I have developed relationships with a few of the employees as we exchanged snippets of conversations in the check out lines, or when I needed help looking for an item. I began to hear pieces of their stories, their lives, their education, and struggles. Sometimes, I would ask, "What is the best part of your job?" More often, they would tell me about angry customers. Most recently, they shared their thoughts about the next step in their lives.
I am the person who is always chatting in the the check out line. 😀
Inside the store, it is eerie. Everything is almost gone. It was my last visit to the store.
Then, I thought about the people that have worked here over the years. The people who gathered carts in the parking lot, unloaded inventory from semi trucks, cleaned the bathrooms, watered plants, stacked mulch, dirt, flower pots, techs who counted pills, crew who cleaned the floors, the greeters...
When I see a store that is closing, I think about how the lives of the employees will be interrupted.
I think about the service they had provide for every customer.
The following quote Barbara Enrenreich's book Nickled and Dimed, gives me pause.
"When someone works for less pay than she can live on - when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently - than she has made a great sacrifice for you, she made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor", as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor, is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else."
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
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