Pat was one of the first female “big ticket” sales people hired by Sears here in San Diego. “Big ticket” meaning big bucks…appliances, TV’s, hi-fi’s, refrigerators, etc. The men felt that they were being invaded and had to protect their turf. They made the women’s lives miserable whenever they possibly could. They stashed inventory, hid customer orders, told returning customers that their sales lady was off that day so they could steal the sale even though the woman might be off the floor on lunch break. In short, they did every petty thing they could think of.

If there were no customers on the floor, the sales guys sometimes eased their boredom by picking at one another. Ed was one of the worst when it came to this and he began making a “cause” out of Pat’s handwriting. Pat scribbles her signature and everything else because she simply doesn’t want to take the necessary time to make things neat. A good part of the time, she can’t even read her own notes. When signing a legal document she slows down enough to make her signature legible.

Ed, on the other hand, wrote beautifully and his penmanship was like a work of art. He couldn’t understand why Pat’s handwriting was so bad and why she didn’t care. He thought there must be some dark reason for this and he was bound and determined to find out what it was. He continued ranting about it every time he got a chance.

It happened that the San Diego Fair was in full swing and on a day off, Pat and a friend decided to go. They went to the art show, the photography show, and the garden show and then started checking out the merchandise booths. Mixed in with the can openers and super detergents, they came upon a booth advertising “Handwriting Analysis”. Pat was intrigued by this since she had been getting so much grief from Ed and she stepped up to get it done. She was delighted by what the analyst had to say. She was told that her handwriting indicated she was open-minded and creative and free and that she had a great zest for life. She could hardly contain herself until she went to work the next day and told Ed and the other guys what she had learned. Ed, of course, was taken aback, in that the findings in no way agreed with all of the negative stuff he had been putting out. He was scheduled to be off the next day and vowed to go to the fair and get an analysis of his beautiful penmanship and show Pat and the rest of the crew what the evaluation of a true craftsman’s work would be.

Two days later, a subdued Ed showed up for work. In a low and even voice, he said that his penmanship had been described as artificial, deceptive, and was definitely covering up a deep, dark, secret. Ed was feeling pretty low but you’ve got to hand it to him…he had the guts to lay it out before everyone.

Strange as it may seem, Ed was one of Pat’s favorite co-workers. As ornery as he was, if caught at something he would always ‘fess up and laugh at himself for getting caught. Pat says that as long as you were on guard, he was fun to be around and was basically a decent guy.

Dave Thomas
June 20, 2015