Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 17

By the time I was 30 I calculated that I had worked at 33 jobs over the course of my life. It wasn’t that I changed jobs that often but that I worked multiple jobs at the same time, especially in high school. At one time, I worked as a janitor in a dentist’s office and in a grocery store and at the local hardware store managing the electronics and photo bar. All those pizzas, electronic gadgets and photo gear were expensive, not to mention clothes. The worst of it was I never saved a dime except for one summer, but that is another story.

Of all the jobs I had, I worked at one the longest and it was one of the first. Dick’s Market (Winegar’s) and Ace Hardware was about a 10 minute walk from home or 5 minutes on my bicycle. I started there when I was 14 and worked until I was 22 or so with time off in between for my mission. All in all I probably worked there 6 years, holding down a number of positions in both the market and hardware stores. In fact, I helped dig the foundations for the hardware store and worked setting the store up for it’s grand opening. I ran the photo bar and electronics department as I mentioned earlier at the tender age of 16. Dick, the owner and the hardware store manager, Jim gave me the opportunity and I ran with it. It was a lot of work, but somehow fun as well. It was great setting up my department. I was in heaven with two of the things I love, photography and electronics gear. They even let me buy the stock, with some guidance. I was responsible for selling what I bought and managed to do a decent job of it. I was even allowed to buy a 300 mm telephoto lens for my beloved Minolta SRT-101 at cost.

I built most of the display cases and put shelves on the wall and on the islands in front of the bar. The cases were glass and I spent a fair amount of time cleaning the fingerprints off the doors and walls. Being the fastidious person that I was then, I was always frustrated with the number of fingerprints and always had a bottle of Windex underneath the case to clean the glass. To this day, cleaning is something I sometimes do to relieve stress. Jim, our manager, was an interesting guy, he was short and always wore a really bad toupee, but was full of energy and conversation. There were times when it was slow and he would amble over to my bar and chat, telling me about his life and family. He treated me with respect and I gave the same back to him, still do.

We also had a night manager who was in his mid to late 20’s. He was married and maybe had one child. He also would chat with me. One of the most memorable conversations we had was around finding the right girl. I must have been complaining about the lack of a love life ( a constant theme at the time) and he told me the story of how he met his wife. He was older and ready to get married, but had not found his Mrs. Right yet. He was frustrated in the extreme, as only a man who is trying to stay a virgin until he gets married, could be. God had not shown him his intended, so he decided to take serious action and force God’s hand. He decided to fast until he found the girl he was to marry. It took him 3 days to find her. That is faith, my friends. His example provided me with inspiration in my own search, although I managed to turn the faith into anger, but that is another story.

The most important lessons I learned during my time came from Dick Winegar, the owner of both stores. Before I worked at the hardware store, I was a bagger in the grocery store. Being a bagger in those days, was a demanding job. There were no self checkout lanes, no plastic bags, none of the cost saving technologies that we have now. It was a very high touch job. You were expected to keep up with the checker and have everything bagged properly when the customer was ready to go. The store was very busy, especially on Friday and Saturday, so you had to run all the time. Bagging itself was an art form to be mastered. You had to put certain things in the bag in a certain order. Cans would go in one bag and since they were heavy, needed to be double bagged. Eggs usually went with bread, with the bread on top. Chips and other fragile items got their own bag as well. Milk was double-bagged and separated in the bag by a cereal box or similar since the milk was in glass bottles. You had to separate things as they came down the belt and plan your bags accordingly. I usually had two bags going at any given moment with one stack on the side that would fill another bag when one of the two were filled. If me or anyone else on the line was not keeping up, Dick Winegar would be right there, bagging with you until you were caught up, all the while chatting with the customer, listening to them and constantly getting their feedback.

So what did I learn as a bagger? Nothing at the time, which is a shame. Over time, though, I grew to understand what Dick was teaching.

• Lesson one, anticipate what is coming down the belt. You will be more successful if you take a longer view.
• Lesson two, sort your groceries and always put them in the right bag. Certain priorities go with each other better than others.
• Lesson three, double bag the items that are too heavy or need protection. Many things in your life will be bruised or shatter if you don’t protect them properly and heavy things may need extra help to carry them.
• Lesson four, remember that no job is too small and no customer is too insignificant for the boss to talk to. Keep your finger on the pulse of your business if you want it to succeed.
• Lesson five, encourage your employees by working as hard as they do. The power of example is a great motivator.

Took me too long to figure all of this out. I hope that someone will learn from my mistake.