A Member of the Team

A MEMBER OF THE TEAM

The cooler in the Produce department was never warmer than 41 degrees. It had walls of concrete masonry units. Mounted upon them were sturdy, metal shelving. The shelves were reserved for lighter weight items like parsley, cilantro, zucchini, yellow squash, and little Belgian endives that rarely sold. Most of the green rack items were heavy and stacked up on burdensome dollies. The cardboard cases of strawberries and bush berries had notches cut into them so they would interlock and not topple over. The leaf lettuces came in folding plastic cases and were also stacked on dollies for easy mobility. 

It was the cases of celery were truly back-breaking. One case of celery was 60 pounds. Getting celery from the truck, to the cooler, to the sales floor was quite a feat. Each Produce clerk was expected to hoist each case onto a cart, wheel it over to the sink reserved for washing the green rack items, dump two dozen celery bunches into a large, plastic tub, soak, trim the butts and tips, put a rubber band around it, stack them into another tub, then move it out to the sale floor with a minimum of 8 cases of other items, move the older celery forward, put the newer celery towards the back, stacked neatly with tips all pointing to the right, and any celery underneath pointed to the left. Standards for Produce stocking were explicitly precise and set up by someone so high up the corporate ladder that no one was certain who originally came up with the ideas or when they last stepped foot in a grocery store.  

Salad bar items were kept in a designated corner. The shelves were packed with carefully stacked and dated salad dressings, large tubs of yogurt, salad kits, soups, giant bags of cheese shreds, and assorted lettuces. Rolling carts carried bowls of fresh cut vegetables and fruit, wrapped in plastic, dated, and waiting to be placed on the bar when the other bowls went low.  

On another four dollies, carefully placed on systematically stacked bread trays, were a medley of watermelon cuts. They had them halved, peeled, quartered, sliced varieties, as well as the more popular cubed watermelon, but they were not labeled yet. Susan and Simone had furiously cut them the day before. So as to not get in trouble with the board of health over temperatures being off, these were left to chill overnight and be labeled in the morning. When the health inspector returned that day, they were going to quickly bring the melon cuts to the presently empty shelves. The Front-End workers had instructions to notify Produce as soon as the health inspector showed up. Then they would swiftly get the chilled watermelon cuts onto the shelves.  

The Produce manager, Hogan, came into the department that morning like a general on a mission. Just shortly before 8:00, he strode in on his long legs in purposeful strides. His eyes darted to the tables, quickly noting if the apples and oranges were stacked correctly, grapes and berries filled, bananas orderly stacked, salad packs filled, and potato table adequately organized. He made a mental note, with slight annoyance, that the onion leaves needed to be vacuumed, the Caesar salad kits were empty, 2-lb bagged carrots were low, there was only one rutabaga, and the swiss chard looked old. From years of experience, Hogan was able to notice these things within minutes. At 27, he was a young Produce manager, starting in Produce as a teenager and quickly working his way up in the company. His ability to get the work done and to do it with excellence was surpassed by no one. Hogan had a reputation for managing with distinction and he obtained the respect of all because of it.

The imperfections of the sales floor would have to wait. The health inspector would be there soon, and there wasn’t a moment to spare on rutabagas and salad kits. Hogan walked into the back room. He observed with approval the site of Susan and Nicole cleaning. Susan was rinsing the cutting boards for at least the 10th time after having them soak overnight in the cutting board cleanser. Nicole was sweeping the floors. Each wore gloves and hair nets. Susan usually had her hair carefully coifed, curled and held in place with bobby pins. Today it was swept up with a purple, butterfly hair clip, mostly concealed by a white hair net. A lock of blonde hair had fallen out of her hair net, as well as her bangs.

“Susan,” Hogan said with concealed annoyance, “ALL of your hair needs to be covered with the hair net.”

Susan put dropped the cutting board in the sanitizing portion of the three-compartment sink, dried her hands on a paper towel before putting them on her hips. Hogan smiled just slightly, familiar with Susan’s lecture stance.

“Now let me just tell you something mister,” she rocked her head from side-to-side on the word mister. I am 69 years-old, I’m used to having my Mondays off, and I don’t appreciate being waken up by a phone call from him,” referencing Warren, also 69 years old. “I’m tired,” she continued while Warren chuckled at her sneers. Susan glared at him as she continued, “Some of us work on the weekend, and I need Monday off so I can rest up and recuperate from the weekend! Then I have Friday off so I can rest up and prepare for the weekend. And thinking I was going to be resting today I didn’t curl my hair last night! So now it’s a mess!”

“Susan,” Hogan said with a deep sigh, “I don’t care what your hair looks like, just get it under the hair net. I’m sorry I had to call you in, but I really need your help today.”

“Well I care,” Susan growled as she tucked the loose strands of hair under the net.

