And then they were gone, about 30 faces. Out the door, with no warning given.
One of the comforts of small-town retail is getting to know the staff on a deep-yet-superficial basis. So when I walked into a local grocery this week, I was sad to see that the providers I had come to know over the years were absent. Boston Shaker
In a small community, one comes to know each other through daily exchanges, bit by bit. We might never know the name or the backstory of all who meet and greet us — but we do get to know the waiters, patrollers, gate checkers and cashiers by their own words and anecdotes. It is facial recognition without AI, two steps or a device.
Our fellow servers and servants reveal themselves a little bit at a time as we stand in line to pay at a register or ask where to find things. And we reveal ourselves along the way with what we buy and whether we need a receipt or a bag.
Why 30 or so shelf stockers, cafeteria cooks, cashiers, cleaners and the like walked out of one of Aspen’s grocery stores this week isn’t explicitly clear, but the storyline follows the familiar tunes of immigrant labor, cost cutting, remote management and “highest and best use” of people.
I walk the aisles now hardly seeing a familiar face. I exit the store absent the running conversation one hears or takes part in while waiting to check out or get the darn autopay machines to work. Those mundane but priceless interactions are what separates the home from the away shopping experience. As Yogi Berra might have said once, “You can learn a lot by listening.”
Yes, I know which of you have a cat, who likes Almond Joy candy, where some of you went to school, why you like motorcycles, which manager unfailingly offered a receipt and who knows too much about pro basketball. These connections — threads in the fabric of daily living — are not valued until unraveled.
Your replacements are not immigrants taking local jobs but, by rumor and appearance, fully legal J-1 or other work-visa holders who will be replaced in another six months with another set of legals. This is all fine in terms of economics, but six months is not what it takes to grow the close, yet superficial, relationships that we all enjoy.
Young people trying to learn a cash register, a shelf-stocking route and the layout of where things are is a natural consequence of placing too much demand on a diminishing supply of local labor. I don’t fault the inexperienced for their inexperience — I am sure my efforts to navigate a South American or Jamaican food market would be at least as awkward. Different money, exotic-sounding names and a local rainbow of colors designating products would take a while to sink in.
The story I get while listening to the voices of the recently departed is this: work conditions became unbearable, raises unwinnable and alternatives to quitting unthinkable. The most emblematic anecdote has been sourced to a manager who, when he/she asked for a raise was denied absolutely with the only conciliatory gesture being an offer to allow her/him to work more hours. Former White House staffer Hope Hicks couldn’t put it any better than she did at a recent celebrity trial in New York City: “Deny, deny, deny.”
Sound familiar? Less pay, more hours, run to break even in a town where pricing is set for the elites, not the beats. There is a certain sad, formal logic and local tradition favoring a two-job or three-job lifestyle over, say, union activity. “You must participate in your own rescue,” is a phrase that's been said but not widely embraced in our work culture. So, the answer was a simple but not easy one: walk, walk, walk.
It's hard to believe that our most expensive grocer couldn’t cough up a raise or two when even journalists (myself excepted) are being offered more, RFTA is bidding about $30 per hour plus benefits for rookie drivers and unionized teachers are doing better. Those willing to organize seem able to extract wage increases and housing faster than inflation can take them away.
Losing or leaving a job is stressful at best — but not because any of the departees will be unemployed for long. Some are already re-employed or equipped with the proverbial second or third job. Still, there is some non-monetizable value in having a dependable routine in the shifting, chimeric matrix of social fabric that is dissolving around us.
And so another brick in the wall, and another small step away from community into the evermore anonymous, impersonal future. Between now and that future, a big thanks for being a small part of a small town built on human contact.
Mick Ireland believes that the little details and everyday events tell a big part of our story. Contact him at mick@sopris.net.
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