Listen to the podcast of this chapter: Trying to Explain Myself
When I begin to explain why I’m working as a cashier in my early sixties, I start down a very slippery road indeed. Why do I need to rationalize my work? Explain my current pause in the roaring climb I was making up the corporate ladder? Why do we look down (why did I look down) on the workers in this country?
Everyone that comes into my store has a different story. Some are wealthy, some are worker bees just like me. Some are young, fresh from a nearby yoga workout, bright clothes, sweaty smiles. Some are tired, beaten, but seeking something healthy to make their lives a little bit better. People are seeking something at Whole Foods Market that they can’t get anywhere else. Community.
In today’s modern life we don’t have a public town square. For my kids it was the mall, now abandoned to the people with no taste, or the people going to a movie and just killing some time. Humans need community. We want to find our tribe, rub shoulders with our tribe, seek like minded people for the journey ahead. And our current journey is a treacherous one, these days. Your best strategy is to find people to hang with. People you like, people you love, people you can disagree with and not escalate to violence.
I find some thin thread of community in my store. The old roots of Austin’s “Weird” are still visible. The Amazon purchase diminished the hippie glow slightly. If you listen, look, and feel, however, you can sense the hippies are still gathering in the produce and hot bar sections of the store. If we made more public spaces we’d have more togetherness.
In a conversation I was having with my son over a year ago, I asked him about his plans to finish his final semester of college on his third try. “You could always work here,” I said. We were sitting in the outside cafe of CentralMarket. He reacted with anger.
What I learned about myself this time, returning to this honest labor, is I have a lot of bias. I believe my path is destined for greater things than working retail. But why all the hate, I wonder. Why was I so angry when I started? Do I think the worker bees running around, the customers with “day jobs” are less than the tribe that afford to do yoga in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon?
I had to swallow my pride, return to the highly-controled schedule of a shift worker. No set weekends. Must work holidays. I had to give up a part of my independence. Manage a part of my pride.
I had to lose the entitlement that comes with my role: affluent city, white, college-educated, and I had to come back to the reality: I am no better than any of the people working or shopping here. I had some shame around being the “cart guy” in the yellow vest. I learned to get up and go to work again, no matter how I felt about myself, my job, or my future. I learned to persevere in spite of my collapse.
Maybe I was over exaggerating my own suffering.
100%!
Today, I go in for my 8.5 hour shift in 50 minutes. It’s time to wrap this up and get ready for my job today. My mind can wander and do cartwheels while I’m doing my job. I can “do the ice.” I can “do a cart run.” I can learn from my experience as a human doing human things and speaking with loving kindness to everyone that passes by. I don’t have to be like them to love them and support them.
In this way, I am learning to love myself. Love myself exactly as I am in this moment, as a happy cashier. By choice. I am choosing to be here.
“Hello, did you find everything you were looking for?”
[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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