Lessons In Humility

Almost two years ago, I was having lunch with my friend, Shane, and bemoaning the realization that I was going to have to take on a second job. I had come to know Shane by eating, all too frequently, at his Quizno’s. Cooking for one while the girls were away had long before lost all appeal.

“Why don’t you come to work here, with me?”

I looked up from my sandwich and saw the dead serious look on Shane’s face. In fact, it was a little more than serious; it was almost pleading. I guess most of his help had gone off to college and he was pretty shorthanded, working from open to close every day, and not seeing much of his family.

I had already been making the rounds at the local businesses and putting in applications, hoping someone might be able to offer me a few hours a week at something simple and enjoyable. But, my efforts were really only half-hearted. I was still in denial. It was still a little hard to believe how tough a turn things had all taken over the previous several months and where it all seemed headed. Getting a second job made perfect sense, but it was not going to be fun. My time was already stretched.

And, I was being picky. I didn’t want to work at just any second job. I had already ruled out certain things I had deemed beneath me; there was no way I was waiting tables. I had already done the convenience store gig many years ago and I had no desire to return to that. Besides: I knew I would see too many of my friends and neighbors every shift if I tried working at one of the several stores that dotted our neighborhood.

So when Shane popped his question, I thought, “What the hell?” We talked on a few minutes about what hours I could do and what the job entailed, but we didn’t quite seem to seal the deal. I left there after eating feeling like it was more a solid prospect—kind of a fallback position—instead of a real offer and decision.

I didn’t go back for a couple of days to eat, but when I did, Shane was there, and so I asked him if we were both serious about what we had discussed. I wondered if he wasn’t sincere, and when he handed me the application to fill out, I thought he was giving it to me as a way of finding a graceful way out of an awkward situation. I took the application home with me, not wanting to be seen sitting there in the shop filling it out and wondering if I were making him uncomfortable as I did. When I returned it the next day he still didn’t say anything that indicated I was assured the job.

A small part of me hoped I wouldn’t be hired. It was both reluctance and denial, in that space where one disappointment after another becomes too common and easy to accept. Each one becomes a moment where you become more and more convinced that something fantastic is about to happen for you and the entire nightmare comes to an end. Surely this wasn’t all happening. I was a good guy. I worked hard. I played by the rules. Things this bad don’t happen to good people.

But, it was happening. I just hadn’t wrapped my head around it yet, hadn’t submitted to it.

When the phone didn’t ring for a couple of days I was sure Shane had found the necessary excuse to retract his offer, but thought I would stop in anyway. Shane didn’t even say hello when I walked in, he just asked me how soon I wanted to start. We discussed the missing details, and it worked out perfectly. He understood my parenting and primary employment situations and was willing to work with me however I needed, and it would eventually get him some evenings off with his family. The next Sunday afternoon, I would be working two jobs.

Oddly enough, I walked out of there elated. I was glad to be done with the drudgery of filling out applications and hoping someone might offer me some work. There is a little bit of humility that one suffers in all of that process, especially someone my age and in that position. But in actually asking for and getting work with Shane I felt somewhat empowered, like I was doing something instead of letting it all just happen. Then there was that feeling of having gotten a job. Sure, it was a silly little part-time position in a sandwich shop, but…I got it. Me. Someone picked me. I even called a friend with the news.

But, as Sunday afternoon approached, a few worries set in. I knew I was walking into a work situation where I was going to be working with a lot of people much younger than I. I envisioned snickers behind my back, where my coworkers would be wondering who the old guy was. I wondered what I would say in that awkward moment when a friend or a neighbor came in and saw me behind the counter. I even worried if Megan or Kylee would be embarrassed by their dad’s new part-time job. I nearly backed out because of all of those fears, but didn’t, for some reason.

I came in that first day expecting all that to happen, and none of it did. Shane put me in the patient hands of his most trusted teen, a nice girl named Lauren, and she spent the afternoon showing me everything. Lauren never let on if she thought it odd a guy my age would be working there, she just showed me something, left me to do a few things while she waited on customers, then came back to me whenever she could.

It wasn’t long after I got there that the worst news about the economy started breaking. Business slowed a little, and Shane got nervous. He held off hiring anyone new, and I picked up a night or two more each week to cover the gaps. I noticed the flow of customers was not nearly as hectic as had been the previous months. Winter was even slower. We all worried about our “silly” little part-time jobs with Shane.

At my regular job, I also noticed something different. Our applications and the people that were submitting them were changing. People my age, and older, came in by the dozens, and applied for part-time jobs. I remember interviewing one after another, recognizing the fears in their faces, wishing I could help them somehow. At that point the worst had already come and gone for me. I wondered if it still laid ahead for them.

As the weeks wore on, I became more and more comfortable with working two jobs, with the job I did for Shane. I actually began to enjoy it. It became almost mindless work, a welcome relief from the stress that can be a daily part of managing in the retail environment. I got to know the regulars who came in frequently, and conversation became a part of taking care of people. Friends and neighbors—even coworkers from Target—no longer made me feel awkward. I think they accepted it as a part of the economics of our time, maybe even thought, “there but by the grace of God, go I.” For myself: I didn’t care. Take me or leave me, I try hard. Everything is for Megan and Kylee, and I can humble myself to whatever I need for them.

Even the youngsters I worked with accepted me. Lauren, that girl that taught me everything I know about the place, turned into a great work partner. We could crank out a closing faster than anyone else’s. We would have fun with the nice customers, and laugh at the rude ones after they left. Sometimes she would ask me for advice about things, and I would feel flattered. Eventually she moved on and went to work at her mother’s law firm, so she could earn more for college this fall. We felt like our little girl was growing up, Shane and I. But, she still stops in now and then.

At some point, I kind of became Shane’s trusted partner and trainer. He began taking more and more time off, and even asked me to watch the place a couple of times so he could go out of town. I started getting all the new hires to train on my shifts.

Gabe, another young girl from the local high school, passed through briefly. She was a good kid; she learned fast and worked fast, and was fun to have around at work. But, Girl World and cheerleading eventually swallowed up her life, and she left to work somewhere a little more socially acceptable to her friends. I worry about her, from time to time.

Tommie—the girl I work most with now—will be the one I might miss most when I leave Shane. She is a sweet girl, bright, with a good heart and a good head on her shoulders. The friends who stop in to see her all seem like good kids as well, so I worry about her very little. She is making her way through a childhood very similar to mine, a split family, but doing a much better job of it than I think I did at her age.

Things change, as they are wont to do, and in my case, they changed for the better. Come April, I will not need both jobs, and I am reducing to one so that I can live a little more sanely, can offer better time with the girls, maybe even enjoy myself a little more. But—believe it or not—I am going to miss working at the Q and the people I see there as much as I see them now. I will miss being a part of each other’s lives as much as we are now. And I will leave a little changed.

If everything in life happens for a reason—and I tend to believe they do—then my time there has had far more value than just the income of a silly, little part-time job making sandwiches. The guy who would never work a job like that is no longer; he’s been replaced by someone possibly a little more humble. The invulnerable, disbelieving suburbanite is gone, supplanted by the person who understands everything material can go away in a heartbeat, and that the most important things in life are family, and friends, and new friends you can find in the least expected places. And those unexpected friends and little unexpected lessons: sometimes they prove to be the most valuable of all.

Originally published 3/11/2010.

© 2010 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.