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A night, I am closing the store at 9:15 pm. “Will you do a last cart run?” asks one of the managers. “Of course.”
The moon was out. Not many cars in the parking lot. I had forgotten my AirPods, so I walked around with my own thoughts. I had a tenderness for the moment. This summer of discontent and disease. Striving for advancement within this grocery store and finding only dead ends. Sure, they know I’m a short-timer. Perhaps that’s the reason they give themselves for keeping me in this holding pattern.
In the quiet moment outside I could feel how I was going to remember this run at the store as a transition. A pivot. A return to baseline survival and building back into someone fierce and capable. I am bigger than my cashier role. They knew that the moment they hired me. Giving me indications I was under consideration for advancement as soon as August. And…
The morning is wearing on and I’m due at the store in 45 minutes. I can’t say I’m excited about my shift. I took a sick day yesterday and the fever broke at 4 am today. It would be nice if there were a way to stay at home when you were sick and not be penalized or in my case fired. How is it that a Store Leader was so cavalier about firing me that she failed to check on the status of my leave request? And she hasn’t been back. Maybe she wanted to deal with it before she went on her vacation, I have no idea.
I anticipate the day I can give her a copy of the book with a loving autograph. She definitely made me tougher. But, is this the kind of toughness I need to cultivate? Maybe so. Keep getting up. Keep applying for jobs. Keep showing up at this job until the next job has arrived. There is no other plan. Keep my spirits high. Keep writing and playing music. I must in the perfect place for my evolution. Persistence and stubborn drive. I will get to the next level, yet again. The timing is not up to me. The actions I take are all I have agency over.
Keep going, keep applying, keep positive.
See you in the checkout line in a few hours.
[Listen to the Deep Dive explore the concepts of The Happy Cashier.]
The hope I see in others
becomes the hope I have for myself,
my life, and my own journey.
– The Happy Cashier
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ALT: Botisatva’s Bookshelf | The Happy Cashier Podcast
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