"How much do I owe you?" I unzip my wallet and start rifling through my cards and the few bills. "That'll be fourteen dollars and fifty two cents." "Dang! That's a lot for a little two by two passport photo...." I grin at the young man and he nods in agreement as he takes my twenty. He barely makes eye contact with me though. He rarely does. We've been picking up our mail at this pack and ship store for over a year now. And for over a year I've dreaded when he is the one working at the counter. I feel so awkward. He's young. Maybe even still a teenager. He seems painfully shy, and looks as though he dreads me walking up to the counter as much as I do. I tell him my box number, he retrieves my mail. I smile and tell him thank you and he gives me a little half-smile while looking up at me for a half second. He gets the change out of the drawer and hands it to me. First the bills folded, then the change resting on top of the bills. The same way everyone seems to be handing change back these days. The cash register has calculated how much he needs to hand me. I carefully balance the coins that are starting to slide on the bills and tilt them into my open wallet. "Thanks! See ya later!"
Heading back up the mountain, I rolled the car windows all the way down and cranked the heat all the way up. It's twenty seven degrees outside. I stick my arm out the window and let the wind whip against it as I drive past snow covered fields. There are cows standing in lines eating hay that's been dropped. Homes and cabins that look like freshly frosted ginger-bread houses. It's been several days of epic snow-fall. Dave and I both got the flu right before Christmas; and between the weather and illness I hadn't really seen much of the outside world until now. Today the sun finally broke through and despite the freezing temperatures I needed to inhale some of that fresh air. Okay. That's enough. My arm is getting a little numb. I bring it back inside the car, roll up the windows and let my mind drift.
Thinking about my new young friend at the pack and shipping store, I figure I'll just ask him next time to put the coins in my hand first then place the bills on top of the coins. Kids these days....
My first real job (one that required me to punch a time-card), was at a super-grocery-store called "Smitty's". It was Christmas time and they were hiring seasonal help. I was barely eighteen years old and engaged to be married in just a few weeks. My job would be gift-wrapping. "Easy peezy" I thought! Maybe it would even work into a full-time job if I impressed them with my sweet gift-wrapping skills. I had to attend two full days of training. That's strange I thought.....how hard can it be to wrap a box? The training did not focus on wrapping. We were taught how to work the cash register. The old kind of cash register. The kind that is so old I will totally date myself by how old the cash register was. It did not beep or scan or take your picture. It simply added up the items that you entered by pushing button/levers and then it gave a total the customer would then owe. If the items totaled say...fourteen dollars and fifty two cents, we were to tell the customer "Your total is fourteen dollars and fifty two cents." And then if you were me, you would silently pray to yourself that they would hand you exactly fourteen dollars and fifty two cents. Because if they did not, but instead handed you a twenty dollar bill, you would need to hand them the correct change; but not just hand it back to them. You are expected to hand it back while explaining to them what you are giving them back and counting out loud the amount as it adds up to the difference between the amount the gave you and the amount you are giving them back. You're following me I hope.
If you were born after 1990 something or other, you might not be following along very well, and you might need further explanation from someone born in the 1970's or before. But I promise you it was a thing.
I reported to my first day at work. Punched my time card and took my place behind the gift wrapping counter, large rolls of wrapping paper, ribbons and double sided tape behind me. An old cash register beside me. A line of customers with shopping carts of boxes waiting to be gift wrapped in front of me. Christmas music on repeat on the store speakers, and the smell of fried chicken and pizza across the aisle from the deli. It all was enough to make me rather nauseous. Here goes nothin'. I take the boxes from the first gentleman in line. I think he senses my nervousness. "I'll just go do a little more shopping and come back for these in a while." I smile sheepishly at him. "That'll be great." But that doesn't make the line of people disappear and I am now being watched and waited for. I try to focus on just getting the boxes wrapped, figuring the worst job I could do would at least most likely be better than what the man could do. The longer the line of people waiting gets, the more shaky my hands become. Or maybe they're shaky because I'm hungry. The smell of the chicken and pizza is so overwhelming.
The last bow placed on the last box, the man returns. He must have been waiting over at the deli watching from a short distance. I turn to the cash register and begin to punch in the amounts for the different sized packages. The total owed appears in the glass box at the top of the register. I tell him the amount he owes. He holds out a twenty dollar bill. I look at it. I feel beads of sweat on my forehead. My hands feel suddenly clammy. The line of customers seems to have grown. I envision they are staring at me; their laughter mixed with the sounds of "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" on the speaker above my head. Whispering to each other and pointing at me. Slowly I reach out to take the bill from him. I open the cash drawer and just stare at it. My mind has gone completely blank and tears sting my eyes. I hear him softly say "Just hand me a five, two ones, a quarter, a nickel and three pennies." I looked up at him with such relief. He smiled at me and took his packages. I looked at the two customers waiting in line. "Can I help you?"
That was December of 1983.
There is a lot of talk these days about "trauma". And though it is not for me to determine what one person's experience may be compared to another's, why does it seem there is an over-use or even misuse of this word. I googled the definition. "A deeply disturbing or distressing experience". Huh. Was my gift-wrapping, money-changing experience disturbing? No..... Was it distressing? Well....yes. Yes it was. Was it traumatic? Not in the least. I was a very shy, introverted young girl. I detested having any sort of focus placed on me. I would have been content to sit in a chair reading a book at home. But there I was, out in a public place having all sorts of focus placed on me doing things I did not enjoy one bit.
Another thing happened that day. I grew up just a little bit more. I learned that you don't always work jobs that you necessarily enjoy, but sometimes you just need money. I learned that usually things aren't as bad as what your mind tries to trick you into thinking they are. After a few more patient customers I learned how to count back change.
I learned the power of looking someone in the eyes and giving them a kind smile.
My New Year's resolution? Spread the good word about the proper way to hand back change. The coins go first then the bills after. I'll work on the counting it back part next year.
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