January 11, 2016
Well, here it is. We're eleven days into the brand new year, and I have to tell
you, it's been a very good eleven days.
2016 is starting off with a bang, and for once, I'm feeling very hopeful
about a year. While 2015 was a
life-changing year for me, I have high expectations that 2016 will continue to
bring changes galore.
After all, 2016 was the year I changed
jobs. Again.
This time around, I get to play with kale,
bok choy, persimmons, papayas, and arugula.
Only I'm not exactly cooking them (believe me, you don't want me
anywhere near a kitchen), instead I'm stocking them.
And, I'll be doing it wearing a saucy little
green apron too!
(Okay, okay.
So I'll be wearing clothes as well as the green apron. That would be incredibly indecent, not to
mention that certain parts of my...ahem...anatomy...would freeze upon strolling
inside the walk-in cooler.)
Now while working in produce isn't exactly my
first foray into working in the grocery department of a store, it certainly has
been an eye-opener of a week. It's
definitely one of the fastest paced departments I've ever worked, and shifts
begin at five o'clock.
In the morning.
But you know what? Bring it on.
You know, Homer and Bart Simpson were
absolutely wrong when they claimed that "you don't win friends with
salad" in that episode where Lisa became a vegetarian and Paul and Linda
McCartney issued their seal of approval.
In the produce biz, you provide customers bagged salads, they become
your friend forever.
Seriously, I've witnessed this and I've only
been in the department a week!
Of course, I don't think I could ever be like
Lisa and go full-fledged vegetarian or vegan.
I like cheese and bacon a little too much to make that commitment. That said, I have the highest respect for
people who have made vegetarianism a way of life, and at the very least,
working in produce could help me eat my greens, and reds, and yellows a little
bit more.
It seems as though whenever I worked a
department, my spending habits gravitated towards the department that I was
in. Sometimes this was a good thing, as
evidenced last year when I was in hardware.
After all, buying a house means a lot of home improvements. But sometimes it wasn't so good. I shudder to think of all of the calories I took
in when I was buying ice cream every week in frozen foods!
But produce...95% of the stuff sold in
produce is actually supposed to be good for you! The cored pineapple rings!
The stoplight pepper package with the red, yellow, and green
peppers! The table of bananas! The Skittles, Starburst, and M&M's at
the bulk food counter!
Well, okay, scratch that last one!
The point is, being surrounded by healthy
stuff might encourage me to eat healthier.
Why, just the other day I was stocking seedless grapes thinking that it
had been forever since I had some! I'm
thinking I will probably pick up some the next shift I'm in. After all, a bag of grapes is much healthier
than a bag of corn chips.
Plus, I've gotten to work with some people
that I normally would never have seen in any other departments I work in, and
they all are fantastic people! I mean,
granted, I've only been there a week, but I'm finding my groove.
I just have to practice trimming celery. I accidentally butchered two bunches the
first time I did it. I guess this makes
me a celery killer, huh? But practice
makes perfect, and believe me, I think I'll be getting a lot of practice.
Do I miss being over in hardware and sporting
goods? In a way, I do. Truthfully, there's a part of me that misses
bits and pieces of every department I've worked. Even the departments that I didn't really like that much.
But now that my job has sort of come nearly
full circle, I'm optimistic about things, and I feel that this new job, no
matter how long it lasts, will be a positive experience. It has been so far.
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