When I was in high school I worked at a family-owned chain of mini-marts, the one I worked at was also a gas station. I absolutely loved this job - most of the time. I think it was because there was a lot of variety and it paid better than the 75 cents per hour babysitting I did until I was old enough to get a “real” job. I started at $3.65 per hour.
Most of my time was spent cashiering - my favorite thing was to anticipate my customers’ needs ahead of time. For example, some people would come in daily for cigarettes and soda so I would pull their cigarettes while they went to the cooler for the soda. This was a simple way to make someone feel seen (but I wasn’t consciously thinking about things like that back then). I got to know several of these customers over time and on Friday and Saturday nights friends would stop by to say hi - I loved this. We worked in shifts of two - when we didn’t have a lot of customers to care for we would stock shelves, clean, and refill the frozen and dairy sections.
I turned out to be a very reliable, productive employee and one day I was asked to be the night manager. I said yes. I don’t remember if I ever got a raise. I hope so.
Since this was a low-paying, part-time job, people came and went. Shortly after my promotion, a new hire started, I’ll call her Tracy. She had been a stay-at-home mom, and, looking back, I think she had some health problems. Tracy had body odor. I noticed it and maybe even talked about it behind her back (I know, that was mean of me). I did have some empathy for her but didn’t have the skills to help her at that time. It was easier to ignore it.
One day I got to work early and one of the owners said they had a new task for me. They wanted me to talk to Tracy about her body odor because “customers” were complaining. I died a little inside. As a teenager in a sweep-everything-under-the-rug family, I was not used to having (or listening to) delicate conversations, let alone at work with someone I had only recently met and would have to see regularly going forward.
I had a couple of days to prepare, I did this on my own and probably lost some sleep over it (hi, anxiety). I don’t remember the conversation but I do remember trying to be graceful and empathetic. I felt awful and the look on her face amplified this - I could see tears in her eyes which caused my own to form. She confided that it was hard for her to afford laundry detergent (hence the new job) so she couldn’t afford to wash clothes very often. This floored me. I grew up in a comfortable home where we didn’t have to worry about buying things like this, at least from what I could tell. This was a pivotal moment - I recognized not everyone grew up like me. I probably should have picked up on this earlier but with childhood anxiety, I was probably too busy worrying about myself.
I don’t remember what happened after this conversation but I know the problem was resolved shortly. I’d like to think I bought her some detergent since I was only working for spending money but I am not sure if I was that thoughtful.
This was a terribly stressful situation for me. I now know this conversation should not have been my responsibility. But the lessons on compassion and having difficult conversations were invaluable. I wonder how Tracy is doing. As I write this I am wondering if this is why I am still thankful to have a washer, dryer, and the ability to afford detergent so many years later.
What do you think? Was the promotion real or simply a way to avoid a difficult conversation?
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