THE “RED-TAG” SPECIAL
By Jim Davis

When I was a senior at Carson-Newman College back in 1967, I had a great part-time job as a stock clerk at the Whiteway Variety Store in Jefferson City, Tennessee. It was associated with the local White Store, part of a well known local grocery chain in those days, that was next door in the main shopping center in town. We sold clothing, fabrics, household goods, toys, and even artificial flowers to decorate graves.

One of the best things about that job was that I got to work with a man named Elbert Shoun, the assistant store manager. Mr. Shoun was not your typical assistant manager. He had spent years, in fact, as a store manager himself. The store manager, Jack Lewis, told me that all the other Whiteway managers were somewhat envious. They knew that if Mr. Lewis needed to be away from his store he didn’t have to worry. Mr. Shoun would take care of any problem that came up.

One thing Mr. Shoun definitely knew how to take care of was the customer. And he made sure that all the other employees had the same attitude. Oddly enough, this led to one of my most memorable goofs during my short “career” with the store – one that Mr. Shoun made into an invaluable learning experience for me.

Shortly after I started working there, Mr. Shoun told me that if a customer needed a box to hold something they had purchased I should get one from the storeroom. If there was not an empty one available, I was to unpack a box that had not been opened. He forgot to tell me about the “red tag” shelves, though.

One day a customer needed a box for her purchase and I couldn’t find one. So, I followed Mr. Shoun’s directions and went to the shelves with items that had not been unpacked. I found an appropriate sized box of drinking glasses and unpacked it, then used the box to hold the customer’s merchandise. Things like that resulted in satisfied (and repeat) customers. We had a popular store.

A while later that day, when I told Mr. Shoun what I had done, I got an unexpected reaction. It turned out that I had not done such a good thing after all. There was a section of the stockroom that had been designated for “red tag” items that were to be returned to the distributor. Of course, the glasses I had unpacked could not be returned. And even though it was a minor expense, someone was going to be held accountable for the error. That could have easily been me.

What made this such a special experience for me, though, was not what I learned from my mistake. Because I hadn’t actually made a mistake. It was really Mr. Shoun’s error. What impressed me was that after he realized he had not told me about the “red tag” items he took full responsibility. And he did it right then. Also, in addition to making sure I learned from the incident, he reassured me that I had done nothing wrong. He even commended me for the way I had served the customer by doing what he had told me. But most important, Mr. Shoun gave me an “on-the-job” demonstration of how to be fair to your employees, a sure-fire way to avoid a lot of workplace conflict. I owe him a lot for that.