Garden of Blessings: Growing Up on the Job

I had almost forgotten about my first, full-time job back when I was 18 years old. I had babysat and pulled a couple of shift as a substitute dishwasher up to that time. These jobs just put a little money in my pocket, but were nothing to depend upon.

I had moved to New Orleans, La, my first move from home! Everything was different and a little scary! I picked up a job as a cashier at a Barkers Department Store.

To get to this store, I had to cross the Huey P. Long Bridge. This bridge was very narrow, barely room for too trucks to run abreast. There was another problem, the bridge had been started at both ends and built to the middle, where it was about a foot off! Well, they just jogged it over a foot! You needed to be aware of this little error so you wouldn’t either hit the curb or stray into the other lane! To add to this excitement, a train trestle ran way up above the lanes of traffic in the middle of the bridge! Every drive was an adventure!

Barkers was like a small Walmart. To use the old-style registers you had to understand how to count back change. I wasn’t very good at it and hardly ever did my register balance at the end of my shift! It usually was over, which was good for the store, but bad for the customer! I wasn’t a very good cashier.

Each week there was a sales flyer with specials. I was supposed to somehow keep up with all of the items on sale, and there were a lot! My boss, Mr. Strict (no joke), was not happy that he had to come to my register and void ring ups often because customers would inform me that the item was on sale after I rang it up at the regular price!

We also had to inform customers of item limits, a few of which ended in scenes like the woman that wanted an overflowing cart of wicker baskets on sale for $1 each! There was a limit of 5 . I had to allow Mr. Strict to engage the customer who was quite angry!

As New Orleans is a port city, we often had foreign customers who didn’t pay taxes at the store but at customs when they left to return home. Again, Mr. Strict would be at my counter voiding the sale for me to start all over!

Often these foreign customers would buy items to resell in their country, so there would be a basket of a certain type dress in several different colors and sizes! Once a customer bought a bean bag chair and proceeded to dump all of the little pellets out into the parking lot so she could get the bean bag chair in the trunk of a taxi.

I had a colorful peer at this store. Her/his name was Erica. She/he told me she wanted her boyfriend to change his name to Jack, so she could change her name to Jill and they could be Jack and Jill! Daily one would hear Erica’s booming male voice announce her entry into the woman’s restroom. She was nice to us all, but took a little getting used to!

Weekly I was paid with cash in a little brown envelope. I never brought home over $100 for a week’s pay. I still have these little brown envelopes which surprises no one who knows me!