I Quit!

Well, this is the end.

Not the end of everything, you understand. Just the end. Or, rather, an end.

As most of you know, I have spent the past three years working (or, if I'm honest, undertaking a not always convincing facsimile of working) in a convenience store in order to make a contribution to the household budget while my Dearly Beloved and I candidated to the ordained ministry of the Uniting Church. But now that we have completed our Exit Year (and, presumably, have completed the assessment requirements!) and are awaiting placement in permanent ministry positions, the time has come to draw a close to certain things. And one of those things has been the job at the store.

So, I have resigned. Actually, even if I hadn't resigned, I would have gone anyway, on account of the fact that the store has been taken over by another retail chain and is currently closed for refurbishment. Owing to the business model employed by that chain, it is unlikely that I would have secured a position with the new owners; and I didn't fancy trying to get a shift at one of my former employer's stores which had not yet been taken over - having done it once, there is no way I was going to work a graveyard or whatever other unwanted unpleasant shift they thought they could squeeze me into. Besides, my Dearly Beloved and I were determined that, this year, I would be spending Christmas Day with the family, not at work.

So, no more of that for Yours Truly. But since this has been a not insignificant part of my life, and since my escapades at the store have formed a large slice of this blog's content, I thought I would mark the end of this particular era by sharing a few thoughts.

Employees. The first thing I want you to do is to urge you all to change your attitude to all the people who work behind the counter at convenience stores and other related retail outlets. I have worked in a lot of different environments, from factories to corporate offices, but in few of them have I encountered an environment in which the work was as repetitive, tedious, physically exhausting, and mind-numbingly dull. When you add to that the fact that the workload (in terms of customer flows) can switch from inertially boring to frantically busy in a matter of seconds; and the fact that an enormous burden of responsibility rests on convenience store employees in terms of OH&S, security, and corporate responsibility/reputation, then the convenience store represents one of the most demanding and least rewarding workplace environments I have ever encountered. So, please, next time you go to a convenience store, no matter how angry, busy, existentially angst-ridden, or otherwise pissed off with the world you may be, remember that there is someone who is in a much worse position than you - namely, the poor sod behind the counter who has to serve you. So try a little kindness - or, if not that, a little understand. Okay?

Customers. The first thing I want to say is that 95% of the people I encountered were basically decent human beings: just working stiffs trying to make their way in the world like the rest of us. I know I have written more than one post taking the piss out of customers and their foibles; but that is only because they were the exception not the rule. It is the exceptions that make for interesting stories, as any tabloid hack can tell you; the people and situations I wrote about were not representative of the whole. But having said that, let me also say this: that being a convenience store clerk sure brings you into contact with an especially rich cross-section of human society (particularly when you work nights or graveyards on the weekends), and much of that humanity is profoundly broken and limited. It reminds you how inadequate your own experience is, and how vast a world of human reality exists beyond the confines of your own life. And you come to appreciate how sadly constrained so many others' horizons are, a realisation that does not fill you with a sense of your own superiority, but with a lament for the inadequacy of the human condition. So, in the long run, I think you learn compassion. Yes, you also learn to deploy dark humour, sometimes as a coping mechanism, and sometimes as a necessary corrective to human stupidity. But I think you also learn to respect the struggle that is the "daily grind" for so many people, whether because of the circumstances they find themselves in, or because of their own limitations.

Relationships. Most people are used to forming relationships through work, not just because you have to operate co-operatively with other people, but because there is something innately human that seeks out the other in order to make a connection. Indeed, some work relationships become truly significant, leading to anything from life-long friendship to marriage. But that's not the case with the convenience store clerk. Because the staff are all employed on a casual shift basis, and are rarely all together in the same place (shift-changes and store meetings being about the only time more than one clerk is there at once) the bonds that tie other workplaces simply don't exist. To be sure, there were long-standing employees at the store with whom I did form connections; but with the changes of management and staff turnover that are endemic to the convenience store environment, these connections are easily sundered. Indeed, when the store closed, and after I had worked my last shift, it seemed to me that we had all become like leaves scattered before the wind; leaves that had been none-too-securely attached to the workplace "branch" to begin with. And yet, oddly, this lack of connection was made up for by an attachment to the "regulars" one encountered on most shifts, the people who lived locally and who came into the store on a frequent basis. After a while, you got to know their names; and, through conversation, learned a little about their lives. Granted, a small number of "regulars" came with a degree of "nuisance value" attached; but the bulk were, in fact, people you looked forward to seeing. They either helped mark the passing of the hours because their metronomic habits ensured they always came to the store at the same time; or, more importantly, they were the ones who offered consolation after your shift had been spoiled by some aggressive, impatient, arrogant twat. In many ways the "regulars" were a reminder that, even in the most sterile of environments, meaningful human relationships are possible.

I'm sure there's more I could tell you, but I think that's about it for now. I hated the job and every minute I was compelled to perform it; but I am also grateful for the income it provided, and for the people who meant that it wasn't the dehumanising nullity it might otherwise have been. At the end of the day, I guess all I can do is mark it down to experience and hope to learn the lessons it provided. And breathe a big sigh of relief that it is now a chapter in my life that is well and truly over!

And, since this post is about endings, I now announce that this post also represents the end of this blog. Like the job at the store, it has, I think, served its purpose. So while I won't delete this blog, it is highly unlikely that any further posts will be listed here. So thank you for listening and commenting and for coming along on the ride together. I hope you join me on my other blog The Still Circle.

Talk to you soon,

BB.

Quote for the Day: Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in days of old moved heaven and earth, that which we are we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate but not in will; to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson - "Ulysses")