The October 2014 Grapevine is on the counters at the market, finally. It's bright orange and it's hard to miss, but many people do. Or they overlook it. Or they take a copy out of the holder, look it over and put it back. Ouch!
I had a good story for October 2014, but I couldn't make it work. I kept the quote that was going to go along with the story at the bottom of the page, and it's bugging me that I left it hanging there, with no apparent relevance to the newsletter content. So if you have a minute or two, I want to tell you the story, and repeat the quote.
One day in late summer, there was a minor kerfluffle out on the sales floor. Several employees were involved, tossing a customer's complaint up the chain of command. Suffice it to say that the customer was returning produce that had been egregiously ill treated, and not by us.
I stepped in to help, and began to replace the customer-damaged goods when it became quickly apparent why it had taken several of us to work with the situation: the person was deliberately, unpleasantly obstructionist, even in the face of getting exactly what they were asking for.
However. After 40 plus years in retail, and losing all my female hormones thanks to menopause, difficult people don't get my goat too much anymore.
However. After a string of invective against me and the fruit market, including being called a fool among other epithets, I stopped dishing up free replacement produce for the complainant, and said, "Here. Take this and please leave now."
When you see hundreds of people every day in the course of your work day, you develop a sense for what normal is. Early on in trying to satisfy this person, I realized that they were outside the city limits of normal, and now they wouldn't leave. And they wouldn't not leave quietly---the kerfluffle was getting louder. Now I had a full blown, four alarm, class A situation on my hands, and I'd staked out my turf: leave. But it was Not. Gonna. Happen.
With my goat fully gotten, I ratcheted it up a notch: I'm calling the police. I stormed into the office. Frustrated. Angry. Emotional. Guilty. The man who is very often my better half hung up the phone and said some choice words to me, and after sitting and staring out the window at the Dumpster for a few minutes, I realized he was right.
Back on the sales floor I apologized to the customer for things that weren't my fault, and things that were. The customer was still outside the city limits of normal, but at least was back to earth. I finished replacing the produce and together we walked to the parking lot. Suddenly it occurred to the customer that they wanted a box of pears. "No, I'm sorry," I said.
"I can't come back here, can I," said the customer. I hadn't told them they weren't welcome back, but it wasn't really a question; they knew. I'm sure it wasn't the first time they'd engineered an experience like this one.
Later that evening, Harla and I were canning pears together, when two of the first batch of jars we put in the kettle cracked and burst explosively as we lowered them into the boiling water.
"What causes that?" Harla asked. She's a novice canner. The answer is: lots of things. Too sudden temperature change. Invisible micro cracks. Functional lifespan of the jar exceeded. Impact damage.
And that's when the quote from Dame Edna Everage popped into my head: "Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century."
Busted, broken, but ready to try again and do it better. Thank you.
FRUITFULLY YOURS,
KARIN
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