I Never Worked a Day in My Life: The Service Merchandise Story: A Half Century Building a Retail Dream Together - Paperback

by Raymond Zimmerman (Author)

I NEVER WORKED A DAY IN MY LIFE

With hundreds of stores coast to coast, Service Merchandise was a retail leader in its day. At its helm for much of that time was Raymond Zimmerman, whose parents opened a five-and-ten-cent store in 1934 in a small Tennessee town and built the business into a national chain of thriving catalog showrooms. In this memoir, the longtime CEO takes us from his boyhood as a helper in that tiny store to a manhood devoted to leading a booming enterprise as it faced the retail challenges of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. The people who made it all happen, Zimmerman emphasizes, were the employees, the vendors, and the countless loyal customers who delighted in the catalog shopping experience. They were, and are, the Service Merchandise family. I Never Worked a Day in My Life is Raymond Zimmerman's love letter to that family. It comes straight from the heart of a veteran businessman with an abiding passion for retail.

Back Jacket

I NEVER WORKED A DAY IN MY LIFE
With hundreds of stores coast to coast, Service Merchandise was a retail leader in its day. At its helm for much of that time was Raymond Zimmerman, whose parents opened a five-and-ten-cent store in 1934 in a small Tennessee town and built the business into a national chain of thriving catalog showrooms. In this memoir, the longtime CEO takes us from his boyhood as a helper in that tiny store to a manhood devoted to leading a booming enterprise as it faced the retail challenges of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. The people who made it all happen, Zimmerman emphasizes, were the employees, the vendors, and the countless loyal customers who delighted in the catalog shopping experience. They were, and are, the Service Merchandise family. I Never Worked a Day in My Life is Raymond Zimmerman's love letter to that family. It comes straight from the heart of a veteran businessman with an abiding passion for retail.

Author Biography

RAYMOND ZIMMERMAN, cofounded the retail giant Service Merchandise with his parents in 1960 and was CEO from 1983-97, growing it to over four hundred catalog showroom stores. After retiring, he founded and operated the discount retailer 99 Cent Stuffin Florida from 1999-2008. Zimmerman was a director on the L Brands board from 1984-2021 and has served as a retailing lecturer and mentor to entrepreneurs. Active in the community, he received the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for the United Way of Middle Tennessee and was a leader in United Way of America, Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the Jewish Federations of Nashville and Boca Raton.

He is married to Etta Zimmerman; the proud father of Fred Zimmerman, Robyn Rubinoff, and Leya Kaufman; and a grandfather to four.