"I hope that company fails."

Walking down F street on my way to work I felt a sudden surge of anger. I had completely psyched myself up and pretty much the precipice of my shitty summer was on the verge of a full blown topple over the side of the shitty cliff that is my life. I began to walk with a full blown military march as I approached the store and in the vantage point I could make out Diana, Joan and a man jumping up and down taking pictures. It was him. It was Dov Charney.

Dov Charney is the CEO, founder and owner of American Apparel, a vertically integrated clothing company based in Los Angeles. As you all know, they opened up retail stores all along the United States and across the world and have expanded into a multi-million dollar corporation, with Dov being the multi-millionaire beneficiary. He's been featured in new programs and various articles all over the world. He's kind of become this huge sub-cultural icon and in many ways a poster-boy for the new American dream as he is an immigrant from Canada who became a millionaire here in America. He's a household name and one of the top 20 American business figures. He takes his company and his business (obviously) very seriously which is why I had so much adreneline flowing through my veins on my way to what I thought was going to be my last encounter with American Apparel.

Joan quickly introduced us, "Dov, this is Chris, our backstock manager."
Dov: You're the backstock manager?
Me: Yes.
Dov: Come with me let's talk.
Me: Yeah, let's talk.

Every single employee at the stores hates that dreaded phone call or visit. "Dov is here." I've been working here almost a year and we would all joke or get scared at the very idea. Today was supposed be my day off. After pulling a 16 hour shift yesterday (no joke), today was supposed to be my day to relax, watch Dog Whisperer and ESPN and get some laundry done. Nope. 3:45 in the afternoon I get the call from Diana, "Dov is here." I put on my American Apparel uniform, grabbed my shit and headed out the door to the store where I met up with them.

What followed was a conversation that I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be having, at least not until I was in my thirties and had already given up on all my dreams to work for some souless corporation. Dov asked what the fuck was wrong with me letting all those boxes pile up in the back without getting the merch on the floor. I enfatically told him we had been recieving boxes after boxes without any of them showing up in our system, which meant I had to go through each box, one by one by one and manually recieve every single piece of clothing in those boxes into our inventory, keeping in mind each box has about 40-50 articles of clothing. All together we had recived over forty boxes last week.

Dov: 14 boxes! FUCK YOU! I CAN DO THAT IN MY SLEEP ALONE!
Me: I DID DO THAT ALONE AND THE NEXT DAY WE GOT THIRTY MORE BOXES IN THAT WEREN'T IN OUR SYSTEM!
Dov: 30 BOXES! FUCK YOU! THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!
Me: FUCK ME?!?!?! NO DOV, FUCK THE FACTORY AND ASN FOR FUCKING UP AND NOT GETTING THAT SHIT INTO OUR SYSTEM!??!
DOV: YOU NEED TO FUCK OFF!??!
Me: YOU AND YOUR FACTORY NEED TO FUCK OFF AND REALIZE THREE PEOPLE CAN'T DO THAT SHIT IN ONE DAY!!
Dov: YOU'VE LOST ME 30 PERCENT OF SALES FOR THIS STORE!! YOU'RE RUINING MY COMPANY! I CAN FIRE YOU RIGHT NOW!! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!
Me: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, AND I'M NOT FUCKING AFRAID OF YOU!

At this point Dov looked me up and down and it fell silent. "Okay let's go back to the store". Dov and I continued to argue into the backstock as he explained to me that on the conference calls he had already given this spiel.

Dov: I said on the conference calls, if you aren't getting the job done, I will know. I will go to your store and make you look like a fool. And guess what.
Me: Yeah, but I didn't say anything on there when you told us all that because I felt like we could get the job done. I took your advice when you gave it to everyone and was like, okay we can do this. I didn't speak up because I felt like we could do it and I didn't want to look like a dumbass.
Dov: Well guess what? You look like a dumbass!! Here, (at this point Dov pulls out his camera and snaps a picture of me) there we go. The dumbass of the company.

