Pulling a Petitpren
I worked Saturdays for most of my high school and college years at a butcher shop — at one of the many stalls, really — at the Gratiot Central Market in Detroit. It's still there. And still busy.
I got the job from my older brother's friend who had worked there for his Uncle Norb Szcziegel during his school years until he graduated from law school. [If you are sensing a Polish connection, you would be correct, my friend.]
It was a lucky break for me. The job at the butcher shop opened just about when I had quit working for my Uncle Phil Gralewski at the Nortown Bakery Detroit's East Side. It's still is there, but now a derelict of its former Polish heritage and glory.
Mind you, that was every week I'd go straight to work after school on Fridays, working from around 4:30pm through to 6:00 the next morning. During Summer school recess too. Wow, was it depressing going to that job during the Summer.
Anyway, at the butcher shop when I first started, there was a fellow already working there whose last name was Petitpren. I think that's how it is spelled. He was a bit of a slacker. Often coming to work late. Sometimes lallygagging around instead of hawking customers as they walked by in that busy and competitive shopping mall.
After he left, my boss used this phrase for when he thought I was slacking off ... "You're pulling a Petitpren!" At least that how I'll recall when it got into the shop talk.
I want to set the record. I was a good worker. Gave it 100%, 100% of the time. Showing up for work at 6:30am every Saturday, rain or shine, or snow; and that's, mind you, after staying out quite late the night before carousing with the buds during my college years. It was brutal. But hey, you're only young once.
The butcher shop job started at a $1.00 an hour for 12 hours. Even at that it was a big jump from the usual 75 cents rate at the bakery. After a year I was making $2.00 an hour. Now that's some serious money for a young man about town.
Norb taught me a lot. At the end of the day on Saturdays we would want to clear out the merchandise. We offered sale prices if a customer would buy all of an item of whatever was left. One time I set a price with a customer. Norb heard what I said and interjected. He acted surprised at the price; but since I made the offer he said he would stand behind the [implied] "too low" price. Many customers couldn't get their packages into their shopping bags quick enough. For readers of a certain age, that gambit in the parlance of salespeople is called "Playhouse 90". [That's a reference to a drama series on TV in the late 50s.]
A woman once asked me if the Beef Liver was tender. Imitating what I heard from the boss, hand to heart with a mock sincere face, I said, "Lady, that Beef Liver is as tender as your Mother's heart!" One time it struck a nerve. As she stormed away from our stall she could be heard at full volume yelling, "My mother's heart ain't tender, goddammit, son of a bitch!" I was a cheeky fellow, huh?
You've probably guessed that I'm recalling a time, some time ago. Sure. 75 cents an hour was a wage — for a kid — at one point. It was in the late 1950s, a time when Oxtails were 29 cents per pound. [Instead of now when that delicacy costs more than steak — if you just count the flesh portion and subtract about half the weight in bones.]
Oh, yes. An important lesson I can pass along to you's, all my loyal readers. When I was new to the trade, I attempted to entice customers by claiming the meat was "fresh". My boss kindly and quickly corrected me about that. To say the meat is "fresh" automatically brings to mind that it might not be fresh. So, don't say it's "fresh". Of course it's fresh!
So, don't be fresh!
And, don't pull a Petitpren! Even if no one is looking.
This reminiscence has been originally posted to my "When I Was a Boy" blog. Go there to see all the other things the callow youth I was got into ... CLICK to go there.
