The Most Important Job in Retail

Carts.

Grocery carts.  

Walmart carts.  

Target carts.  

Kohl's carts.

If the carts aren't there, we don't shop.

There is a human being charged with going out in the parking lot to pull those carts back in. Regardless of weather.  Seattle rain.  Michigan snow.  Houston heat and humidity.  

The job is given to to the lowest on the corporate food chain.


Who else is going out there in the hot/rain/snow/ice to get those carts?


Certainly not the geinuses of retail.  They're too busy going out of business.

Or, those of us shoppers in those places.  We demand customer service.


Think about it.


If there's not a cart available, we'll walk back to our SUVs and go somewhere else.  

Yet, the performance of that person has so much to do with the performance of that store.

These folks don't scale.  It's hard frigin work store by store.  And, in the world or retail, they get paid minimum wage.

The next time you go to a store and use a shopping cart, say thanks to the person in the parking lot getting those buggies of commerce.  They're just happy to have a minimum wage job. 

The most important person in retail isn't the head of Amazon, Costco, Kroger or Walmart.  

It's that man or woman with a family retrieving carts for us to put more stuff in.  

The Lesson for the Piano Teacher

Lone Oak, Texas is a town in East Texas that has had a population of about 500 for the last 70 years.

Not alot of change.  A few families make up the majority of the population.

It's quiet.  It's rural.


Sometime in the 1950s, the following true story happened there.


There was a piano teacher in town.  In fact, she was THE piano teacher in town.

Every little girl from any family that could scrape together a living sent their daughter to the piano teacher as part of a proper upbringing.


The piano teacher knew her stuff on the keyboards.  And, she knew her stuff when it came to managing little girls who might not be focused on becoming the next church music leader.


One afternoon, the piano teacher got a call from a mother asking if she could drop her daugter off early along with her friend who had the lesson scheduled right after her daughter.  It was a passive-agresssive means of asking the teacher to babysit while she gave a lesson.

The teacher agreed.

The two little girls arrived at the same time as the girl who had a scheduled lesson.

The teacher pulled out a coloring book and told the two litle girls to busy themselves coloring whilst she taught her pupil.

After a few minutes, the teacher had to interrupt her lesson to ask the two interlopers to hush.  They were much too busy talking instead of coloring.

For a few minutes, they were quiet.  But, then they couldn't stop themselves from chatting about their school teacher, that cute boy in Sunday School, who would be their first kiss . . .


"ENOUGH", said the piano teacher sternly.


She grabbed the two little girls by their shoulders and placed them each in a closet in her lesson room.  "Now, BE QUIET.  NOT ANOTHER WORD FROM EITHER OF YOU."

The teacher restarted her lesson.

Out of one closet, she heard one girl crying.  "Oh no.  My mother is going to be so upset.  I've been so bad.  I'm a bad girl.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry."


Aggravated, the teacher opened the door and let the little girl out.  Nose running, tears down her face. She let her out.

Then the teacher walked over to the other closet.  Not a peep.  No crying, no wailing.


"What are you doing in there", asked the teacher of the silent objector.


"I'm spittin' in your shoes and prayin' for more spit."