Ravensong Poetry And Writing Blog by Donovan Baldwin

BY DONOVAN BALDWIN

Delchamps Store, Downtown Pensacola.  Did my first training there.

In the 1960's. one of my early jobs in Pensacola, Florida, was as a bag boy for Delchamps, a regional Gulf Coast grocery chain.

My job was to put people's groceries in bags, old-school paper, and carry them out to their car... and, as I later would call it in the army, other duties as assigned.

I was also going to double as a cashier, not regular, just helping out as needed.

On the payroll, I spent a couple of days BEING SHOWN how to PROPERLY bag groceries... what went where, how to square and load the bag for safe and comfortable carrying. I was even told to make decisions based on customer needs... an older, frail customer should not have bags as heavy as a healthy younger customer.

I was also TAUGHT how to run the register AND recognize produce, partly by ringing up (on an old style "push every button" cash register) over and over again and having my work checked.

I was also taught how to give back correct amounts by a technique... COUNTING BACK CHANGE... which NO ONE today seems to know how to do! Very little math involved, an almost automatic process.

I was then sent to a training store where I, teenage bag boy, remember, just had to put stuff in a bag and carry it to the car... worked side-by-side with experienced bag boys who showed me the training in action.

I was also introduced to TIPS, because bag boys were not paid even minimum wage back then. I learned that the better the service, the better the tips and I, a teenage bag boy, who put things in bags and carried them to cars for people, learned that I could make much more than minimum wage by being friendly and polite and giving good service.

Today, you're lucky if your stuff arrives home in one piece, you have to wait on yourself in stores, customer service seems to be a forgotten art, and people DEMAND to be paid at a certain level whether they give the kind of service they're being paid for or not.

Side note: I also worked for a while on a construction crew AT minimum wage at the time. One day all the guys got excited. We were going to work for a couple of weeks on a government (federal) contract. When I asked what the big deal was, they just said, "Wait until you see your paycheck!"

Well, the paychecks for the period on the government project were about 3 times what I had been paid, and about 3 times what workers of my job skill were paid in the area.

Years later, I, as an accountant and business manager, set up the budget for a government project. I was told to triple my original salary (and related costs) estimates, based on fair wages paid in the area, because this was going to be a government (federal) project and the people had to be paid according to a schedule set out by legislators in Washington.

Times change... bet the costs of government projects don't... except upwards.

Labels: bagboy, Delchamps, donovan baldwin, essay, Florida, Pensacola, training

By: Donovan Baldwin

When I was at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1966, for U. S. Army, Basic Combat Training, I was housed, with approximately 39 other men in old, two-story, wooden barracks.

The upstairs, and downstairs, was an open area, known as a squad bay, with rows of double-decker bunks down either side. The center floor, between the rows of bunks, was, I guess, 20 feet wide, maybe more, maybe less.

The important thing for this story is that it was waxed and buffed to a high gloss every day, and no "trainee" was allowed to walk on it.

Shortly after that was brought to our attention, Drill Sergeants walked in, in combat boots, down the middle of that glossy floor.

We waxed and buffed it.

They walked on it.

If we walked on it, we got in trouble...not just from them, but, from our fellow soldier...er...trainees, as Master Sergeant Alosio would remind us...not yet soldiers.

That simple, shared task, and seeming abuse, was one of the beginnings of teamwork...of brotherhood.

Years later, as a Sergeant, many years and lots of experience away from the young basic trainee, I, myself, was on the training staff at an army academy.

I walked into the barracks, down the middle of the squad bay, with students watching me, knowing that they were sighing, but, not really angry. They knew the drill.

I knew too, that after I left they would get out the wax and the buffer, and work together to fix what i had just messed up with my combat boots.

I smiled inside. That part of my job was done.

They knew what to do.

Labels: basic training, donovan baldwin, drill sergeants, Fort Jackson, sergeant, South Carolina, training, U. S. Army