Diversity

Today I passed the half-way mark of my community service hours. Each CIP graduate is given 96 hours which must be completed by the end of the first year of early release. Almost every Sunday for the past four months, I've spent a few hours of my time helping out the fine folks at the Goodwill Outlet store in St. Paul.

If you've never been there, you haven't seen chaos. Never have so many fought over so little of crap that nobody wanted. A lot of people are there for the motive of profit. Thrift store owners, and people looking to send name brand items overseas are there every week. And every now and then, there are some really good items that come in. I have even bought a few pairs of Lucky Jeans, brand new, for about two dollars a pair. Anywho, enough about that. Let's talk about the people I get to work with every week.

Generally I'm the only "volunteer" there on Sundays. The rest are full-time employees that spend their week doing the same things over and over and over again. Most of the employees stay in back, and some for good cause. One of them is blind. I mean, I think he can make out shapes, but he'll throw things wildly toward a place he thinks a certain bin is while we're sorting things, usually after somebody has tried to tell him the general direction to throw. He doesn't know who I am until I speak, he's really good with voices. So, every time I come back to an area in which he's working I'll say  hey and his name so he knows its me and where I am. Or, sometimes I'll try out different characters on him but more often than not he busts me within 30 seconds.

The two Somalian ladies I don't ever really get to work with because they work together on a conveyer sorting things after they come off the sales floor and there's just no need for me to help. Their English is limited but we do the basics. I've never seen them out on the sales floor.

The Costa Rican guy is much like me with his sense if humor. He likes that I can understand a decent amount of Spanish, and am inquisitive about dilects and slang of his culture versus Mexicans. He's a hard worker like me and just got his forklift certificate, something I think I want to try. We're constantly joking around, and I change his name every time I see him and I play the part of the ignorant American that doesn't like no immigrants and he thinks its funny because he understands that it's not true. He also thinks its funny that I don't have a green card.

There's the crazy guy that screams at his bailer. His job is to bail clothing into 1,000lb bricks. He gets really stressed when the work piles up and he just goes ballistic. I've seen him have at least three meltdowns that would have made the news if he were a celebrity. I help him when I can, but then he complains about his job and I just don't want to hear it.

The big black guy with a shiny gold tooth. We scramble together the whole time I'm there to keep the boats (giant bins on wheels where various products are placed and wheeled out to the "showroom") flowing. I've worked with him every week since I started and we've become pretty close. We like to inform eachother of attractive women out on the floor so that we may proceed to go give them customer service which, is absolutely not any part of anybody's job there. But we like to go above and beyond. Oh, we have a secret handshake. Actually we settled on a fist bump because neither one of us are cool enough to figure out how to make a secret handshake. Someday.

There's the crazy band-aid head guy. I don't know what it is that he does, but every week he has one of those giant bandages on his forehead. How can an open wound last four months? It's a great question. I've seen him clean the bathrooms on occasion (oh, to anybody that ever plans on going to the Goodwill Outlet, ever, just go ahead and use the bathroom before you go. Trust me.) and I've never seen him do anything else. I'm not even sure where he is most of the time but he's there somewhere.

The cashiers. If you ever want really great customer service, you can keep on driving right on by this place. Today, as we were all watching a group of Hmong shoplifter-senior-citizens (no joke, it's a thing now) I was by the register and I watched a cashier throw a plastic bag on top of a customers purchase and proceed to text on her phone. Whatever, I don't own the place, hell I don't even work there.

The managers. Well, they're all white, and very clearly none of them enjoy working there.

If you've never been, I think everybody should go at least once to experience diversity and people watching at its best. You never know what you might find while you're there, I mean, electronics are only 29¢! Granted nearly everything is missing parts or dented or broken, you might just be there at the right time on the right day and find something you really want. And if you stick around you might get to see what happens when we bring all new boats out. I assure you it'll be an experience unlike any you've ever had.

On an unrelated topic, I mentioned in my last post that I've been typing all of my posts on my phone for a long time now. I need something better. I can't afford a new laptop, but its pointless to have a bad one. So I ask you, my readers, if you have or know somebody that has a laptop that you/they do not use. My right index finger can only take so much more :-( If you think you can help, you can contact me via comment on this blog or you can message me on Facebook. Thank you!