Last year this month I worked at the Vermont Country Store at the North Clarendon Distribution Center. I was working hard. First as a picker, then loading trucks. I made some friends. I did not have any problems with anybody, and nobody had any problems with me, at least that I know of, or that anyone told me. There were no disciplinary measures against me. There were no negative performance reviews. I did not steal. I did not destroy property. I did not shoot heroin in the bathroom. I did not have any violent altercations with anyone. I did not watch child porn on the job. I did not cheat on my wife and commit adultery with a co-worker. I was late less than 5 minutes 2 or 3 times, which I made up staying longer and working through the breaks. Everybody seemed to have liked me: both supervisors and co-workers. And I was told that I did a good job, and that I busted my ass, by supervisors John DeCicco, Heidi Bruce, and David Schauwecker. But then, this is New England, and sometimes people tell you in your face that you are great, but they think about you differently.

Yet, this is the email I received from Vermont Country Store on 09/29/2016, following my re-applying for the same position this season:
"Thank you for your interest in working for The Vermont Country Store
again. After carefully considering your application and your past
employment with us, we have confirmed that you are not eligible for future
job opportunities at VCS. If you'd like to discuss the specifics about how
we came to this decision, we'd be happy to do so. Please contact us and we
will discuss this with you, 802-362-8375."

No further explanation was given. I called the provided number numerous times, but it is just a voice-mail dump. Finally, on 10/14/2016 I managed to speak with Katrina from Vermont Country Store human resources. While Katrina (direct line: 802-776-3672) did mention I was a couple of times late, she quickly moved to the real reasons. She said that she was surprised I even re-applied, because she thought that Schauwecker and DeCicco told me that I would not be eligible for re-employment. At least, she said, that was what they told her. But, for whatever cowardly reason they had, they did not tell the same to me. Katrina told me that I was described to her by my supervisors as "argumentative, aggressive, confrontational, upset, difficult, and disagreeable", and that from seasonal employees it is expected to be "little to no problem", so that she concluded that I am "not a good fit" for the company.

Further elaborating the details, it became clear that the decision to deny me seasonal employment this year was made in a blatant retaliation for the emails I wrote to David Schauwecker, and subsequently to Heidi Bruce. In those emails I just requested re-assignment within the distribution center to a position that would better utilize my strengths, and that would not be jeopardized by my weaknesses, namely poor eyesight. I believe it was the job of my supervisor to find the best fit for employees he supervised in the company. It was his job to answer his employees' emails. It was his job to respond to their requests. It was his job to address their needs and difficulties. This is what he was hired for. And he failed at his job. And I called him on that.

Vermont Country Store has many different jobs in their Distribution Center, and they require vastly different skills and abilities. After a week there, I merely concluded which of those jobs would be the best fit for me, i.e. at which of those jobs the company could get the best performance and the most productivity from me, and I suggested that re-assignment be made to Schauwecker. I observed that I had troubles reading small letters and numbers on the pick-sheet, due to my eyesight, which prevented me from doing that job faster, and I offered an opinion that I would be of better use elsewhere, where the good vision was less critical.

When I did not receive a response from Schauwecker, who ignored my emails and phone calls for over a week, while giving me bogus excuses in person. And when I observed that new people were instead trained for the positions I requested, while I was being told by him, that the company did not need employees in that position, I escalated my request to his supervisor, which was, what I believe, a legal and proper way to address that situation. I was also irritated by his recalcitrance and curious why is he so indolent about his job. So, I Googled him up.

I believe that just as the employers have the legal right to do background checks on their employees, so do the employees have the legal right to do background checks on their employers and supervisors. I did not share my findings with the other employees at that time, and I did not post them publicly on social networks. I actually did nothing adversary to the company. But, after finding out that he is a dishonored former Rutland city police officer, who was fired for watching porn at his job, and later found in possession of child porn in his police locker, my only thought was that Schauwecker must have had too many of his own private problems to care about my emails, and that was the reason I contacted Bruce. It, also, became clear to me why Schauwecker signed his last name as Shoey.

But, my only sincere wish was to fit better with the company, that claims to be flexible, and open: to offer my services where they can be used better. In fact, Bruce, in the meeting with new hires a couple of days earlier, asked us all to bring up issues that bother us before they escalate. And I did just that. At my meeting with Bruce, DeCicco was present. During the meeting, Bruce expressed concern that I checked publicly available information on my supervisors, which concern I did not find appropriate. But after the meeting with Bruce and, I was re-assigned, and I performed well, to everyone open satisfaction.

At the end of the season I was let go for lack of work by DeCicco and Schauwecker in a joint meeting. They did not give me any hints of me not being eligible for future employment with the Vermont Country Store. On the contrary, I was left with the impression they would call me back. Angela Corbett, VCS HR coordinator, sent me the End of Employment Verification on 12/31/2015, marked: "Seasonal layoff." And I would come back and work hard, if they gave the opportunity. However, it looks like the Vermont Country Store, in accordance with their motto - a blast from the past - wants their seasonal employees to be dumb mutes who do not ask questions and make suggestions, "little to no problem," as Katrina calls them, even when those suggestions may improve the company's productivity.

