Off He Goes

If you've been to the local Wal-Mart recently you might have chanced upon Hiromi, who is employed there as a part time cashier. Desperate jobs for desperate folks.

The pay is as bad as I have always heard it to be, and the benefits are as minimal as I thought. But Hiromi enjoys it so far, and I'm telling myself to be grateful for the Lord's provision.

He never heard back from any of the companies that were hiring at higher levels on the pay scale, despite, in some cases, having every one of the skilled labor requirements they called for. They probably had multiple applicants for the same job, from younger skilled people. Hiromi had heard that some of those jobs had mandatory overtime, with very many hours in each work week, and he wasn't too sure that he was ready for that grueling schedule, so he was mentally prepared for the trade-off he was pretty sure he would have to take--fewer hours and lower pay per hour.

Technically, Hiromi is still a temporary employee. After several months he can likely transition into being an official part timer or full timer.

Hiromi's trainer at the cash register is Ann. "You must be the city celebrity," she told Hiromi on the first day. "Everyone knows you."

On the second day she said, "Now I'm sure you're a celebrity. We've had twice as many people in our lane today as anyone else." Part of his network of friends is in the Amish-Mennonite community, but many people are acquaintances from his years in the work world, from having been employed in several large businesses--the hospital, Cessna, Collins, and Superior Boiler. People remember him because he's friendly to them, and he has a distinctive name and identity.

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One of the people Hiromi was to work with cast about for a nickname she could use for Hiromi, because his real one was just too hard to say. Hiromi did not offer any suggestions. "I like Hiromi," he told me. Here's a shoutout to others with a similar aversion to learning and using an unfamiliar name: Just do it. Your new friend will be grateful and you'll have demonstrated some maturity and ability to place the preferences of others ahead of your own.

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Hiromi is determined to stay out of the gossip circle the ladies working around him are obviously privy to. He's already heard that "that one [new employee] doesn't listen [to her trainer]," and "Your trainer is telling you wrong" and one cashier is referred to as "double-bagger ________" because she over-does the double bagging.

Hiromi was told, "You bag like a man." He doesn't think this was a compliment. "I just get it in there," he told me. He's not keen on having to make an arrangement inside every bag, but he's hoping to get faster and better at bagging.

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Neither Joel or Shane shop at Wal-Mart, and neither one is planning to start now. Shane had too many bad experiences while he worked as a vendor supplying merchandise to Wal-Mart ($300.00 book racks chucked in the trash when they decided to re-arrange things, etc.), and Joel objects to their ruthlessness in dealing with competitors and suppliers both. (I think that's why.) That's OK with me.

I don't do much shopping anywhere, but I like the Target store better than Wal-Mart--high quality, artful merchandise in a more manageable space. Grant won't shop there because they are PETA (AKA animal rights) supporters. My sister's family loves to boycott them for other reasons. I think Target supports liberal and perhaps un-Christian political causes.

Shopping can be fraught with many perils, aside from the money-spending peril--my main shopping issue. Pondering these things reinforces my sanctimonious feelings for not liking shopping. I'm sure it's obvious, though, that if Hiromi didn't like it, I would have to do more of it. We're not self-sufficient enough to have no need of it.

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Hiromi has been jogging of late. He dutifully checked with the "doctor" who was helping him with his hip and back pain issues to see if it would be alright. Hiromi laughed afterward about how ridiculous his asking probably seemed to be, with as many muscular-skeletal problems as he already has, but the doctor told him it was fine as long as it doesn't cause him any problems. He's gaining some speed and endurance, although at first he noted with chagrin that his jogging wasn't increasing his speed much over walking. He's very scientific about this--keeping time religiously.

Hiromi is laughing too about how he has always hated running. When he was 15 or 16 and had just returned to high school after leaving the military prep school he had been in, other students were pretty sure he would be very good at running from his rigorous military training. Not so. He hated every bit of running in the Air Force, and did no more than he was forced to. Ditto for his high school years. He never did it since then either. But now, at 65, he's going back to it. He bought running shoes at Browns and a treadmill at Sears, to use when the weather gets too bad or the evenings get too dark to do it outside.

His running practice came in handy yesterday when he realized he had left his name tag and ID in the car at the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot just ten minutes before check-in time. The sprint to the car and back was not problem.

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