371: Scenes From a Mall

Ira Glass

5:30 in the afternoon, in the food court at a table near Sbarro's, Nick and Cheyenne and Natalie are just hanging around killing time, waiting to go to a movie when their buddy Chase shows up and explains the Sydney situation.

Ira Glass

Chase had come to the mall with Sydney. But now he was here in the food court and she was with the boyfriend.

Ira Glass

Chase is at the mall about once a week and there's always a danger that he's going to run into Courtney since they used to come here together. But he's only seen her here once. It was right in the food court. Right near where we're sitting. It wasn't pleasant.

She was with her entire cheerleading squad. They were all in uniform. Because they were doing a fundraiser car wash or something.

Ira Glass

Like any Friday afternoon after school, lots of teenagers are in the mall today. Halfway across the food court, two high school sophomores named Colton and Chris wave to some kids at the Dairy Queen.

Ira Glass

We came to the mall to see what was happening there at Christmas. When there are stories on Radio TV about the world of shopping, it's pretty much always about how much shopping we're all doing.

Were this year's Thanksgiving purchases as much as last year's? What does that say about the economy? That kind of thing. But it doesn't really tell you what it feels like for the people who work at a big retail operation, like this mall right now. Or for the people who hang out at the mall. Because the mall's much more than just sales.

Ira Glass

The name of this particular mall is the Cool Springs Galleria, outside Nashville. It's not the fanciest mall in the area. When we visited there was no Tiffany store or Burberry or Apple Store. But it was newly redone with big, cushy chairs everywhere, and a play area for toddlers, and all the regular Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Williams-Sonoma stores that you'd expect in a nice mall. Five department stores: Macy's, Dillard's, Belk, JCPenney and Sears. It's the kind of upscale leaning, but not snooty mall that if you needed to shoot a mall scene for a new Miley Cyrus movie, you might do it here. In fact, she did. 150 shops, 6,500 parking spaces.

We were here at this time of year, mid December, exactly two weeks before Christmas two years ago in 2008. It was me and my fellow producers, Nancy Updike and Wendy Dorr. Today on our show we bring you, Scenes From a Mall. Stories of people we met and what we saw. And we'll leave this Nashville mall just once this hour for a story about a Christmas related political fight in an organization of professional Santas. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life distributed by Public Radio International. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

"Act one, Love Line."

Let's begin our tour of life at to the mall here.

Ira Glass

Russell and Chandler are engaged. I met them at the T-Mobile kiosk on the lower level of the mall, where Russell is the number one salesman. When I wandered up and started talking to him, it was late in the day and it was just him and a co-worker, no Chandler.

Russell was explaining to me that it's hard selling T-Mobile in this mall because we were in Franklin County. And Franklin County is Verizon country.

Ira Glass

It's galling to Russell. Because he truly believes in T-Mobile. When he talks to me about the pros and cons of his arch-rival, Verizon, and starts to lay out the facts about price and especially customer service, and how T-Mobile is the better deal, I do not feel like he's selling me. Somehow it feels like he is sharing a basic truth about the world that he has discovered and just needs to get across.

He has this air of unslick sincerity to him, like he's somebody who geeked out on cellphones and knows everything, and can give you the wisdom of this nerdy obsession of his. And that is obviously a big reason that he's the number one salesman here. And when he described how he ended up in this mall, I realized, I was just the latest in a series of people who saw this quality in him.

He'd been working construction and that a guy trying to sell him a phone offered him a job. Then he was secret shopped by a rival T-Mobile store who poached him away from that first store. And then he was poached from that store by his current boss. All this happened in a year. He's just 19.

Ira Glass

So while Russell's explaining all this, his finance Chandler strolls up to the T-Mobile booth. They don't talk, but he keeps getting text messages-- mid-interview. Till finally--

Ira Glass

OK, I'm just going to cut in here and say, have you noticed she is selling. Because she is not just a waitress at the ultimate drink stop, she is the number one earner at the ultimate drink stop. She makes more money than the number one T-Mobile salesman, her fiance, Russell.

Ira Glass

This is the kind of logic that helps people stay together for the rest of their lives. Like Russell, Chandler is estranged from her family. She got a job and took night classes so she could graduate from high school at 16 and move out.

Now she's just 18. She and Russell live together. They just got a new puppy. Russell doesn't want to go to college. He doesn't see the point. He works with guys who went to college and he makes more than they do. But Chandler wants college.