So, here is a little wrap-up of my one-season employment for VCS for Yelp, Glassdoor, and Indeed: "It is a true blast from the past. With a scent of indentured servitude. One can make more money per hour begging in New York subway, for a similar amount of walking, than as a picker ($9.26/hr) at the Vermont Country Store North Clarendon sweatshop. Some of the co-workers are so starved that they steal candy during work and leave the open wrappers on the shelves.
Employee behavior is expected to be at the level of a medieval serf, in total deference to a bloated numbers of middle-managers and supervisors, usually local nobility, who can't do wrong. You are there to make their life even easier. One is a former cop, who got busted for watching porn, and was later found in possession of child porn in his police locker. Now he has plenty of time to enjoy his hobby in peace. Another got a house on a dead man's mortgage. He whiled his time by cheating on his wife.
Great place to work, if you play dumb, or if you don't mind being pushed around by creeps and crooks. Just don't be confrontational and argumentative. The company does not like employees who can talk or write. It is best if they don't speak English, but if they can still recognize the letters of the alphabet by shape (important for pickers)"

I see both a problem here with the VCS corporate culture, and also a problem with the local culture in which this company resides. First, Lyman Orton's idea in late 2000-s to turn over the company to professional managers, made the organic Vermont brand a sad joke. The company, "opened when a shopkeeper was a friend; merchandise was useful, worked and made sense; and a country store was stocked to the rafters with hard-to-find goods," became a company where shopkeeper is a number, and the managers and supervisors multiplied like fleas after the flood. Shortly after that "professionalization," the company was found to be violating federal labor practices in labor class action suit, as those managers and supervisors asked workers to perform job tasks before clocking in.

As the Orton family took the hands-off approach, bullshit jobs proliferated, in the fashion, as the philosopher David Graeber explained, they tend to in our brave new neo-liberal corporate capitalist world, creating particularly redundant positions of "seasonal supervisors." I have no idea how they justify to proprietors the need to be so many of them. They sure cost the company a lot of money, that then the company has to recover through the exorbitant prices of their products and through the abysmally low wages the company pays to the workers that actually do the work of selling, picking, packing and shipping those products. And since they are vested with so much power without merit, they wield it to promote their favoritism and nepotism in hiring, that just re-enforces the sad mindset of the local community that would tolerate anything to a locally born, and nothing to an outsider: creating a position to feed a fallen local son, who loves watching nude under-aged girls, but giving a cold shoulder to a newcomer for just asking a simple question, saying he is difficult.

Which brings us to the second problem: The small town of Rutland in 21st century is like the small town of New Rochelle in 19th century, when the local Tories there did not allow the founding father Thomas Paine to vote (he also wrote a nasty letter to G. Washington, when Washington, as president, did not want to bail him from French prison). Centuries pass, circumstances change, some small minds stay the same. And maybe my reaction/response was not what was expected of seasonal employees in Rutland, who are supposed to be "little to no problem," like Katrina said, dumb-mute. Maybe they are and maybe I am, perhaps, not a cookie-cutter blueprint of how local under-educated employees behave. That is, probably, because I am different, as an immigrant from a war-torn country with rich experiences of persecution for being an outspoken young journalist. However, if local employers have such a hard time accommodating me, then we all better brace ourselves for impact, now when the Syrian refugees start arriving to Rutland, because we certainly cannot possibly hope they will be cookie-cutter versions of what the local population expects them to be.

I am afraid Rutland is simply not ready to be a good host to those refugees, despite many honest wishes of the good people around: economically, culturally, and institutionally NOT ready. This community is supposed to be their safe haven. However, how can a community be perceived as a safe haven, when its police force is accused of racism and racial profiling, officers drinking on the job, fabricating probable cause, lying in court, having sex with informants, keeping weapons obtained in searches and acting cruelly to police dogs? And those are just the most recent accusations, made by VT State Trooper Andrew Todd, a former officer with the Rutland Police Department. The case about Traci Pena was never solved. She was just chased out of town. And she was the one that pushed for the Schauwecker's name to be released to public. Someone shot at her store: there were bullet holes in her windows. The store is now closed, and she is gone. She hoped Lt. Kevin Geno would help her solve the case. Lt. Geno? In her testyimony, veteran Rutland Police Officer Chris Kiefer-Cioffi said: "It was Cpt. Scott Tucker and Lt. Kevin Geno, the second and third in command, who fostered an unhealthy atmosphere of favoritism within the department. If the two of them collectively received a complaint from an officer or a supervisor that they didn't particularly call their buddy, they would blow that off and just hope it went away." Lt. Geno likes a stiff drink, and once he accidentally tripped and discharged his firearm behind Cpt. Tucker. Luckily, no one was hurt. Cpt. Tucker is today one of the leaders of the Project Vision. Based on the available data, and on my personal experience, I cannot honestly say that Rutland institutions and businesses will be genuinely friendly and welcoming to refugees.

HERE IS AN UPDATE