beginnings

Last Saturday night I was running late.

My niece had completed her Master’s and Mother’s day was the next morning and I had nothing.  Flowers were the prescribed gift for both events.  I was slightly dressy since I had gone out that evening and now it was past nine at night and I was looking for bouquets.

All I could find were Mother’s day bouquets.  One event covered but I still needed something for my niece.

By chance I wound up at the old Randall’s supermarket where I had my first job ages ago.  Not too many people working that night so I called over a stock boy and asked him to find the floral manager.  He was a young latino kid, maybe sixteen.  He called to one of his friends in spanish.  I guess he thought I wouldn’t understand.

Roughly this is what he said “Hey, this rich Senor needs flowers.  Get him some help and off my back.”  I wondered if he would believe that the “rich Senor” once did the same job that he was doing right now.

My job history began in this place ages ago and I suppose the job is essentially the same.  Hard work and little need to think.  The hours are long and the pay is low.  Even with medical benefits you could easily end up with a hernia, or some sort of repetitive motion injury.  One of the big motivators for me to get a degree and an office job was the thought that I would end up in a job like this for life.

Yet it did have its good points too.  Our managers were exacting task masters and would explode at the stock crews if things weren’t just right.  We not only had to be quick but exact too.  I gained a rich and colorful repertoire of curse words from those managers.

You need stamina to keep going at full speed for 8 hours and thick skin not to mind all the razzing and hazing from older stock “boys”.  We would all end up with torn nails from ripping open cardboard boxes all day long and the pay was ridiculous although back then it seemed like so much.

I wonder if any of these kids working now will come back one day as I did and look back fondly at their time spent here.

Where did you begin your business career?