So, I recently got a job in retail. It was my first such experience, unless you count the year I worked at a frozen yogurt shop when I was 15, which I’m not sure counts.
For most of the rest of my life, I’ve been a writer (and for a bit an Uber driver). I make my own schedule. I’ve never clocked in or clocked out, and I soon realized that I’ve become accustomed to this flexibility.
The new job was at a yarn shop, which I figured would be the best way to offset the huge amount of money I personally spend on yarn. I asked if they could pay me in yarn, but they just looked at me quizzically, as if yarn weren’t a valid form of currency.
The first few days were spent on training, and I have to tell you, I love cash registers. It was like I was 10 years old playing with a toy.
The woman training me was all, “So, this is how you log in, and then this is how you ring stuff up.”
As I pressed the buttons, I literally said, “Boop beep boop beep boop beep.” And then when the cash drawer sprang open, I had to stop myself from clapping my hands.
My trainer looked at me as if I didn’t get out much. I took offense. I mean, it’s true, but she doesn’t know that, and I resented the assumption.
By the way, she also said that she was happy to have me on the team, because she was tired of being the only old one with kids. Which, strangely, I didn’t take offense at. Because I was ringing people up and running credit cards and winding yarn. I was living the dream. And I got to say, “boop beep boop beep boop beep,” which I didn’t learn in training, but it was an extra thing I added all by myself.
I scanned barcodes and remarked, “Isn’t technology cool?” The cash register would do all the math, and if someone paid in dollar bills, it would tell me how much change to give.
I also got to touch yarn all day, and someone was actually paying me to do it.
And then came something bad. Nay, nefarious. Nay, the dark shadow of the hulking silhouette of something nefarious.
It was called … inventory.
We do it once a quarter. It involves counting stuff on the floor, and then counting stuff in the claustrophobic attic, and then comparing it to a printed sheet of how many stuffs we’re supposed to have.
I know, it sounds easy. But in reality, it’s sweaty, dirty, impossible work.
I did a lot of counting. A lot.
Usually I came up with the right number. Sometimes I was off by one or two. But one time, I confused the color oyster with osprey, and I was off by a lot.
It sounds like an obvious mistake. But trust me, if you’ve spent hours and hours counting and counting, and going over colors with names like ravelry red and cinnamon red and regular red and irregular red, it can be hard to keep track of everything.
Management found my mistake. I was summoned to the attic for a good old-fashioned talking to.
I apologized and attributed the mistake to my obvious extreme old age, and all of the kids I’ve birthed who have sucked my brain cells dry, and my eyesight, which is probably suffering from cataracts.
My trainer, who is literally half my age, said, “So, for every number that’s off, why don’t you recount? It will make good practice.”
She then assigned me to count notions, which were “everywhere, and nowhere, and maybe in the space-time vortex, and you have to find them yourself and decode the code names and you’ll never succeed and you suck.” I’m pretty sure that’s what she said, word for word.
To make a long story short, I am no longer working in retail. Probably much to everyone’s satisfaction, shoppers and management alike.
But I did enjoy clocking in and clocking out. So I’m applying that to my role as a mom. When my kid says, “Can you make me spaghetti?” I can simply respond, “Sorry, I’m off the clock.”
Brodi Ashton is a New York Times best-selling author who lives in the Salt Lake City area. She’s also an occasional columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.