the moment you remember you’re not alone working at the busiest store in the world
I work at the busiest store in the world* (this is in fact a fact), and yesterday I saw the least amount of employees there have ever been. With the vaccine requirement and Omircon variant rising, we’ve been hit on both sides. Mentally and physically we are exhausted, but our managers continue to pressure us to take customers one by one because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that there’s no product on the shelves. All that matters is that we get people out the door.
But something amazing occurred.
About 15 of us were working on the floor (half of what we’d normally have), going through the motions of trying to not panic in this peak wave of the pandemic. Our monotonous bending and shuffling were briefly interrupted at the sound of the Cha Cha Slide seeping through the speakers. Now I’m not sure how this song was included in one of the playlists, but today it was.
A gleam shot in my eye as we all looked around, knowing what song was playing. Anyone who knows this American classic knows that participation is required by all of those who hear it.
Suddenly, I found myself nodding to the beat, tapping my foot to the right or to the left. I look over to my other coworkers to encourage the same. I turn around to ask my friend if he knows how to cha-cha. I look ahead to the coworker at the front of the line to get her to see my hop three times.
Not everyone was doing what I was doing.
Just a minute before that I was reprimanded for not flagging enough so now might not have been the time to had been enjoying myself as much as I was. But when the line is wrapped around the corner because every email you get is reporting that “several” people continue to test positive, you have to find ways to get through whatever the fuck you call what is going on.
The song gets to the moment when he says: Everybody clap your hands and immediately everyone starts to clap their hands. The employees and some of the customers. The manager and the general manager look around in awe. We are laughing at each other.
It was an “oh shit” moment.
A moment where amidst the chaos, the fear and the uncertainty, the mental integrity to push through the emotional and physical barriers, we are reminded how we are all here, together.
It was a moment I hope that the managers realize that we talk and pause because we’re just trying to breathe, we’re just trying to get through.
It was a moment where I remembered that we are a team.
It was a moment when I remembered that I was not alone, working at the busiest store in the world.
And with that moment, I flag again, for another 3 hours, to help the next customer.
*I am omitting what kind of store it is, but if you find out this is in fact true at the time of this publication.