I explained to him everything that had happened and we bickered a little bit more until he and I both calmed down and began to find all the things we could improve about the store and the backstock. He bought one of my associates a pair of pants to feel like a part of the family and so that he would look nice for his mother's birthday party which was tonight. He literally pulled crumpled up 100 dollar bills out of his pocket and threw them at our female employees to go get their nails done and to pay for metro. He even palled around with me in the backstock making crude and inappropriate jokes when I was on the phone with Ariel (my main boss) getting chewed out for not doing a perfect fill. He punched me and was laughing.

I still couldn't get over the fact that he deemed me the dumbass of the company. And actually took my picture. It was so dehumaninzing and it's just a metaphor for every single person I've ever encountered and every single one of the friends I've had in my life until recently. Who the fuck am I? I'm just some 20 year old kid working stock in a retail store and all of a sudden I'm single handedly destroying American Apparel and therefore the dumbass of the company. Me, when there are hundreds of other employees who are at this moment, blowing their minds out and fucking up all administrative duties. Nope, the one Mexican stock boy from DC. He takes the cake.

I also couldn't grasp the notion of our conversation. If anyone was there they probably couldn't wrap their head around it either. Here is some 39 year old multi-millionaire who is not only CEO and founder of a fortune 500 company I work for, but one of the most recognizable faces in American business and some snot-nosed 20 year old punk Mexican kid from East L.A. arguing with each other, shouting at each other in the middle of downtown D.C, in front of all these people, telling each other to fuck off. It's so hard for me to grasp that. I would say only in America, but not even 60 year old company veterans for corporations talk to their bosses, who are 20 or 30 years their junior, like that. Only in American Apparel.

For what it's worth, Dov doesn't really seem like a bad guy. He actually seems like an alright guy who likes to have fun. He just takes his JOB very seriously. But you can tell life really isn't that difficult for Dov. You can tell he's a happy and content man. And that's what burns me the most. It's not that he's a bad person. He just embodies everything I hate about people. For the most part they are good, but they do things sometimes that are so fucked up and demeaning that it makes you wonder if mankind is really worth saving. I've been getting picked on all my life and when Dov pulled that shit today, it was just the epitome of every single experience I've had in my life. And here it is, the same shit, except this time it's not some asshole friend of mine, it's a multi-millionaire CEO. There really is no exception to the rule. Chris Moreno gets taken advantage of by EVERYONE. Some shit never changes.

My old associcate and manager Rob was talking with our old boss Katie (both left out of anger or were fired) the other week about how much they hated that company. When you work for them for so long, you grow bitter and resentful towards the way you are treated. I have often said they treat their retail employees worse than they do their factory workers who are treated pretty well. I used to look forward to going to work, but now it's just another corporate job that makes me hate waking up in the morning and makes me wish I were dead. This is what the company does to people who work there for too long. Whatever the case, the conversation with the two culminated with one of them uttering the phrase, "I hope that company fails". I laughed out loud because obviously it's at its peak right now but the notion of it falling flat on its face like tommorrow made me laugh so hard. It's like watching a really cool jock, get fat and fall on his face. I don't know. I love that line. If anyone of them reads this, I'm sure I'm fired, but I don't really care. I didn't get fired today when I told the CEO to fuck off, so I doubt any repercussions would be taken other than getting called "the dumbass of the company" again. My dad always did call me a pendejo (dumbass in Spanish).

So if anyone gets anything out of this that's cool. I just wanted to rant about American Apparel. Like I said, I don't write about personal shit in this blog, so yeah consider it a treat of some sort, I don't know. I'm not that fucking self-centered. I just wanted to tell you all about the degrading, demoralizing tasks and events that take place in life and the shitty way some people are treated by others who feel superior. I just wanted to write about a sleazy company that is making millions off of brain dead sorority girls, douchebag hipsters and (in DC) delinquent gay black kids who look like idiots and carry knives and pepperspray in their manpurses so they can steal. But hey--that's American Apparel.


- Dumbass of the company.