Confessions of Cheerful Cashier: No One

[This was written half on February 4th, 2015, and half today.]

I had a straight-up traumatic night at the grocery store last night, and I'm still raw and aching.

No One.

No one stuck up for me.

A front end of coworkers, and every one of them siding with the fruitcake and telling me to break the rules, acting like I'm the one who's wrong and the psycho alternately screaming and crooning is the one who's right.

The manager would have thrown her out, but there was no manager. The manager would have told them, like he told them, that I was on target with every regulation I cited, but there was no manager. He was late.

And this woman with her demon-eyes kept saying between screaming that she understood "where I was coming from" and "my job was everything" and telling everyone that I was fine, "Hillary" was fine, I just didn't know what I was doing.

My name is Joy. My name is Joy. I almost quit my job. I almost quit the job that I love and walked out of the store, right then, because I wasn't sure I could be enough.

"Joy, do you want to go to the bathroom for a minute?" Missie, little, rabbit-faced Missy who always, always gave in. My face was hot and swollen and tears were tracking down because I couldn't care enough to stop them. I left the register to her, left, banished and humiliated, and went to wretch in the empty bathroom, chanting, over and over, "I can't throw up. Food costs money."

When I got back, no calmer but pretty confident that I would not be ripping my arms open in front of the customers, everyone told me I was right. The CSL, the other CSL, the manager. Not the cashier who'd begun the fruitcake's rampage by not backing me up when it wasn't her job on the line. She asked if I was okay.

I wanted to say, "Back me up next time, or stay out of it, please." But I didn't trust my voice. I didn't want to hurt her. So I forced a smile- I would be doing this for hours- and said, "Give me a few days, Shanaya."

...I had more to say. The evening was an unending journey in being wounded. But I had to get back to work, and I had to go back to my line, and. And.

My voice shook as I asked people if they brought their happy-shopping cards.

My hands shook as I circled savings on receipts with pens I kept dropping.

A man asked, "How are you?"

"Terrible." I half-laughed, half sobbed.

His eyes shifted to the side, and he acted as if he hadn't heard me. They all acted like they hadn't heard me.

That's when I realized that no one cared. They didn't want an answer to their question. It was unwarranted to give it to them. I wasn't a person to them. I was just a cash register. I had always been a cash register, and I would always be a cash register. They wanted a machine. They wanted me to be fake.

So I was. For hours and hours, as my soul bled out on the counter and I wanted every minute to walk out, but Phil- the manager, Phil- no one would cover if I left- for hours as I struggled like I was drowning, no one noticed I was there.

"Hi! Did you bring your Happy Shopping Card?"

"You must get told you sound like a kid all the time."

I looked up from the groceries. Dear God, no one had talked to me like a person in so long. "Actually, there was this one time that-"

"Plastic, please." She stared back, hostile, flat and empty eyes. I thought I saw hate. She was angry with me. I'd forgotten I was a cash register.

I started asking God, as I put cans into bags, "God, do you see me? Do I matter?

"...do You see me?"

And finally, I had to stop. In my stupid, aching, grieving pity-party for the person I'd been three hours ago, I stopped and asked myself, why do I think I have the right not to be invisible?

I'm sorry, God. I'm sorry in my pain I decided I was so important. I'm sorry I got to feeling entitled, started to act like You owed me something different.

I show up to work to love people, and if that means being poured out like a blood offering over their bags of lemons, I am Your servant. You take care of me, whatever that looks like. I take care of them.

I was nearing the end of the shift, telling myself all the reasons I need this job, telling myself the same, stupid reason not to quit. This old man came up. I rung up his groceries, and then he asked me my name.

For the love of cashiers, the question shouldn't be so hard.

I stammered. I vacilated. My parents call me Joy, but corporate sent me this name tag, so the store says my name is Hill-

"What do you call yourself?" He was smiling. He was still standing there, like he wasn't miffed, and I'd talked like, seven seconds.

"My name is Joy."

"Nice seeing you, Joy." He tipped his hat and smiled, and strolled out. He'd treated me like a person. It took all night, but someone treated me like a person.

I wish I could say that the one man made everything better. He didn't. But he helped.

I got home that night and wrote in this document, "I am going to love the people while being disappointed and hurt and wounded and not knowing if I will ever be able to enjoy my job again."

I went back. It felt like too many times.

My job wasn't fun anymore.

I couldn't pretend the best of people anymore.

All of the ugliness was right there, in my face. I couldn't pretend.

I knew I could be like them. I could be cold, and treat them like machines, like they treated me.

I knew I could quit. No one would blame me. I've stayed for way longer than the people I started the job with. No one expects a cashier to stay for long.

But I didn't quit. I didn't give up. I stuffed my pockets with peppermints, and I showed up to love people. Again and again and again.

Sometimes it's hard.

But I'm the lucky one. When people snap, when they're cruel or they're creepy or they're cold, I get to show them, over and over, that they're more important than anything they can do to me. I get to go that extra inch, treasure their bread, wrap up their candles, hold out their receipt, and show them, whether they see it or not, that they matter.

Sometimes I watch love change them. Sometimes I whisper prayers for people I'll never see again. But God sees them.

No one.

No one will walk through my line and be able to feel unseen.