No Call, No Show

Amanda “Mandy” Blake is a retail worker from the Elgin, Illinois area. Well, that is, she was a retail worker until about 3pm Thursday afternoon when the store’s human resources rep filed her termination paperwork, citing job abandonment. There was no notice or formal resignation given, Mandy had simply stopped showing up. While her coworkers will miss her presence around the store, some can’t help but speculate on where Mandy will end up next.

“It kind of sucks when people do this,” says shift supervisor Brian Saunders, “but I get it. Like, okay Will Hunting, go see about that girl I guess.”

“I think she probably got a job somewhere else,” says sales associate Brenda Moore, who’s closing tonight and opening tomorrow morning, “out of retail. I mean, if it was me I wouldn’t want to spend another minute here if I didn’t absolutely have to.”

“I hope she’s not working at all,” says merchandiser Charles Walker who got chewed out by a customer over an inventory discrepancy earlier and also ran a pallet jack through dog poop the other day. “I can picture her relaxing on a beach somewhere, far, far away from this place.”

Some store employees who knew Mandy a little better remember her fondness for crafts and wonder if maybe her hobbies had something to do with why she turned her back on retail.

“Maybe her Etsy store finally blew up,” says sales associate Linda Shouse who spends her breaks sketching as she’s too burnt out or busy after work to devote any time to her art. “I’d really like that for her, to be able to do that full time.”

“I was kind of wondering if maybe one of those places that sell tchotchkes and stuff discovered her,” says front line manager Luis Golya who took a job at the store after the coffee shop he opened with his brother failed to turn a profit. “Like Mandy could be the next Kate Spade or Alex and Ani or something.”

Other tales of Mandy's good fortune border on the fantastical. Mary Beth from returns who lives paycheck-to-paycheck for example posits that Mandy likely won the lottery. Famke Hendriks who works in overnight stocking in addition to daytime reception work romantically wonders if Mandy has eloped with a billionaire.

Of course, while most are happy that Mandy has moved on to speculative greener pastures, there are those who are bitter for her newfound hypothetical happiness.

“Mandy sucks for doing this,” says Jeff Haim, a cashier six-and-a-half hours into a five hour shift, “for real. While she's out there living it up in Kokomo or some other place from a Beatles song we’re here wasting our best years explaining to Margaret-Anne why her expired coupon for a competitor’s store isn’t any good here. We don’t even sell pistachios! How am I supposed to BOGO something we don’t even sell? Huh, Didn’t think of that, did ya, Margaret-Anne, you jerk!?”

While Jeff and a few others you don’t need to hear from are, perhaps understandably, resentful of Mandy, most still speak of her with admiration and hopefulness.

“It’s so great for her,” says manager Keith Dorn. “It won’t be easy filling her shifts, and I don’t just mean because literally nobody has agreed to cover any of her shifts.”

Well, wherever it is that Mandy Blake has found herself, we hope her coworkers are right and that she’s finally living her best life.

When reached for comment, the Blake family informed us they intend to mourn privately for the time being and in lieu of sending flowers they’d ask to please make a donation to The American Humane Society in Mandy’s name as it was her favorite charity.