“Stop your grumbling old woman,” Warren chuckled while rinsing a case of organic Romaine lettuce, careful to place it in an organic designated green tub. “You don’t really do any work,” he laughed playfully. He was very tall, hunkered over the station, his white hair completely covered by the hair net.

“We’re the same age Warren.”

“No, you’re 6 months and 2 weeks and 4 days older than me,” Warren gleefully pointed out.

Susan didn’t speak, but she glowered in his direction and parted her lips, ready for the next quip in one of her legendary exchanges with Warren.  

Simone, younger than Susan but older than Hogan, had been shucking corn into trays. She slowed her rhythm of grab an ear of corn, stick thumb and fore finger into the ears, rip 1-2-3, snap off the butt end, carefully place onto tray long enough to pay attention to what she referred to as the Susan and Warren Show. Susan’s name always came first because she was the star.  

When Simone first came to work with the Produce team, she thought Susan and Warren hated each other. It didn’t take her long to start noticing the crooked smile with each insult, or the way Warren reminded Susan to do her Salad Bar order on Thursday mornings. And she noticed that Susan always sent the new hires to talk to Warren if they were confused about anything because he knew how to do everything.

“Susan. Warren. Stop. We don’t have time for this,” Hogan spoke with respect, but also a sense of command. Both were silenced immediately. “Simone, that’s enough corn. Wrap it up and clean up the hair. Karen will notice it for sure.”

“Well here’s my two cents,” Nicole, older than Simone but younger than Susan, “You know why she’s really coming back? It’s not the damned watermelons. She didn’t have to write us up because a few watermelons were 1 degree too warm. We all saw the way she was looking you up and down.”

Hogan blushed. Nicole was good at that. She was petite, with a mass of curly brunette hair, streaked with gray, tucked carefully under the hair net. Nicole made up for her diminutive nature with a profuse amount of sass. “All you need to do is smile at her a bit…you know, take one for the team, and she’ll be out of our hair.”

“Nicole! I’m a happily married man with 3 kids, I’m not flirting with the health inspector!” He swiftly wheeled out a dolly of watermelons, pulled out a laser thermometer from his breast pocket. Hogan triggered it and a laser shined on the flesh of one of the melons. He then checked all the others, one by one, not missing a single melon. “They’re ready. 35, 36 degrees, they can’t fail us on that. Label them up.”

Nicole took the cart, typed in a code onto the scale, and placed the melon cut on the platter. A sticker printed, Nicole plucked it from its slot and placed it on the back of the wrapping, specifically where the plastic overlapped. The sticker helped hold it together. She formed a rhythm and was able to quickly label each melon and get it ready to be placed on the shelves.

Simone didn’t speak. She was happily watching all of these exchanges, carefully taking it in, trying to understand her place in this menagerie that was called the Produce Department. Of the entire department, Simone was the only one with a college degree. She didn’t like pointing that out to people. Why would someone with a Bachelor of Architecture degree be working as a Produce and Salad Bar Clerk? That didn’t add up. The truth was that she had graduated college during a housing bubble. She was working for a small architecture firm in Los Angeles, doing residential work. When the bubble burst, the work started to disappear. Simone’s career was failing. She found living in California to be too expensive, moved back to her hometown in Ohio, and took the first job she could get. A grocery store was not ideal, but it paid the bills and put food on the table. From day 1, Simone was applying with every architectural firm she could find. There were a couple of interviews, but they led to nothing. As a result, Simone was secretly fighting depression. She mindlessly came to her job, quietly going about her tasks, trying to remain invisible, trying desperately to not think about her failed career.  

Every day, Simone cut fruit while debating what to do. She would lay a watermelon on one of its long sides.  

“Should I try some place related to architecture? Like a window manufacturer or even a hardware store.”

She picks up her machete, angles it to be perpendicular to the cutting board, mechanically chops off the ends of the melon.

“Maybe it’s my job title getting in the way. Perhaps I should work on a promotion within the company.”

Simone turns the melon onto one of the ends and easily slides the machete down the center of the melon, cutting it into two halves.

“But how does one get a promotion around here? I don’t see that happen very often.”

She peels the rind off, leaving as much red flesh as possible.

“I should consider the hardware store. They’d take anyone. And they have kitchen and bath designers. That could be tolerable.”

Simone flips the melon over to its flat face, then swipes the machete across it, creating 3 layers of juicy red fruit.

“I need to work on my resume. Must make myself sound brilliant. But how do you play up cutting fruit for a living with a bachelor’s degree under your belt?”

She chops quickly lengthwise and across. Using the machete like a spatula and her other hand covered with a special safety glove, Simone scoops up the chunks and starts placing them in plastic bowls. Every day of work followed the same routine and the same questions.