Ira Glass

So she and Russell are making this future together. She wants to be a nurse. Actually, she wants to be a dermatologist, but that's going to take too long and cost too much. So she's going for nurse. He wants to convert the world to T-Mobile.

Chandler signed up with Russell long before she signed up with T-Mobile, which is kind of a sore point with him. But Russell being Russell, he did not give up. There was a sale to make. He needed her to admit and enjoy the superiority of T-Mobile.

I asked Chandler how many dates she went on with Russell before he stopped trying to sell her a phone. And she sighs in this way that it's clear that it went on way too long. Here, let me play you that tape.

Ira Glass

AT&T, the indignity. Chandler sighs and she says, no, no. She really likes T-Mobile a lot. It's really better. Sometimes she has some problems, but T-Mobile is great. Customer service, she says, out of the roof. It's really, really good.

Ira Glass

"Act two, Not Dead Yet."

Back in the food court I ran into three eighth graders, best friends, who say they come here once a week for maybe four hours at a time.

Ira Glass

This of course, was a minority view. Most people at the mall had heard of the recession.

Two years ago this week, December 2008 when we were recording, it was near the beginning of the current recession we're in. The stores here were still doing a lot of business by putting huge amounts of stuff on sale. You still see that strategy this year. And a handful of stores actually had business increasing during the hard economic times. Like the Chick-fil-A in the food court at Cool Springs. Business was up 10% since the beginning of November said the franchise's owner, Jeannie [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

Ira Glass

Jeannie gets behind the register when the lines get long. She has a successful small business owner's brisk creativity. When a harried young mom starts rooting around in her purse in frustration looking for her coupon, Jeannie goes over and fishes in the trash for one.

Ira Glass

She finds the coupon, washes her hands, and gets back to doling out chicken, soda, and courtesy. She calls every male customer sir. Even the teenage boys in braces ordering strawberry milk shakes.

Ira Glass

Chick-fil-A franchise owners are responsible for their own advertising and marketing. And so Jeannie just paid for a Chick-fil-A sign in the mall elevator, which she says has boosted customers. And when the rush slows down, Jeannie walks the mall.

Ira Glass

Jeannie is definitely mayoral as she walks around, welcoming newcomers.

Ira Glass

Poking around in stores.

Ira Glass

Teasing people.

Ira Glass

And always cheerfully plotting how to bring in more customers. In that way, her business really is like running for mayor. Political candidates talk about how important it is to reach out to voters again and again, in different ways, never let them forget you. Especially your base, which for Jeannie is the people who work in the mall. People who work in the mall make up 50% of her business.

The other day, Jeannie sent one of her employees to walk around inside the mall dressed in a cow suit. The cow is Chick-fil-A's mascot. His tagline is, "Eat more chicken." And that cow had his picture taken with employees at every store and every kiosk in the mall.

Ira Glass

Jeannie's message, there's nothing in this economy stopping you from eating a chicken sandwich. I think a lot of store owners are feeling some version of that feeling.

I was shopping last week for a Christmas present trying to decide between two things. The store owner says to me, you still have a job. Yeah, a huge percentage of the country is unemployed, but nothing has changed for you. Why can't you act like it?

And not every store is surviving. Here at Cool Springs one of the stores that was about to close when we visited was Carlton Cards up on the second floor. There weren't any big signs announcing it or anything. In fact, it was kind of a weird thing to see. The store was like this cheerful, red toy box filled with fluffy little dolls and bracelets and Valentine's hearts. And then, scotch taped up with scotch tape here and there, these austere signs that the staff had printed on the store's computer on regular 8 and 1/2 by 11 paper declaring in all caps "50% OFF. STORE CLOSING. ALL SALES FINAL."

Ira Glass

This woman preferred not to give her name. They were selling stuff from the stock room partly because the corporate office stopped sending them new product to put on the shelves back in early November. A couple weeks before they were told that the store would close.

Ira Glass

Coming up, why Santa is mad at Santa. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International when our program continues.

Ira Glass

Well, it's This American Life, I'm Ira Glass. Each week on our show we choose a theme and bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Scenes From a Mall, we've been bringing you stories recorded this month at a shopping mall, Cool Springs Galleria in Nashville.

In addition to whatever happens at the North Pole, there is a Santa industry that springs up at malls all over the country every Christmas with photographers and helpers. You see Santa in parades. This year you see him at the White House. We're going to talk about the people in that business right now. Parents of small children, consider this fair notice. Decide if your child should be hearing about the side of Christmas. I'll wait. OK, only grownups left?

