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February 23, 2006
Various Thoughts and Questions
While working at The Department Store, I have plenty of time to think about things, to observe people, and to pray. I'm rarely bored, because most of the winter stock is getting clearanced, so I have lots of shoes to process (take all the stuffing and paper out of the shoes and the box, compare the shoes, and zip-tie them together and put them back in the box) and men's shirts to process (take all the pins out of the shirt, the cardboard behind the shirt and under the collar, put it on a hanger and hang on a z-rail). I do all this processing between customers to ring up. I can usually get it done. Sometimes I help the loading dock people with the intimates: unpack boxes, hang all the intimates, and sort by type. Put EMS tags on all the items over $15 (which are usually the tops).
Some of the things I've thought about during these times are the following:
- Greed, marketing, advertising, consumerism, covetousness--these are all related. Greed is sin, as we know, and it's disabling to be tied to the need to consume. We want to be constantly satisfied with a new toy, and when the shine wears off one toy we go buy another. Our culture revolves around this, but what I want to know is--did Adam and Eve ever have preference while in the unfallen state? Did they ever wake up one morning and want to have apple instead of guava for breakfast and go looking for an apple tree? What I mean is, is desire/preference/want sinful in and of itself, or is it just when it takes over and perverts into greed, covetousness, and materialism that it turns into sin?
- People don't like to be treated like they're dummies. One of the biggest chances for me and my fellow cashiers to do this is when immigrants come to our registers. When Spanish speaking people come, or when Russian speaking people come, they don't like it when a cashier starts speaking louder. (Hello? He's not deaf just because he only speaks a little English!) I really work hard not to do that. I notice when English skills are missing and accomodate by speaking individual words slowly and clearly and patiently. Emphasizing different syllables doesn't work--that still sounds weird, doesn't it? "Your-to-tal-is-for-ty-sev-en-thir-ty-six." So at least I try to be respectful.
- Profiling is such a wicked thing these days in America, especially racial profiling. But we do it all the time. A customer comes up and I can tell if they live on the mountain (in Tennessee OR in Georgia, at that!) or in Trenton. I can tell if they're Southerners or not. Americans or not. I treat people differently based on their gender, socioeconomic class, ethnicity, nationality, etc. I spend time praying about this, and I've decided it's not wicked at its core, but can easily become wicked in application. For example, I rang up a Russian woman the other day, and when I realized the chitchat was making her uncomfortable (because they don't chitchat with the help in Russia--and I write that without the negative connotation that comes with the phrase "the help"), I stopped the chitchat. I try to observe what makes certain types of people uncomfortable and what makes other types of people uncomfortable. Is it Despicable Racial (or Whatever Criterion) Profiling to be observant of patterns and to respect them?
- I worked Valentine's Day and I sold a lot of Valentine Gifts. It nearly ruined the day for me. There's so much marketing and consumerism associated with the day that it's sickening. There were the nice men and women, the sweet- and kind-hearted ones, who bought their partners greeting cards and gifts (clothes, candles, intimates of course, and I even sold a pair of running shoes as a Valentine Gift, which could be dangerous, like buying your enomorata a membership to a workout club and a lot of SlimFast), who bought their children gifts, their mothers and grandmothers gifts, their coworkers gifts--a lot of money came into my register just for these people to buy stuff to prove "I really do love you!" Sigh. About half of the men were sincere and cutely excited about pleasing their wives, but one man in particular sticks out. He bought his wife a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer that was on sale. It was a Big Ticket Item--about $350 with tax--and I complimented him on his Wonderful Gift, when he said with a very subtle snarly, disrespectful tone: "Oh, she goes through these phases and now she bakes cakes." Eye roll. "She wanted a mixer. Here it is, and it'll be dusty in a year." That really bothered me, and I figured out why: I'd rather not have a gift, not even a Big Ticket Item, if it came with that sort of attitude. Thankfully, I have the love from The Dude every day, not just on Valentines Day.
- I had a chance to talk to a colleague while we processed shirts. This woman talks like a country person, goes to church and behaves like a Christian (what I mean is she's full of the Fruit of the Spirit), and we got to talking about where we go to church. The more we talked, the more I realized I was talking, and the more I talked, the more I realized I was alienating her because I was coming across like an overeducated preppy jerk. I finally said that the people I spend my time with tend to talk a lot about faith, and that we all know that living and walking day by day is the hard part. Then I shut up.
- It's hard to break into a new workplace. I've done it plenty of times, and here are some tips: Set a long amount of time, like 6 months, to make yourself be quiet and observe the social flow of the place you're entering. Take note of how people talk to each other, who is the Alpha person, who is the nice boss, who can be trusted to give you trustworthy advice. Make it obvious that you are friendly, that you don't gossip (assume that everyone else is gossiping about everything you say, so share sparingly, or share stuff you don't mind getting passed around about you). Be extremely careful about complaining about anything, esp. about work-related stuff. Be discreet. Fly under the radar. Let other people come to you as friends. It'll happen, it will--but you have to wait for them to come to you.
- I love it when people listen to me talk and say, "You're not from around here, are you?" No, but I live here. People don't listen to speech and place them geographically in my hometown in Colorado--unless you're a Southerner. Or a New Yorker. But New Yorkers and East Coast People don't leave, not even to visit the Rocky Mountains. They're convinced there's no other place worth seeing if it means leaving their Perfect East Coast area.
Ponderings. , Stories from Behind the Counter | By The Newest Worker | 11:58 AM
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