ADAPT OR DIE

ADAPT OR DIE
Wednesday, June 25, 2025 by LINDA WOOD RONDEAU

Categories: MUSINGS

I have been retired from the workaday world for twenty-five years to pursue a career in writing. I tremble with just the thought of how quickly the time has passed since then. I have held a few part-time positions to supplement my income until health challenges usurped so much of my energy.

Perhaps I didn’t think about how fast the world was changing when I worked for a paycheck. Then change was part of my everyday existence.

Not so in retirement life. So much easier to resist doing things differently.

When I fight change, I look back to the time I moved to Florida. I took on a part-time position as a cashier at a Kohl’s store.

When the man said, “Life goes in circles,” I thought he meant incontinence,

not working for minimum wage again.

My first part-time job was at W.T. Grants. When I interviewed for the Kohl’s job, the twenty-something assistant manager said, “Never heard of it.” Not surprising since the chain went out of business in 1975 (circa), long before some of my co-workers were born.

Resources say that W.T. Grant went out of business because they couldn’t adapt to the changing retail industry. I guess, even businesses must adapt or die. Perhaps why online shopping has exploded. The retail industry must cater to the consumer's appetite for ease and low prices or become obsolete.

As I trained for my new employment, I worried I would become as obsolete as that ill-fated department store. The computerized system with its bleeps and burps and sassafras messages on its screen wore on my nerves. Within the first hour of the first day on the job, I was ready to turn on my heels, go to the manager, and say, “Thank you for hiring me. It was a fun hour. Goodbye.”

“I’m out of here,” I said and started to leave.

A woman my age, my trainer, calmly scolded me. “No. You’re not. You can do this. It took me a month to learn. Just read the top of the register.”

Encouraged, I made the conscious decision to adapt.

I needed to get the old out of my head so I could learn the new. When I did, I started to enjoy the work.

Just as the manner of doing business has evolved in my lifetime, I am different, too.

Perhaps the great circle of life is letting go of the old and embracing the new. There is a sense of satisfaction when something hard to learn becomes a part of you. I think of the seasons of my life where that has been true. Once, I could only print. Then I learned cursive. Once I had no children, then I had three.

No matter where we are on life’s journey, survival depends upon our ability to adapt—whether learning to use a computerized cash register, learning to order online, or tipping wait staff at twenty percent. (Back in the Day, it was only ten percent—that’s another article for another day.)

What about you? What new things have you had to learn lately? How difficult was it for you? What benefits have you gained by learning a new way of doing things?