Navigating the job search journey

The stories of the last two weeks have provoked thoughts that may resonate with you emotionally in a sad way: a health crisis, a parent with dementia. This week, my story resonated with me personally and may strike you as well: the mid-life crisis. Because we used to be cool.

It was Friday night, about 7pm. A man, my age: mid-40s, walks into the store tightly gripping a piece of paper in his hand. He awkwardly stands at the end of my counter, confused and possibly scared, while I continued to ring up another customer. We had already done our small talk, so I asked him how he’s doing. He said, wide-eyed with a shaky voice, “I need balloons.”

I had a line so I said, “Okay, I’ll call up my manager to help.” He just had these puppy dog eyes that cried, “Please help me.”

My manager comes up and says, “How many balloons do you need?” He looks down at his list, this blue piece of paper, and says, “Apparently 10.”

She walks him over to the balloon counter. I keep ringing up the customers in my line. But I could hear parts of their conversation and we didn’t have some of those balloons in stock. So he would call his wife, and he would attempt to describe other balloons. I guess they finally came to a resolution because then he walked past my register to grab a basket, phone in hand.

During a shift, I never stop ringing up customers. When I am in between customers, I stay at the register to put stock away or clean. We closed in about an hour, so I was cleaning. Every time I saw this poor man, he was texting or on the phone. I’m ringing up a customer and he comes up with an overflowing basket of party supplies and says, “Can I just leave this here?” I said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll keep an eye on it. Do you want to grab a cart?” He sighed and said, “I guess.”

The balloons were ready and waiting at the register. He was still shopping for another hour. He never raised his voice. I just kept hearing him sigh or say on the phone, “Are you sure we need that?” or asking a question about colors or glitter or not glitter. Every time he turned to enter the next aisle, he was looking at his phone.

About 8:30pm, he’s ready to check out. The poor man had been in a Dollar Tree for 90 minutes on a Friday night. His balloons were ready 75 minutes ago.

He had one basket, three carts, and about 15 balloons. Remember: he came in for only 10 balloons. His carts were not just party supplies. He was picking up food items, toiletries, craft items. It was obvious that his wife had kept saying things like, “Do they have toilet paper?” And from the exhaustion on his face, other rare items that sometimes we have but sometimes we don’t: like pickled Italian peppers or anti-fatigue mats for your office.

So he survives. He checks out. I said, “You did good.” He nodded his head. I asked when the party was and he said, “Tomorrow.” He obviously didn’t want to talk so I stopped. As I rang up his $300 purchase at Dollar Tree, I could see on his face that the only thought running through his head was, “I used to be cool.” When did our lives start to prioritize unicorn balloons versus stars? When did a party start requiring glittery streamers? God forbid, the streamers don’t have glitter. In the 1990s, I’m pretty sure we never handed out party favors. And we all grew up just fine, didn’t we?

Personally, granted 20 years ago, my kid and his friends were just fine if they got to jump on trampolines and eat pizza. They didn’t even care if they got gifts from their friends.

I think I would have let him shop until midnight and I probably would have ordered Door Dash so this poor guy had a beer. We still have lawn chairs in inventory. We all could have sat in front of the door, Midwest-style, and drank some Mississippi River water so this man could unload.

My manager said to me, “I’m surprised you didn’t know that guy from high school.”