“They said, 'Based on conversations we had with the executive vice president of sales, we're terminating your employment,'” he recalls. The very next day, he was summoned to a conference call with his regional manager. He was suspended with pay and sent home, with no particular rationale. She'd overheard staff talking about the contest in a lighthearted way and asked Gilmore if it was true. “We want to talk to you about what happened last Saturday night,” he says she told him. “I didn't win,” he notes wryly, “which only adds insult to injury to what happened next.” Gilmore laughingly told them of his participation. It happened that some colleagues came into the bar that night, too.
He didn't show off his naked butt live he let someone take a Polaroid of it and then display it alongside others at the bar.
“I'd foreseen myself moving up.”Įverything changed around midnight on a Saturday in February 2012, when Gilmore participated in a naked-butt contest at 501 Eagle, a local gay bar. “I was really good at making morale happen and drumming up positivity,” he says. He says he served as acting store manager for six months, was sent to other cities to train new managers, and even was the first in his store to win a national-level service award. “I liked the people and the product,” says Gilmore, 40.
