There are some days I'd just rather not deal with it. I will wake up on days I have to work and dread having to donate a 7-hour chunk of time to GE. Visions of the growing amount of hours weigh on my mind, pressed down by the general confusion and chaos which is the front end of the store. Our best manager? Transferred to a different store. Our other manager who has been around for a couple years? Not currently working because he's in and out of the hospital. New current manager? A woman with a stubborn vision to reform the store in the midst of this upheaval, and who plays favorites. How do you know you're an enemy of hers? If you ask to be unavailable on an inconvenient day of the week and she cuts your hours as low as possible. How do you know you're a favorite? If you work your butt off picking up slack from other front end cashiers, two-thirds of which have been hired inside the past 2 or 3 months, and come in when you're scheduled and give her plenty of notice when you're calling off; this behavior is rewarded with a hefty dump of hours on you. Favorites like me, who are students and have other time-consuming commitments outside of work and school, want to cry when they see that big fat 30 on the schedule telling me just how busy of a week I'm going to have.
I don't want to deal with the politics and quirks that come with a new manager. I don't want to deal with the insanity of the store since our customer flow has tripled since the school year started and the college students all came home. I don't want to always be in fear of how much and when I'm working every week, because the variation as far as amount and time slot can be almost anything. I don't want to deal with snotty grouchy rude cell-phone absorbed customers coming in and throwing their weight around and making my already difficult day even more complicated and unpleasant. I just don't want to deal with it.
But then there's people like Shuzhene and Ziping. An adorable older Chinese couple, they come in frequently and speak almost no English. I once walked past their house on the way home by chance and Shuzhene mustered up her English and communicated how she wanted me to come back and visit again. So today, I took her up on her offer on my way home from a particularly deteriorated version of insanity at work. The screen door was closed, but the door behind it was open, and I could see her bent over and intently working on some knitting in her little wrinkled hands. Once she realized who I was, she pulled me inside and forced me to sit down. She and her husband Ziping were all smiles and hospitality, even though our communication was difficult, and they gave me cookies and milk and a Chinese fruit roll-up treat. Shuzhene and Ziping tried to ask me when I usually go to work and it was so difficult explaining something as simple as how inconsistent my schedule is. Eagerly, they took down my number so they could call me and have me over for dinner in the future. As I got up to leave her strong little hands grasped my arms fiercely and she looked at me through her wrinkles, saying "I no have daughter, I have 2 sons...you good daughter...beautiful." Then she pulled me in to this bone-crushing embrace and kissed both of my cheeks repeatedly as if she were my own mother. They both came out onto the porch with me and waved until the foliage on their street blocked me from their view.
I was still laughing to myself when I got home 5 blocks later. Throwing my bag into the corner, I thought about how insane it had been at work and how it all seemed so far away, even though not even an hour had passed since I had clocked out. If there are more customers like that I can have the privilege of getting to know, people who are kind and unique and willing to befriend even a grocery cashier like myself, then I'll stick around for that. It'll make it a little easier next time I have to deal with Sorority Girl stupidity because I can grit my teeth and think of Shuzhene squeezing my knee a little too hard and speaking hopelessly broken and endearing English to me, and hoping that just maybe someone that loving and special will be the next person I get to help.
I don't want to deal with the politics and quirks that come with a new manager. I don't want to deal with the insanity of the store since our customer flow has tripled since the school year started and the college students all came home. I don't want to always be in fear of how much and when I'm working every week, because the variation as far as amount and time slot can be almost anything. I don't want to deal with snotty grouchy rude cell-phone absorbed customers coming in and throwing their weight around and making my already difficult day even more complicated and unpleasant. I just don't want to deal with it.
But then there's people like Shuzhene and Ziping. An adorable older Chinese couple, they come in frequently and speak almost no English. I once walked past their house on the way home by chance and Shuzhene mustered up her English and communicated how she wanted me to come back and visit again. So today, I took her up on her offer on my way home from a particularly deteriorated version of insanity at work. The screen door was closed, but the door behind it was open, and I could see her bent over and intently working on some knitting in her little wrinkled hands. Once she realized who I was, she pulled me inside and forced me to sit down. She and her husband Ziping were all smiles and hospitality, even though our communication was difficult, and they gave me cookies and milk and a Chinese fruit roll-up treat. Shuzhene and Ziping tried to ask me when I usually go to work and it was so difficult explaining something as simple as how inconsistent my schedule is. Eagerly, they took down my number so they could call me and have me over for dinner in the future. As I got up to leave her strong little hands grasped my arms fiercely and she looked at me through her wrinkles, saying "I no have daughter, I have 2 sons...you good daughter...beautiful." Then she pulled me in to this bone-crushing embrace and kissed both of my cheeks repeatedly as if she were my own mother. They both came out onto the porch with me and waved until the foliage on their street blocked me from their view.
I was still laughing to myself when I got home 5 blocks later. Throwing my bag into the corner, I thought about how insane it had been at work and how it all seemed so far away, even though not even an hour had passed since I had clocked out. If there are more customers like that I can have the privilege of getting to know, people who are kind and unique and willing to befriend even a grocery cashier like myself, then I'll stick around for that. It'll make it a little easier next time I have to deal with Sorority Girl stupidity because I can grit my teeth and think of Shuzhene squeezing my knee a little too hard and speaking hopelessly broken and endearing English to me, and hoping that just maybe someone that loving and special will be the next person I get to help.
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