Toy Store
My parents instilled upon me a high work ethic. I’ve put up hay, cut weeds out of beans and detasseled corn full time (for stretches of time) even before I got my drivers license. When I got my drivers license and a car, I suddenly had an object to support by working… my car.
The summer I turned 16, my dad introduced me to the owner of a kid’s amusement park at the fairgrounds. You know the kind of place that has a merry go round, Ferris wheel, small roller coaster, bumper cars, kiddie train and some refreshments to purchase. I was hired for summer work. These kind of places have periods where they need lots of help and other periods where they have to find things for you to do. I learned how to run all the rides as well as cut grass, lay down asphalt, spread rock, paint buildings, tote supplies…you can see where I’m going with this.
After the summer was over, the amusement park shut down (the owners went back to Florida for the winter, the first ever snowbirds I knew) and I was out of a job. My car found this totally unacceptable, so I got another temporary job as a stocker at a toy store for the Christmas season. Similar to the amusement park, the toy store had some business all year round but from October through December, they needed extra help just to keep up.
I guess I was a hard worker because, after Christmas, they asked me to stay on (remember I’m a junior in high school by now). I trained beyond stocking to being a cashier and was promoted to head cashier before I graduated from High School.
I started college (lived in a college dorm room on campus) and most days, I drove the roughly 30 miles from my college to the mall where the toy store was. Then I got promoted again to Assistant Manager. A little background info, it seems like minimum wage had just gone up from $3.10 per hour to $3.35 per hour. Somehow (ok, it was because he told me), I knew the previous Assistant Manager made, funny I can’t recall the exact amount, let’s say $5 per hour. When the district manager offered me the promotion, he offered me the job at, let’s say, $4 per hour. I was grateful for the promotion but I tried to convey that I knew the previous Assistant Manager made more than that. I probably should mention that the previous Assistant Manager was let go for stealing from the store.
I’ll never forget his response. He did bump up his offer but he let me know that he was disappointed. He was disappointed not because he had to pay me more money but that I compared myself and my abilities against the previous Assistant Manager. He told me that he would have much rather I told him that I thought I was worth more and negotiate from there rather than bring the previous Assistant Manager into the conversation. Anyway, I accepted the job but never forgot the lesson to not compare myself and what I wanted to someone else.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ So the last will be first, and the first last.’” - Matthew 20:1-16