We saw a story in the Wall Street Journal about a rift in the world of professional Santas, a fight that turned Santa against Santa. Reporter Josh Bearman looked into it for us.

Josh Bearman

This is a Christmas story, a tale of two Santas. On the one side is Tim Conaghan, a full-time professional Santa with a big belly and a real flowing white beard. Tim is so dedicated to the idea of Santa Claus, his house is in a perpetual state of Christmas. There are St. Nick tapestries, a workshop with a calendar marking the days until Christmas, and a grand throne where Santa Tim receives children. It is like the North Pole, if the North Pole were in Riverside, California.

As Santa Tim takes me on a tour, he is dressed in a sort of Santa casual. Red and white shirt and green pants dotted with candy canes. The Santa saturation here is such that as Santa Tim provides a lengthy detailed history on the image of Santa Claus and how best to achieve that authentic Santa look, there's still more Santa to come.

Josh Bearman

The counterpart to Santa Tim is Santa Nick. That's right, his actual name is Nicholas. And he too has a belly and a real white beard, which means that he must always be prepared for Santa contingencies, even in July, even when he's out running an errand.

Josh Bearman

But the story of Santa Tim and Santa Nick is not like most Christmas parables. It is not about impoverished couples giving up their most cherished things to sacrifice for each other, or an avaricious curmudgeon finally learning to let love into his heart. This story is sort of the opposite in fact. It is a story about how these two men, Santa Tim and Santa Nick, so much alike, potential allies in a great cause, came instead to lead rival factions in the bitter Santa civil war. And came themselves to be arch enemies. Here's Nick talking about Tim.

Josh Bearman

And here's Tim on Nick.

Josh Bearman

Santa Tim and Santa Nick are at the center of a political schism that's overtaken their guild, the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas.

It all began over a decade ago before Nick and Tim ever met, when a random event thrust a group of like-minded Santa's together.

Back in 1994, a German catalog assembled 10 professional Santas for a commercial shoot in Los Angeles. One Santa flipped through the catalog in his sleigh while the others bumped into each other in a gift delivery frenzy. Bob Kokol was one of those Santas.

Josh Bearman

All these Santas had real beards, distinguishing them from the many synthetic or designer bearded Santas who often showed up at casting calls. A Santa named Tom Hartsfield jokingly proposed that they all form a club. He suggested the name, the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, quickly known by its acronym, AORBS, and organized the luncheon. And the joke sort of took hold. The Santas met again the next year, and the next. And each time more Santas showed up.

Josh Bearman

By 2003, there were several hundred members. Until then, Tom Hartsfield had maintained all the administrative duties himself. Feeling overwhelmed, he was looking for help. One of the many people who joined the organization was Santa Tim Conaghan. This is the Santa Tim from the beginning of our story, the one who sang to me. Santa Tim was a well-known Santa in Southern California. He always had good gigs and under the name, the Kringle Group LLC, he ran various Santa related businesses. Including a referral service and mail order wardrobe catalog, offering boots, coats, buckles, and of course, beards made from yak fur, the preferred fake beard if you must wear fake. Which doesn't come cheap by the way.

Santa Tim also had a school called the International University of Santa Claus, built around his own curriculum and textbook, Behind the Red Suit. All this meant that Santa Tim was an organizer, good on the computer with lists and events. Just what Tom thought this growing organization needed. So he asked Santa Tim to take over.

Josh Bearman

This is video from that convention, which was called Discover Santa 2006. And what we're hearing is the sound of over 300 real bearded Santa Clauses, their associated Mrs. Clauses, and a contingent of little people dressed as elves taking to the streets, a red and white procession across downtown Branson, Missouri at 7:00 AM on a Friday morning.

There were also advanced Santa panels on dealing with special needs children, and Santa Tim offered his Santa University lessons.

Josh Bearman

These included the always popular Santa grooming practicum, covering beard, care and whitening. And simple do's and don'ts. Do smile, don't promise any specific toys. And of course--

Josh Bearman

Then there are those Santa nuances, Tim advises, that ought to be a matter of individual styling.

Josh Bearman

Discover Santa was a success. It wasn't just the first national gathering of AORBS, it was an eye-opening experience for everyone. Being Santa Claus is a solitary job after all. As one Santa put it, "You can't just call a friend and go santaing together." But there they were, several hundred Santas, aglow with the promise of Santa fraternity. It was like their Woodstock and it raised the profile of the organization, generating all kinds of news coverage.

