worked for despite how they perform.  I didn’t like him either. I didn’t like close minded people, still don’t. I was homesick, not sure about a future with the baby’s father, hated small town Iowa, and just wanted to leave. I didn’t fit in. Eventually I told James I was pregnant and wanted to go home, without missing a beat he said I could go back to Davenport as an assistant manager, so I was back with Dwayne again and he was wonderful about me coming back and being pregnant.

Dwayne and Tommy and the rest of the people in the store rallied around me and were so excited about me being pregnant. When I had a miscarriage they were all heartbroken but yet Dwayne’s strength and maintenance of my privacy about what had happened was something else I learned from. He just didn’t gossip and he didn’t talk about things that he didn’t think were his story to tell. I’ve tried to remember that. Some day I will write about that pregnancy, but for now, suffice to say, I was heartbroken that the baby was gone and yet things were going to change quickly.

Dwayne was from Colorado and always talked of wanting to go back there and eventually a store came open there and Dwayne and was offered the move. This set in motion a store manager opening in Davenport which was not the most profitable store but it had the largest sales volume. A manager from Sioux City was offered the store which left his store open and next thing I know I was being asked to move to northern Iowa.

I almost didn’t move to Sioux City. I was interviewing for other jobs and was ready to take one selling investment services when the store came open. I can remember talking to dad about it and he said I needed to take the manager position so I would always have it on my resume because, according to dad, while it came easy to me that I got promoted in under a year to manager, it was not an easy feat. People worked for years to get to where I got in a short time. I would find out later it was absolutely true that people waited for years to get to that promotion.

I won’t spend much time on my success in Sioux City except to say that starting the week I took over, I increased sales at least 20% in a store that was a bit of a mess physically and how it was trained and run. I knocked performance out of the park. The former manager, now in Davenport, had once said to me that he felt the Davenport store was going to finally “take off” with him in charge. In the next breath he was saying, “No offense, but you will struggle to beat my numbers.” I just ignored him. Then I proved him wrong. He also didn’t meet the prior years numbers let alone exceed them in Davenport. I was good at getting my team to do a good job and we quickly had a reputation in the mall of running a tight ship that customers liked.

Dwayne stayed in touch calling me for shoes to be shipped to his store to make sales and I did the same with him. It was actually one of my tricks that I knew him and he had a much larger inventory so I was able to get special orders from him. I had heard through the grapevine that Tommy had passed away. Dwayne didn’t tell me but he had stopped calling and I let it ride. I knew they were more than friends and roommates and I assumed he was grieving. I was also finally making friends in Sioux City (meaning drinking too much) so was busy all the time.

It was announced we would have a meeting of all districts in our region in Denver. I think it was in 1987, but could be wrong – I have a mug somewhere still from the meeting that I hope has the date, since it will bug me that I don’t know for sure the year. James and everyone else in our group of managers joked before hand at our district meeting that they would not shake Dwayne’s hand or go near him so they didn’t “catch AIDS”. They spoke and joked about it openly in the business meeting, at dinner, and while having drinks. When we all got to Denver the first night they were still joking about how they would stick their hand out to him then pull it back or shake his hand then disinfect their hand in front of him. Everyone was laughing and showing how they would do it – I can still picture the bar and all of them laughing and showing each other “funnier” ways to humiliate Dwayne. I was about 6 months sober having quit drinking earlier that year so watching the jokes and the cruelty come out of everyone’s mouth was more disturbing as time ticked by and as they drank more. I do remember one person staying quiet and that was Dennis P, a big old  teddy bear guy who loved running a shoe store. He was the master at selling what was called fronts – the higher commission non-shoe items, like purses and socks. He was a lot like Dwayne so I considered him my friend as well. The reason why it stuck out that Dennis was quiet is  not that it surprised me that he didn’t participate but rather that Dennis talked ALL the time. I once on a drive from the Quad Cities to Sioux City fell asleep while he was talking and woke up two hours later and he was still talking – it was just him and I in the car.

Dwayne walked into the bar area and ever the class act, came up to say hello to everyone. I stepped back into the shadows embarrassed by what may happen and wanting to distance myself from these idiots. No one did what they said as far as actions, but they didn’t shake his hand either. There were some side eye glances at each other as they waited for each other to do what they kept saying they would do, but it didn’t happen. Everyone including the blusterous District Manager, James, were cordial yet short with Dwayne. Hot air. You can say it’s locker room talk, I think it’s just wasted oxygen.

I was standing back behind a table and chairs and when my eyes met Dwayne’s he had a huge smile and I walked over to him and gave him a hug. We stood and talked and then ended up standing at the bar where Dwayne talked, finally, about how much he loved Tommy and how Tommy’s death had torn his world upside down with grief. He swore it wasn’t AIDS and I told him I didn’t care and that I was sorry he was sad. When I glanced around James was glaring at me as were a few of the other managers. Surprisingly some of the other managers later told me that they admired me for not playing along. One manager used the word “courage” to describe my actions, I think I was just being a decent human. Yet, some of the others never forgave me and treated me like crap from that moment forward. Little did I know that this was the beginning of my M.O. of not following the basic corporate “unwritten” rules which meant following like a sheep in the behavior, bullshit, and immorality and shallowness of people in charge. Eventually some would say it was my downfall as a leader at the EE. I would say it’s what made me the best.

I find myself wondering why people didn’t like Dwayne. There certainly was an undercurrent from some of the other managers that they didn’t like him, including Gordon, the manager of the men’s Thom McAn in the Moline mall, who I considered my friend. There was also outward disdain and dislike, but why? Dwayne didn’t suffer fools gladly and like most places when you are surrounded by other leaders, there are a plethora of fools. Was it because he was all business and didn’t hide his brain? Was it because he didn’t suck up to our boss, James? He certainly didn’t act like James was smarter than him or look to him for advice (Dwayne could have run circles around him). Was it because his store was successful even more successful than others with better merchandise and locations? But why didn’t people like him or why were they non inclusive of him? I used to think it was because he was gay, but I don’t think that is the case now that I’m older, although I do know for some of the other managers, that was absolutely part of it.

Dwayne didn’t appear to be ruled by his ego. Other managers and his own boss couldn’t rattle him because Dwayne actually appeared to be ok with who he was. Were they jealous? Was he a threat? Was it because his knowledge was superior to them? I sometimes wonder if other leaders don’t like people like Dwayne and me because we remind them what they could be if they didn’t care what inconsequential people in their lives thought or if they dropped their biases, had tolerance, took a deep breath, continued to grow, learn, listen, be interested and be interesting versus simply settling. Thirty plus years later, and not being driven by an ego is something I am conscious of, mentor people towards becoming, something I value, and something I easily recognize in the positive and negative. Dwayne was a model of this.

Dwayne is someone who I credit with making me a good leader in part because he was no-nonsense, a good leader himself, a great teacher and trainer, kind, ego was removed from who he was, and also funny. He also did not hide that he was smart. I don’t remember hearing him say negative things about other people, his comments were simply factual and sometimes that was viewed as criticism. I wish I could go back now, knowing what I do after 30 years of successful leadership and ask all of them why. I wonder if some of them think about how they treated him and feel regret? Maybe. And Maybe not.

Whenever I think about Dwayne and I’ve thought of him often in the last 30+ years, I’m never sure if he taught me to be a good leader or laid the foundation (in addition to my dad) or if it was that we were so in tune to each other. By this I mean that my style was already like his so he reinforced my style exponentially. I liked him and I know he liked me.

I’ve searched for Dwayne a number of times online but can’t find him.