Memoir: Talk of Our Town

I grew up in a very small, close knit neighbourhood. It was a “cul-de-sac”, and therefore if you didn’t live there, you didn’t drive up there. We could always pick out an “outside” car that had gotten lost in our little maze – one of many that make up the suburbs of Dartmouth.We all looked out for each other. The adults watched all their neighbours’ kids while they played in the street. The closeness between the residents in my neighbourhood, and the relative isolation, made living there almost like living in a small town unto ourselves.

The community feel that permeated the homes and yards, and the large number of children living there who constantly ran around the streets like a noisy herd of antelope, resulted in a great deal of “talk”. By “talk” I mean there was constantly a story, usually rumour, being passed back and forth from eager mouths to nosy ears. Any anomaly or novelty of any kind immediately caused speculation.We kids wasted no time making up ideas about what went on behind closed doors.

We aimed particular cruelty at the closed doors of neighbours who either yelled at us to stay off their lawns, or gave us dirty looks for taking up the whole street with our bikes and sidewalk chalk.The most particular cruelty, however, was directed at houses, not neighbours (well at least not directly).

There were a few houses in our vicinity that invited more “talk” then others. There was one house that always seemed to be for sale; people never seemed to want to live there for more than a few months. Another house was very dirty, old, and unkempt with car parts lying all over the lawn and scary dogs chained to the porch.We never saw anyone go in or out of these houses, nor did we ever talk to anyone coming in or out. So, naturally we assumed that these places were breeding grounds for ghosts, drug dealers, and murderers, or the scene of horrible pagan or cult rituals.

We imagined piles of bodies or scary creatures locked away in the basements, and cryptic messages scrawled on the walls. We tried our best to avoid these houses at any cost for fear that we’d be sucked into them never to be seen again, or horribly brainwashed by some kind of radioactive waves. We avoided ringing the doorbells when selling cookies or trick-or-treating, and crossed the street when coming near them, casting sideways glances over our shoulders.Of course, these worries were completely silly - the result of wild, naïve childhood imaginings, and peer pressure, rather than researched fact or eye witness testimony.

When I got older, I worked up the courage to knock on the door of one of the houses while fundraising. I encountered an unassuming, even pleasant middle-aged woman, not a witch or a psychopath. However, no matter how mean, I wouldn’t take back the stories we told, the crazy ideas we planted in the imaginations of fellow neighbourhood kids, or our uneducated assumptions about total strangers. These stories and gossip are the thread in the quilt of my childhood and it is quite a colourful quilt indeed.

Narrative Exercise: A Fine Line Between Love & Hate

My first official job was working as a cashier for Shoppers Drug Mart. I had a few odd jobs before that, babysitting, working in a file room, but this was the first job that I wrote a resume, and had an official interview for. I got this job based on my skills and attitude, not because of family, friends, connections, or word of mouth.I started out as a cashier – the very bottom of the retail chain of command. I was only 16 years old, and thought this new job was a great accomplishment. I was very proud of myself. Even though I was at the bottom of the store “hierarchy”, I felt like I was at the top. I got an official paycheque, and I had a uniform! How much more excitement and pride could one teenager handle?

There was only one problem: I was a terrible cashier. There were so many codes, rules, and tasks to remember and I could hardly keep them straight. I constantly made mistakes, and had to call for help from a supervisor for practically every situation. My cash register never balanced – I was always consistently 50 or more dollars over or short at the end of every week.

One week my manager even gave me an ultimatum at the beginning of one shift: balance your cash or we will have to let you go. I was very shy, and felt like an outsider as a result. There is an expected learning curve with every job, but mine seemed to be quite a bit longer than most.

But I loved my job. And anything that I lacked in the technical department, I made up for in the area of customer service. It wasn’t about scanning products or taking money from customers; it was about the interactions I had with the people who stood before me. It was about customer service. It was about the smiles, jokes, and good-humoured small talk that I shared with them. It was about giving them a good experience in the short amount of time they spent shopping at our store. The ability to interact with customers made up for the fact that I seemed to be technically inept. It was like it was the beginning of a great relationship when all you want to do is be together, talk to and learn as much about each other as you can. I was in love with being a cashier and I thrived on it.

Over five years later, I’m still working at my job and I am now a supervisor as well as cashier. I have the most seniority out of any employee at the store except for the senior management. It feels pretty good. The codes, rules, and tasks I had so much trouble remembering are like second nature to me now, even though the amount of them I have to remember has doubled. I wish I could say my love of customer interaction has doubled, but I can’t. My job and I have been together for a few years, the spark has worn off, and I have seen a side of it that is not necessarily positive.

What I do know is that no matter how jaded I am now, how fed up I am with the environment and the people in it, or how much I complain, the best part of my job is still the people. Sure not all customers are friendly, not all are easy to deal with, but the truth is that most are. And that’s enough. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve lasted this long but then I remember. This job has given me invaluable skills, confidence, a strong work ethic, and an idea about what teamwork is all about.

The best thing it has given me is the opportunity to meet and interact with some great, albeit difficult, people on a daily basis.As dull as my duties can be, there is never a dull moment when it comes to meeting strangers.