Tim turned AORBS into an official nonprofit. He assembled an interim board and drafted bylaws cribbed from the Kiwanis club. And meanwhile, all the media attention was attracting new members. One of whom was Nick Trolli, the other embattled Santa from the beginning of the story. He'd been quietly plying his trade as a part-time Santa, unaware of the organization run by Tim.

Josh Bearman

Nick attended a meeting in New Jersey and immediately got involved. He joined the board and volunteered to help plan the next bigger Discover Santa convention. This was all in the Spring of 2007. No one knew it then, but that was the high water mark of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. Less than a year later, the organization would descend into chaos, then split in two.

The trouble began just a few months after Nick joined. When he started on the board, Nick clashed with Tim immediately. Nick accused Tim of using AORBS to profit his own Kringle Group businesses, and he started whispering to some of the other Santas about it.

Then that summer, it was learned that Santa Tim had signed a contract with a small film production company that hoped to make a movie about the Santa convention and Tim's Santa school. Tim signed contracts on behalf of his school and AORBS. Both were paid $1,500 up front, with more coming if the movie ever got made. It wasn't a lot of money, but it was enough to be considered a scandal. .

The dispute hit the board and eventually, Santa Tim resigned. In the fall out, several more board members resigned in solidarity. Which meant that by order of succession, Santa Nick who had just joined that year, wound up president of AORBS.

Josh Bearman

The reason the California Santas were all riled up is that they believe Santa Nick had essentially staged a coup, beginning with his whisper campaign against Tim. To them, this was a power grab plain and simple. And to make matters worse, Santa Nick started doing some things that seemed very suspicious. He dropped the word "interim" from his title. He reincorporated the entire organization in another state. He never accounted for the treasury. And he installed another relatively new Santa, Jeff Germann, as his vice president. Which gave Jeff control over the Santa's online forum, Elf Net. Which is where dissident Santas were airing their grievances.

Rick Erwin was one of those dissident Santas and he says things changed when Santa Jeff took over Elf Net.

Josh Bearman

From Nick and Jeff's perspective, they were the ones facing a coordinated assault coming from Tim's cabal of rabid supporters. Jeff Germann says they had to defend themselves against nonstop rumors and innuendo. And pretty soon, this meant going head to head against the guy who came up with the idea for the organization in the first place, the guy who named it the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, Santa Tom Hartsfield.

Josh Bearman

Now, rebuke is not a word you hear in conversation that often, and Jeff used it three times. All that rebuking reminds you that although Santas are self described jolly gentleman, they also divide the world into naughty and nice.

By the fall of 2007, lots of santas were being labeled naughty, and a vicious cycle developed. The more Santas who criticized Nick and Jeff, the more Santas got banished. Which led to more criticism, which prompted more banishment. A siege mentality set in. Eventually, the deposed Santas started their own forums, Santa Talk, which they called a refugee camp from AORBS.

Now each faction had its own mouthpiece, further fanning the flames. Each side accused the other of betraying the spirit of Santa Claus, of using the beard to line their own red velvet pockets.

The conflict came to a head in January 2008, at a big AORBS meeting at Knott's Berry Farm in Beuna Park, California. This was the first time member Santas were meeting with the new board and many were looking for answers. One of those was Santa Rick, the dissident Santa you just heard comparing the situation to Orwell. At the time, he was still lodge director for the Inland Empire AORBS chapter and he planned to record the board meet and greet on video.

Josh Bearman

At this point on the tape, Santa Rick's camera is on, but dangling in his hand. So all you can see is a jerky dash for the conference room until he is stopped by that group of Santas. We get a waist level view of the large torsos gathering around Rick. Legs and round bellies, and at least one knotted wooden cane. Another pair of legs wanders into the frame wearing knee breeches, red and white striped socks, and buckled shoes. The argument continues.

Josh Bearman

This is Jeff Germann, Nick's vice president, who disputes the entire story.

Josh Bearman

It's impossible to tell exactly what happened from the tape because of the waist level vantage point. Although each side says it proves their point. Some kind of physical contact occurred. That much can be said from the way the camera shakes a little. But more importantly, Rick gets free and marches into the meeting.

Josh Bearman

On the tape, the Santa Rick sets up in the corner. You can see that the meeting hasn't started and the Santa's are milling around chatting. Then Santa Nick storms in and makes the following demand.

