That time ROAR for Good’s Anthony Gold got in trouble with a union boss

“I managed to nearly get fired from one of the easiest jobs in the world” is how ROAR for Good cofounder Anthony Gold kicks off his Lemonade Stand story.

At the tender age of 16, Gold was a grocery bagger and shopping cart collector at his local ACME Market. It was the spring before going to college, and young Anthony’s goal was to work his way to a “G-2” also known as a cashier.

“I was determined to be the best bagger and cart collector this Acme branch had ever seen,” Gold recounts. “And there are two ways to increase the efficiency of collecting shopping carts from the parking lot: more carts per run, and faster runs. Better yet, combine the two.”

On one such run, Gold had some 20 carts in tow and was hurdling towards the front of the store. “Standing there out front was a woman soliciting for some cause or event. Her impromptu sales spot was right in the path of my cart flow, so I kindly asked her to move,” said Gold.

The same routine went down two times, but the woman kept blocking the path on Gold’s cart train. Until the young employee thought to mention ACME’s policy on non-solicitation.

“Problem solved,” Gold remembers. “And I got back to setting new records for cart retrieval times.”

But when he walked into work the next day, the local union boss was waiting for him. He interrogated Gold about a woman he was harassing.

“I recounted the entire story and what it finally took to get this unreasonable, uncompromising woman to leave. Clearly he would understand my position and shift his allegiance back to his hardworking, conscientious employee.”

“That woman was my wife,” the man told young Gold.

Quoting the rulebook at the union boss’ wife cost the teenager a week of unpaid leave of absence.

“I came back a week later and quit,” said Gold said.