Working by Studs Terkel

Author:Studs Terkel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2011-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

“When you make a mistake, you get three chances. Then they take it out of your pay, which is right. You can’t make a ten-dollar mistake every week. It’s fishy. What’s this nonsense? If I give a customer ten dollars too much, it’s your own fault. That’s why they got these registers with the amounts tendered on it. You don’t have to stop and count. I’ve never had such mistakes. It happens mostly with some of these young kids.”

Years ago it was more friendlier, more sweeter. Now there’s like tension in the air. A tension in the store. The minute you walk in you feel it. Everybody is fightin’ with each other. They’re pushin’, pushin‘—“I was first.” Now it’s an effort to say, “Hello, how are you?” It must be the way of people livin’ today. Everything is so rush, rush, rush, and shovin’. Nobody’s goin’ anywhere. I think they’re pushin’ themselves right to a grave, some of these people.

A lot of traffic here. There’s bumpin’ into each other with shoppin’ carts. Some of ‘em just do it intentionally. When I’m shoppin’, they just jam you with the carts. That hits your ankle and you have a nice big bruise there. You know who does this the most? These old men that shop. These men. They’re terrible and just jam you. Sometimes I go over and tap them on the shoulder: “Now why did you do this?” They look at you and they just start laughin’. It’s just hatred in them, they’re bitter. They hate themselves, maybe they don’t feel good that day. They gotta take their anger out on somethin’, so they just jam you. It’s just ridiculous.

I know some of these people are lonesome. They have really nobody. They got one or two items in their cart and they’re just shoppin’ for an hour, just dallying along, talkin’ to other people. They tell them how they feel, what they did today. It’s just that they want to get it out, these old people. And the young ones are rushin’ to a PTA meeting or somethin’, and they just glance at these people and got no time for ’em.

We have this little coffee nook and we serve free coffee. A lot of people come in for the coffee and just walk out. I have one old lady, she’s got no place to go. She sits in front of the window for hours. She’ll walk around the store, she’ll come back. I found out she’s all alone, this old lady. No family, no nothin’. From my register I see the whole bit.

I wouldn’t know how to go in a factory. I’d be like in a prison. Like this, I can look outside, see what the weather is like. I want a little fresh air, I walk out the front door, take a few sniffs of air, and come back in. I’m here forty-five minutes early every morning. I’ve never been late except for that big snowstorm. I never thought of any other work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.