Two Questions (a not strictly cash-register related post)

2 Questions:

 God, if you love me, why does this hurt?

And God, if this is good, am I evil to be hurting?

And just like that, all this fear and hurt, all this seeing Him as an angry, disappointed dad that I can't please, floods back, and in the wake of doing what I know to be right I am overcome with shame that it still hurts so badly.

I was crying here, and I remembered: "Jesus wept."

Before going to the cross, before doing the most right thing ever, he was in agony, he sweat blood, and he asked God to change it.

 In front of Lazarus's tomb, knowing it was God's plan to let him die and knowing he'd raise him again, he wept.

Speaking to a crowd, he said, "And now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name."

If Jesus is my role model, if Jesus is what God wants, apparently when I do what's right, it's okay to cry.

The "I Cannot Sell You the Beer" song, re-written

Today I repeated the following about 15 times in a row, until it became a song.

"I cannot sell you this beer.

"I cannot sell this to you.

"It is the law.

"It does not matter.

"The law IS ridiculous. And that doesn't matter.

"I cannot sell you

"I cannot

"I cannot

"I cannot sell you

"I cannot SELL you the beer."

...this is what I would like to say instead.

"Ma'am, there is no setting of crazy in the universe that would move me to endanger my livelihood by breaking the smallest letter of the liquor law.

"My give-a-flip switch is in the off-position.

"Do you still want the candy bar?

"You misheard me. I just said that caring is not my job. Do you want the candy bar?

"Would you like to use your rewards card with that?

"By not using your card and thus paying extra, you are probably flaying my soul open to the harsh winds of remorse. Just kidding. Thank you for donating to my college fund.

"I hope you have a nice day. Again, I don't care and your day is not my job. Just have it elsewhere.

"You are welcome to call corporate. Perhaps they will give me a medal. Or even better, maybe they'll dismiss me.

"Thank you for shopping with us.

"I cannot sell you

"I will not sell you

"I don't even want to sell you

"By now I'm happy to not be selling you

"I am not selling you

"the beer."

The Choice

I feel defeated before I start. I feel like it’s pointless before I try. I feel beat up before I show up.

Around five people told me last shift that "I didn’t look as happy as I used to.” I had nothing to say. I used to look happy in agony, look happy in grief, look happy no matter what. 

I have to go in again. Have to.

I don’t know what today will be like. It’s a really good guess that it’ll be super hard. But. I have to hold on to but.

Maybe I don’t like the company I work for.

Maybe I feel like satisfying the customers is hopeless.

Maybe I feel hunted and investigated and unsupported and alone.

But if this is a bad store, I still serve a good God. If this is a bad store, I still have the chance to be a good cashier.

I might have a bad employer, but I can be a good employee.

This is not forever. But tonight- I'll treat it like it's just tonight- I have this chance to take a bad situation and be cheerful.

I can make the choice to love people. I can make the choice to go the extra mile. Or, if we’re busy enough, just to try and go any mile. I can do my best, I can love you when you come to my line, and I can accept that it’s hard, but I have a choice to be myself and serve Whom I serve no matter what.

I’ve changed the rules. My job isn’t to make everyone happy. That option is gone, and with it my desire to keep this wretched job. My job is to show up, take the hard knocks, and still love each person as they come.

I feel unloved. I feel beat up. I feel alone. But I’m not alone. And each moment I persevere will be the proof of that.

Hello. I am the cheerful cashier.

_________________________________________________

Post-shift update: success.

I was slow.

I rang you up too slowly for your tastes. You didn’t sigh with impatience- I do appreciate that; you don’t know how much- but you bounced on your heels and looked away and when I said goodbye, you interrupted with “THANKS,” and snatched the receipt out of my hand.

I didn’t want to slow you down.

That’s the dumb part. The thing that makes me cry- man, am I exhausted- is the thought that maybe you believed I wasn’t fast because you weren’t important.

I don’t think you noticed that the light for my register was off. I don’t think you noticed, because people usually don’t. They just get in line. That’s what I like to think. That you didn’t see that I had been trying and trying and trying to leave, that my shift was over, but I didn’t want to turn you away.

I rang up a bad rain check one hour before. 2 bad rain checks. The people had falsified them, they weren’t stamped, the signature was someone who didn’t work here with us, a Bethany? A fake- and I didn’t know enough to stop them. The service leader told me, and said, “Next time…just this once…” and I had to look into the eyes of people I knew were stealing from my store, making me help them steal from my store, and I had to finish helping them.

Ten minutes later, my hands were still shaking, and my voice still sounded like it was coming from a tunnel.

Normally, I stretch my shifts as long as I can make them, but I knew if I stayed today I would only mess up. I would only slow people down. The couponers had sunk their fangs into my soul and I was still bleeding. I turned off the light 2 minutes before seven. But they kept lining up. You lined up.

I’m sorry. I did my best. I honestly could not be faster today. But it wasn’t because you weren’t important. If you weren’t important, I would not have been there. You would have been in the other line, and it would have been another 20 minutes, and I didn’t want to make you wait. You were important.

Have a good week.

I'm Somebody

There was an American flag lying in the suicide lane on Parsons. I saw it and thought, this is awful. Somebody should stop their car and get out and fix this. Then I was like, but I'm somebody.

A few harrowing turns and emergency lights and some running later, and I have a flag now.

Weirdest Nickname Yet

Customers who spontaneously nickname are regular. I am accustomed to Sweetheart, Honey, Babygirl, Sis, Mami, Happy, and Smiley. I have even answered to Leprechaun.

Today a guy called me Teflon.

I smiled, frozen and confused, and he clarified, "I try to give you a hard time and you smile. You're Teflon! Nothing sticks. ^_^"

...I can dig it.

And I was unkind o___o

I always thought that moments of heroism were precipices, and I’d get to stand at the edge and draw my breath and then jump. They’re not.

They come to me in seconds. There is no time to breathe, no time to think or gather or remember whose I am: there is a single second in which I will or will not.

Be or not be kind. Do or not do more. Give or not give people more than they deserve.

Today I came to that second, I stared into eyes, and on a 9 hour shift, I chose not to try.

Me: “Do you have your card?”
”No.”
”Do you want one? I can-“
”No. … I thought that was on sale.”
”All the sales are with the card. #_#”
”THAT SUCKS.”

In the half-second after he said the words, I had the chance to explain store policy. I could offer him a way around the rules. I knew I could help him and maybe keep his obnoxious business.

I didn’t. I was tired. I was weak. I didn’t want to.

I said nothing, and I stared. I stared.

For the first time in my entire career, a career in which I have been insulted and berated and intimidated and ignored, I let a human being feel the force of the contempt I held for his behavior. I didn’t look at him with eyes that said, “I’m sorry.” I looked at him with eyes that said, “Little man, you overestimate your importance.”

I regret it.

I had the chance to be a hero. I had the chance to do more, to be more. And maybe I taught a small man a lesson. But I…I don’t know how I feel.

He faltered. He’d expected some kind of respect for his outburst, some kind of amusement or camaraderie, I don’t know. My coldness froze his smile to sheepishness. He paid and left without the discount he could have easily received if he had not been pigheaded. Or if I had been heroically kinder.

I turned to the next customer, horrified but heady with power, heart frost-chilled and spun and confused. I made sure to take every extra step to love them.