With an expected visit from the health inspector and Hogan’s growing tension, Simone didn’t have time to think about herself. She very much respected her young supervisor. Every member of that department would do anything for him. Hogan was so disciplined and focused, but also very human and respectful, one couldn’t help but to admire him and do everything you could for him.  

A phone call came on the phone in their prep room. Warren answered. “Produce department, Warren speaking.” There was a pause that felt like eternity. No one spoke. All heads were turned towards the phone. “OK. Thank you.” The phone clicked back onto its receiver. “She’s here.” It was like the moment when the general in war films yells “charge!” Susan and Nicole finished labelling the melons and took them to the sales floor. Simone swept and wiped down everything she laid eyes on. Warren cleaned up around the green rack washing station.  

Hogan went out to the sales floor to great her, pretend that he was happy to see her. Warren and Simon went to the door to look through the window. Karen, or as the store associates referred to her, that cantankerous witch, was checking the temperature of every single watermelon cut. She was accompanied by a member of store management, Peter. He looked incredibly nervous, as if he had no idea what was going on or what to do. Hogan stood close by, not paying attention to the fact that she was wearing unusually tight slacks and the two buttons of her polo shirt had been unfastened. Karen appeared to be young and was fairly pretty in spite of her extremely uptight personality. She marched into the back room, her dark blonde hair in a net, tightly bound in a bun. She wore gloves and held a clipboard and pen. Hogan stood behind her, wondering what she’d nail him on next. Simone made eye contact with Hogan, then nodded her head towards the sales floor and lifted her shoulders and hands in a questioning fashion. Hogan nodded, smiled, and gave a thumbs up.

Simone started cutting celery for the vegetable trays. Per her training, she took the cut celery to the sink designated for washing cut fruit and vegetables. She set the giant colander in the sink and turned on the cold-water tap. Karen sauntered over with her rigid posture and stared over Simone’s shoulder. Simone visibly swallowed and was extra thorough in the washing of the celery.  

“There’s still some dirt on one of those celery pieces. Make certain you get that,” Karen said authoritatively. She moved on with her inspection. Simone glanced at Hogan who closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. Susan was standing next to him, rolling her eyes. Simone picked up each piece of celery, one by one, looking for the so-called piece of dirt. She kept washing what was now the cleanest celery in the world.

The health inspection went on longer than any normal inspection. Karen had inspected the melon cuts for at least 10 minutes, looking for problems. She hung around in the prep room for what seemed an immeasurable amount of time, waiting for someone to make a mistake. She asked Susan how she calibrated the food thermometers. Susan answered with complete confidence and smooth control in her voice.

“Cup of slushy ice water, stick the thermometer in. When the needle stops moving, if it’s off, crank the little doo-hickey on the back until the needle is set to 32 degrees.”

Hogan smiled with pride. He made certain that every member of the team knew how to calibrate the thermometers. Karen had checked the temperature logs on Friday, but now she checked them again. She looked at the cooler thermometer, the thermometers on the refrigerated cases. She checked the cases of produce in the cooler, each was marked with its date of arrival and correctly rotated with the older ones on top or in front. She examined the floor and the corners. Karen looked over every piece of equipment looking for even the tiniest speck of food. She pulled out a small flashlight, looking into every crevice of the pineapple corer. Simone had spent at least half an hour scrubbing it the night before. After what seemed an eternity, Karen went back onto the sales floor and reviewed her sheet. Peter looked like he was ready to pee his pants. This woman did, after all, have the power to shut down the store. Hogan stood before her, his face was pleasant, and his eyes beamed with a combination of pride and confidence. Simone, Warren, Nicole, and Susan were all waiting anxiously in the prep room. Finally, Hogan came back.  

“We passssssed!” He cried out in a sing-songy voice. The rest of the team didn’t cheer but breathed the deepest sigh of relief.

Nicole broke the silence, “you flirted with her, didn’t you?”

“No, I most certainly did not. We passed fair and square.”

“Well I don’t give a shit,” Susan vocalized very loudly, “I’m tired. Now Hogan, I’ll help get that wall in order and then I’m going home.”

“Susan, I greatly appreciate you. Let me buy you a coffee. Come on. You need a break.”

“Oh, I need more than a damned coffee, let me just tell you something…”

“Here she goes,” Warren muttered, intentionally loud.

“You better watch it mister. I’m going to kick your butt up between your shoulder blades.”

“Ooooh, I’m afraided!”

“Come on Susan.” Hogan led her away. Simone could hear them arguing, their words growing more and more faint. More than that, Simone could feel the love between Hogan and Susan.  

“She works too hard. I’m tired of seeing them take advantage of her,” Warren said with disgust.

Simone could feel love there too. She went back to her work. “Should I apply at that hardware store,” she wondered, “I suppose I can’t wait a little bit. I’m a member of a team now, even if all I do is cut fruit.”