Cheryl's Life

Thinking of the past

Most of my twenties was spent working 2 jobs. For about 10 years (minus 1 year of working at a sports bar as a waitress)I worked at this check cashing place called Cash Unlimited. It was in a shopping strip on the corner of Hillsborough and 22nd. The neighborhood it was in was a poor neighborhood not far from public housing projects. It was a busy place. Most people that patronized the place would cash checks, purchase money orders and wire money to Mexico or South America.

You would be amazed at the type of stuff that went on there. It was a place fit for a Jerry Springer episode. A typical day would consist of a customer coming in to cash a check. For whatever reason, one of the ladies I worked with would refuse to cash it. The customer would then argue with the employee about it. They would eventually start trading insults. The language would become increasingly abusive until finally, the employee would threaten to "come out there" into the lobby. It would not matter if the customer was a man or a woman. These two ladies I worked with were always willing to go out and fight over insults. It amazed me. These were women in their late thirties and early forties too! I've even witnessed our store manager running out into the lobby and after someone. Talk about crazy....

What amazes me is the fact that I was never robbed. I had the responsibility of opening the store and closing it by myself. I had keys, access to the safe that was filled with anywhere between $50K and $250K on any given day. I thought about the possibility of being robbed all the time. There were random security guards that worked the entire shopping strip but, they did not keep the same hours as the check cashing store. The way I prevented myself from being robbed was by being completely unpredictable. I never opened or closed the store at the same time each night. I left early and came in late-preferably when there was a line of customers waiting for the store to open. If I was going to be robbed, I was going to make sure there were plenty of witnesses.

One night, I closed the store at 10pm and walked out and to my car. Little did I know, my car had been stolen from the parking lot earlier. So there I was, little me out in the middle of a parking lot in a bad neighborhood at 10pm. Fortunately, there was a policeman parked in the parking lot. I had to walk up to his car, knock on his window and explain what happened. Then, I had to find a ride home. I didn't have a cell phone back then so I had to find a pay-phone.The car was a brown Pontiac 6000. It was a complete lemon. I had just spent hundreds of dollars getting it fixed before it was stolen. It was awful.

We use to get people arrested there all the time for trying to cash stolen or counterfeit checks. We would know in advance of the type of checks or customers to watch out for. These check cashing companies are very good at working together and sharing information. Well, at least they were back then. If someone came in with a check we knew was stolen or counterfeit, we would lock them in the store (without their knowledge of course). All we had to do was flip a switch that automatically locked the door in the lobby. We never had to actually walk out into the lobby to lock the front door. We would then stall the customer by pretending to call the home office or something for verification. We did this long enough for the police to arrive. This was a pretty common thing that happened especially around the holidays. I use to think it was fun but then I started to feel bad.

We found out that men were bribing young mothers in the parking lot by asking them to cash checks for them. If they successfully cashed the check, they were promised $50 or something. The women would attempt to cash the check not really realizing it was stolen. The women were typically young and poor with a child on their arm. I just started refusing to cash the check and letting them go without calling the police. Plus, I was always worried about running into one of them somewhere else later. I just did not want to deal with that responsibility.

posted by CherylRenee @ 10:33 AM