Josh Bearman

The hotel security guard takes just a few steps before he realizes he's in over his head. It's likely his training did not prepare him to walk into a room full of angry Santa Clauses. For starters, they all look the same. It's hard to tell who's on whose side. He pauses, looks at all the big men with beards looking back at him, turns around, and goes for backup.

In the stunned silence that follows, you can see a few arched white eyebrows around the room.

Josh Bearman

If you didn't quite catch it, Rick says, this isn't the Night of Long Knives. For those not up to speed on your Third Reich history, that's the day in 1934 when Adolf Hitler consolidated his control over the Nazi party by killing or jailing all of his enemies.

Eventually, the Knott's Berry Farm hotel security chief shows up with two other guys and approaches Rick.

Josh Bearman

The war was hard fought. Rick posted his video of the kerfuffle online sparking outrage.

Some Santas renounced their membership in protest. The rhetoric escalated, especially on the Santa forums, where Rick and others accused Nick of embezzlement. And Nick accused the breakaway Santa's of sabotaging the Discover Santa 2008 convention, calling them economic terrorists. And declaring that AORBS blood is on their hands. Lawsuits were threatened back and forth on a regular basis. And Nick told various Santas he was going to lodge complaints against them with the FBI.

At a certain point, lines were crossed that no Santa would have thought possible. A website appeared called Santa Check, which purports to be an independent watchdog group for parents, but appears to actually be a sub rosa propaganda campaign targeting Nick's enemies.

One entry posted a still from a video of Santa Rick's birthday party. The relatively harmless video shows Santa Rick being entertained by a belly dancer and features Rick's unfortunate title, "How Santa Got his Yuletide Log Back." At the top of the web page is Santa Check's tagline, "is your child safe on this lap?" This unfair insinuation is the lowest of blows, the equivalent among Santas of the nuclear option.

The hardest thing to understand about this story is how it got to this point. The allegations and counter-allegations are so outlandish, that when I first started looking into all this it wasn't just difficult to figure out which side was right, I had a hard time understanding what actually happened.

I spent weeks talking to Santas and reading their discussion boards trying to sort it out. It wasn't easy. When I talked to the Santas, it was like the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Each side had its own distinct narrative about the history of the war, and the two narratives did not overlap. In the end, here's what I think probably happened.

Santa Tim's businesses had profited a little from AORBS, sure. But then Santa Nick came in and he was drunk with power. Then the other side overreacted, Nick quickly turned into a Santa Stalin, and the whole thing just evolved from there. It was the same dynamic that starts real wars. The further people get drawn into a fight, the harder it is to back down. The fact that this could happen to a group of Santas just proves it could happen to anybody.

By last summer, AORBS membership plummeted as several local Santa leaders filed articles of separation from AORBS, citing Nick and Jeff's persecutory atmosphere and the un-Santa-like dialogue.

One Santa issued a statement calling for a Santa Claus congress in the spirit of the American Revolution. Around the country, regional groups sprang up in the vacuum. Nick and Jeff were despots in a shrinking kingdom.

Soon they were the only active board members left, and the remaining members were still waiting for elections. When they eventually did hold elections, their war what the United Nations might call irregularities. Nick and Jeff formed a nominating committee, but required their own approval over the committee's selections. This is Santa Tom Irving, a board member at the time.

Josh Bearman

To Santa Tim and his followers, AORBS no longer exists. What is called AORBS is an impostor, sidelined and irrelevant. To Nick and Jeff, AORBS is still the home of the world's A-list Santas as they like to say. And they insist they will have their day in court.

Recently however, the war slowed down a bit. Mostly by virtue of seasonal logistics. All the Santas have been busy in their chairs twinkling their eyes at children and doing what Santas are supposed to do. And they don't have as much time for mischief. Which is how it should be. It was during the offseason that Santas were free to endlessly argue with each other. That's when they lost sight of the larger picture. It takes a neutral Santa, some one like Tom Irving to see that.

Josh Bearman

Back when I first met Santa Tim at his workshop, we talked about the origins of Santa Claus. What people often don't realize is that Santa Claus was always a more complicated character than today's rosy-cheeked do-gooder. The original tradition of Saint Nicholas included a diabolical counterpart, the guy you met if you were naughty. This character goes by a lot of different names: Krampus, [UNINTELLIGIBLE], Belsnickel. And he's also in red, but with horns, a tail, and a pitch fork. Sound familiar? Santa's flip side is the devil. And it's not a coincidence that the devil is sometimes called Old Nick.

