<Begin Segment 28>

TI: So I want to talk a little bit more about your, your career, because you went into the grocery business. And so can you tell me the type of work you did in the grocery business? We were talking a little bit off camera, I was really interested.

FS: You mean after I went, how I got into the supermarket?

TI: Uh-huh.

FS: Well, somebody I knew was at the church, one of the ladies, her husband is a buyer, supervisor buyer for a place called Gelson Market, so she said, "Why don't you go see my husband?" So I went to see him, and said, "Okay, you come work for me." Started at, so I had, started at North Hollywood store, and I had to, I had to tell my boss, my Enbun, Enbun boss, I got to tell him. I gave him two weeks' notice, but he said, "That's okay. You can go in one week." And I left, after I got the whatchamacall, I left one week and then went to work for Gelson Market. And that was, I worked for them for (twenty) years. (Twenty) years for Gelson, I mean Enbun (ten years), Japanese store, then (twenty years for Gelson).

TI: And, and part of what I really enjoyed was your, your discussing, it's almost like the art of displaying produce and how important that is. Can you, can you, who taught you that? I mean, how did you learn the importance of how you display things in a supermarket?

FS: I would say, actually, the way that the buyer supervisor display things, and they will tell me he don't want it that way, he want it this way. Somebody else would tell me that. And when I, one time he, he displayed this... I was doing, I suppose, doing what he was, I was supposed to put up, and he said, "No, I'm gonna put this up this morning." And he displayed the beans, beans, string beans. You won't know what he did. He laid everything down and he made a, like a building out of it. Every one, every one of the string whatchamacall, it was interchanged, interchanged then made like that, so the people will come say, "Where am I supposed to take it from?" [Laughs] So he was, he was a perfectionist. Really was perfectionist, so everything else they tell you to do, you got to do his way is the right way. If you do it the wrong way, he'll take it down.

TI: Interesting, but he never really told you to do it a certain way. It was like you would have to kind of watch how he did it and then you would have to just know, okay, I have to do it the same way or he won't like it and perhaps take it down?

FS: Yeah. Well, if he wasn't there and somebody else was putting up the stuff, I got to watch the other guy, too. Manager, or assistant manager, he put it up, I say I got to watch him because he's the one that learned from, from the boss, see? So if I don't do it their way and I do it my own way, he said, "This no good." He'd take it down.

TI: So for you it was more like you really had to know your bosses. I mean, what they liked and how they did it, so you had to be really in tune with that.

FS: Yeah, if you don't like the, if you don't like the buyer, I mean, you're gonna be out. 'Cause the one guy, one guy thought he was pretty smart, so the boss was there, he didn't, he kind of didn't see him and he was saying, "Oh, I could do this any time." And he heard about it, one week later he got fired. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, that's good.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.