It's Only a Stamp

I'm sure that in just about every job, employees have their good days and their bad days.

You can have a supervisor that is not very supportive, and you can have a worker that is just plain lazy.

I have worked in a lot of different environments through my years ... from a middle school to a ophthalmologist office, from a manufacturing  plant to a community theatre... all kinds of different places.

Right now I'm working in retail.  I can never predict a days' activities or a type of customer.  And because I can... I am enjoying being 'amongst the people'.

Most of the time, it really is a good thing. 

I like talking to people. 

I like that I can organize things daily in my job. 

And, I like that I can think of different ways to handle weird situations.

I would like to tell you some of the 'horror' stories.... and maybe throughout my blog postings I'll tell you about the rude customers, or the ones who smell of cigarettes, alcohol, body odor and even the ones who don't speak much English.... but that will be for another day.

Hopefully, this is a feel good story.

Not only do I work at the cash register... I put out a lot of 'goods'. 

We either have textiles, which are clothes or we have goods, which we call house 'wares' at our store.    Most items are mainly 'used' items, since we are Goodwill and the 'stuff' is mostly donated to us.  I put out blenders, coffee makers, silverware, vases, kids toys, pictures, stuffed animals, baskets, drills, hammers, mirrors, suitcases, yarn and stamps ... I think you understand what I'm talking about, right???

Last week I was on my break for lunch and happened to be in the employee lunch room with one of the supervisors.  We were talking about a few different things.  I asked him what he liked about his job and we went from there to different topics.  One thing we talked about was that he couldn't believe how many 'former' employees never got their last paychecks.  I suggested maybe that they had direct deposit into their bank account.  He said that was entirely possible, but they still get their pay stub and for some employees, he had 3 or 4 envelopes in the safe.  He thought it was bad on a managers part that they never handed them out.  But that reminded him that he needed to go to the post office to get stamps so that he could mail out the 'checks'.

Here is the honest to God truth.

About 2 hours later I had a customer come up to me and show me a picture frame.  I wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to show me.  It was a nice frame ... but he said look at what is behind the glass.  To me, it looked like the paper that has a certain colorful image on it that comes with the glass frame. You know, like those beautiful families all smiling that they have in the frame so you know where you are supposed to place the photo?

He asks me if I know what that is, as he is pointing to the center of the glass.  I just said it looked like a picture of some southwest scene.  No, he said.... those are postage stamps.  I look at him and say.... oh, you mean someone took a picture of the stamps and framed it.... no, those are real stamps. 

I say, well isn't it your lucky day!!!

And he said that maybe I would want to take it off the selling floor.  Those are 'real' stamps.

I again say, are you sure you don't want to buy it, it's only $2.99??

No, I couldn't do that, he says. This is Goodwill and I wouldn't feel right.

So, I take the frame in the back where our warehouse and pricing areas are, and pull the back off, take out the cardboard and find that indeed there are two books of postage stamps worth $7.40 each.  I took it to the supervisor I had been talking to and asked him if first of all if it was okay what I did, and then said with an astonished look on my face.... 'can you believe we were just talking about stamps?'

He smiled and said that kind of stuff happens a lot.  And yes he would use the stamps.

I changed the price on the frame from $2.99 down to $1.99 and went to put it back on the sales floor.

I saw that kind gentlemen looking at other items and thanked him again for his honesty and kindness.  And said no good deed  goes un-noticed.  He just smiled at me and said it was okay.

About a half hour later I found two more picture frames laying out of place in the furniture area.... and each frame had two more sets of decorated postage stamps in them.  I think he had moved them out so I would find them???  All totalled, it was over $44 dollars worth of US Postage stamps that someone had donated inside the picture frames.

 

It's Possible!!

There are good people in this world. 

I hope that guy had a great day.