Young Mr. Munson

Grocery stores are hectic places and sometimes parents look the other way. Kids get lost. It happens. Most children are reunited with their parents without an offer of full-time employment. For young Geoffry Munson, this was not the case.

The crowd was definitely bustling one Saturday afternoon at a Toledo, Ohio area Sir Sav-A-Lot.

“I just felt like I was going in circles that day,” says district manager Ted Hawley who had been covering at the store after the management staff walked out on their jobs two weeks before. “We were running short-staffed, again, and the crew the former managers left me with were less than ideal.”

“Pretty much everyone was kissin’ ass for a management position,” says longtime employee Jessica Boseman. “It’s like predators smelling that blood every time anything higher than a floor postion opens up.”

“The store was in shambles,” says Hawley, “and nobody on the staff was stepping up. No initiative from the whole lot of them.”

“They get about as much initiaitve as they pay for,” remarks cashier Ray Arnold.

“There is a distinct lack of leadership in this store,” said Hawley that Saturday, addressing some of the workers who’d inquired about their management applications. “You people can’t even keep the Cheez Its and Cheese Nips straight, how am I supposed to trust any of you to run a whole damn store?”

It was then that six-year-old Geoffry Munson walked up.

“I can't find my mommy,” he said to his feet.

“Not now, kid,” spat Hawley. “And another thing….”

“Mr. Hawley,” said Boseman, “I really think we oughtta help that kid.”

“You know what?” said Hawley. “That kid would probably make a better manager than any of you. Congrats,” he said turning to little Geoffry, “you’re hired!”

“I was joking of course,” says Hawley looking back on the incident. “I just wanted to let everyone know that a random child could do the job better than any of them, you know, because of how worthless they are. But then they had to go get HR involved.”

“I received complaints from the staff of 304 that Mr. Hawley had offered a job to a child to spite his staff,” says Kelly Henderson, a Sir Sav-A-Lot human resources representative, “and our rules on that kind of thing are quite clear.”

“They said I had to honor the job offer,” says Hawley, “if you believe that crap. Not that anything those snowflakes do surprises me. And I never thought the kid would accept the offer!”

“It’s great!” says Derrick Munson, Geoffry’s father. “We’re saving a ton on daycare and he’s making twelve dollars an hour! Twelve! Win win!”

“It’s been great since Mr. Munson took over,” says cashier Arnold. “He’s super chill about time-off requests, the usual Karens don't get loud with him, and the break room always got apple juice and Goldfish crackers in it!”

But other Sir Sav-A-Lot employees point out not all consequences of having a six-year-old manager are positive.

“He made Spider-Man employee of the month!” says stocker Erica Willis. “I didn’t see Spider-Man in here pulling all that recalled peanut butter off the shelf! And when I said that to Mr. Munson he was just like ‘I like chunky peanut butter!’ and ran off.”

“We caught a shoplifter last week,” says Craig Davis, who works in loss prevention, “and I asked Mr. Munson if he’d like us to call the police and he just yelled ‘I’m Chase the police dog!’ and started running around us in circles and barking. We had to let the guy go so he can let all his buddies know how soft we’ve gotten on theft.”

“I told him we were short staffed at the cash registers over the weekend,” says Boseman, “and he just put one of those big stuffed sharks on register seven and the lines were backed up all day, not to mention a lot of people just walked past the shark without paying. Also he made me ring next to Gina and he knows how much I hate Gina!”

While the store still isn’t running as it should, Geoffry Munson isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

“I was just trying to prove a point,” says Hawley, “and that point has been more than proven. Only now I can’t fire the kid because HR is afraid of an age discrimination suit. On the upside, now that a new manager has been hired and trained I don’t have to spend so much time in this store anymore. So, I don't know, it's alright I guess."

So whether or not the staff and customers like it, Geoffry Munson is here to stay. At least until school starts, and that is if the lure of full-time paid employment doesn’t overcome that of starting the second grade.

We asked young Geoffry how he felt about his new position as store manager and he had this to say on the experience thus far:

“I live in the store now until I go home! We sell peaches and grapes and fish and ‘tato chips and dinosaur nuggets and sometimes people like grown-up people are mean and say we don’t have stuff but other times the people, like the people in the store are nice and buy things. One time I was Spider-Man, no, I was Spider-Man’s friend but like another Spider-Man and we ate cookies in the cold room with all the meat! I like being man'ger!”

Well, good luck out there, young Geoffry. You're going to need it.