The man in the red suit has always represented both sides of the coin, naughty and nice. This is what we're supposed to be reminded of during the darkest days of each year. We make mistakes and we sometimes do the wrong things, and so does Santa. And so maybe the story of AORBS is a Christmas parable after all.

Ira Glass

Josh Bearman in Los Angeles. In the two years since we first aired that story, AORBS has ceased to exist the way it was, a centralized group of Santas. The organization is still around, but 20 splinter groups have risen up. The largest of those is FORBS, the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, which is where Santa Tim Conaghan ended up.

[MUSIC- "GET BEHIND ME SANTA" BY SUFJAN STEVENS]

Ira Glass

"Act four, Job Security."

Back in a part of the mall that shoppers never go is an area that feels a lot like the backstage of a theater. The walls are made of plywood. You wind around these hallways that are two stories high with doors that lead into the backs of the stores. Turn a corner and you arrive at the security office. There's a snug little room here with 43 TV screens, one for each of the cameras in the hallways and the parking lots, the roof and the loading dock. The room is dark. Beverly Robertson watches the cameras and she likes it dark. She tells me and my co-producer Wendy Dorr, that two or three times a day, her job includes helping people find their parked cars in the vast lots that surround the mall.

Ira Glass

About once a week, somebody who can't find their car actually accuses security of getting into the car and moving it to a different lot.

Ira Glass

I go and wander around the mall with Beverly's boss, the head of security, Doug [UNINTELLIGIBLE] and one of the officers, Gary. Doug tells me about all the cases they get where a husband gets separated from his wife in the mall and then comes to security for help finding her.

Ira Glass

While Doug and Gary and I were talking, Wendy hung back in the security office with Beverly. They were watching us on the various TV monitors. Though, I didn't know that at the time.

Wendy Dorr

For about 45 minutes we've been tracking them on the lower level, and it was surprisingly easy.

Wendy Dorr

Beverly's been working at the mall for 11 years. And for the last five years she's been here in dispatch, sitting at a desk, a foot away from the 43 little TV screens. She can tilt the cameras up and down, or turn them left and right. Or zoom in using her keyboard and joystick.

She's looking for kids who stray away from their parents, or play on the escalators, for groups of rowdy teens, for people who've fallen down. For anything on the floor that someone could trip over, for anything out of the ordinary. Or anything that could lead to a lawsuit.

Wendy Dorr

She told me that when she gets home from work, she has to let her eyes rest for a few hours. So she can't watch much TV. Beverly works 10 hour shifts, 5 days a week, from 7:00 AM to 5:00. And when she's working, she doesn't like to take a break.

Wendy Dorr

Beverly likes it when it's busy, when the phone's ringing with people who need her help. The toughest part of the job seems to be fighting off boredom.

Wendy Dorr

Beverly's leaving early today. She lives in Spring Hill, which is about 20 minutes away. But it takes her about an hour because she goes home at rush hour.

Last night when the snow started, she accidentally drove her truck into a ditch. She didn't get hurt, but she banged up her truck badly enough that she couldn't drive it today. So she's leaving early to catch a ride with a coworker.

Wendy Dorr

She clocks out by sticking her hand in some kind of a scanner, opens the doors to the loading dock, and walks outside.

Ira Glass

Wendy Dorr.

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Jane Feltes and myself, with Alex Blumberg, Sarah Koenig, Lisa Pollak, Robyn Semien, Alissa Shipp and Nancy Updike. Our senior producer's Julie Snyder. Production help from Shawn Wen. Seth Lind is our production manager. Music help from Jessica Hopper.

[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

A personal note, before This American Life I spent a year reporting at a public elementary school on Chicago's West Side, Washington Irving Elementary. The principal who was at that school when I was there, Madeleine Maraldi, passed away this week. I was an education reporter for years and spent time in dozens of schools. She was the best principal I ever saw. She had incredible savvy about which education programs would work for her school, but like all great principals, she was a great politician. To achieve things that few public schools ever achieve. And of course, she was wonderful with kids. She'll be missed by everybody who had contact with Washington Irving.

Our website, thisamericanlife.org. This American Life is distributed by Public Radio International. WBEZ management oversight for our program by our boss, Mr. Torey Malatia. This is what he declared this year while standing under the mistletoe.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass, back next week with more stories of this American life.