Snark & Sensibility

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

When the man said life goes in circles, I thought he meant incontinence, not working for minimum wage again.

Ten years after retirement, I took on a part-time job at Khol’s. My first part-time job was at W.T. Grants. When I interviewed for the department store job in Florida, 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. In fact, some of my co-workers are only a few years older than my oldest grandchild.

Resources say W.T. Grant went out of business because they couldn’t adapt to the changing retail industry or compete with Kresge Corporation’s institutional K-marts. Although W.T. Grant tried building larger stores called Grant City, these stores were more individualized rather than the cookie-cutter shopping experience afforded at a local K-mat—a new trend in the early 1970s gaining explosive popularity.  

I guess, even businesses must adapt or die.

Sometimes I worry I may become like that ill-fated department store chain, insistent on doing things to my comfort level rather than allowing my mental and physical capabilities to be stretched. When I worked at Grants, the job required math skills as well as dexterity. Every item had a price tag on it. You entered the price and hit total on the machine. There were no credit cards, debits, or store charges. The customer gave you currency. Most often, you had to compute how much change to give back to the customer. Office staff handed you a precisely cashed out drawer to bring to the register. When you’re shift ended, you cashed out and brought your drawer back to the office. If your drawer was short, so was your paycheck.

The computerized system with its bleeps and burps and sassafras manner of business 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 turned.

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 can honestly say, I’m actually enjoyed my job … most days … quitting only because I got my first book published and life took another turn for me to adapt.

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 this has been true. Once I could only print. Then I learned to write. Once I had no children, then I had three. Once I was employed, then I retired. Once I owned a home, now I rent …. Oh wait a minute … another circle of life!

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

ABOUT SECOND HELPINGS

Today is Jocelyn Johnson’s forty-fifth birthday. Unhappy with her marriage of twenty-two years, she has planned a noonday tryst with her talk-show cohost. A phone call from her college daughter, a peek into her teenaged son’s journal, a sick preschooler, a Goth daughter’s identity crisis, a middle-school son’s prank, and her husband’s inflamed suspicions, not only interfere with her hopeful birthday plans but throw her family into more chaos than a circus on steroids.

In desperate need of counsel, Jocelyn invites a Christian, her guest from her morning talk-show segment, to dinner. However, the evening holds little promise of calm. In the midst of bedlam, a forgotten faith rekindles causing Jocelyn to rethink her life and her marriage.

You will laugh and you will cry from the first page to the last as you journey through the day’s events and Jocelyn’s search for Second Helpings.

Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Helpings-Humorous-Contemporary-Novel-ebook/dp/B087C744HZ

ABOUT ME

A veteran social worker, Linda Wood Rondeau is also a wife, mother, and grandmother. She is no stranger to family bedlam. Her stories of encouragement and hope come from the heart. She resides in Hagerstown, Maryland with her husband of over forty years. When not writing, the author enjoys the occasional round of golf. She also enjoys theater and is actively involved with her local church. Find more encouraging words in her blog, Snark and Sensibility, found on her website, www.lindarondeau.com. Click on the website to signup for the author’s newsletter. www.lindaronddeau.com

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