I have always worked with, or lived with or even gravitated towards people who are way older than me. My mother has explained this by saying that it's because she and my dad had me later in life, and I've grown up around older people. My grandmother, and a variety of older women have raised me. Like oracles they are it's these older women that have built a foundation for my life.
I currently work with Miss Janet; I think she said the other day she was in her seventies, but she could be older. She is one of the people that keep me going at my job. She is a pistol. She is the woman who would wear purple and a red hat, until the red hat society made that wonderful poem into a weird trendy clique.
Miss Janet is what I inspire to be when I am her age. I prefer not to be working; however, I have found out the reason why she is still working. She explained to me the other day, that the reason she is still working is because all of her appliances are over forty years old. This cracks me up. She's holding down a full time job on the idea that if she didn't and her refrigerator, stove, and other appliances were to all fail at once, her financial world would end.
Miss Janet is the kind of woman I want to be to a point when I'm her age. Despite the fact that sometimes I can't tell her anything, and as of late, she's driving me crazy, I would still like to have her attitude, and be at least half as healthy as she claims to be when I'm her age.
The fact is though, is that she's not that healthy, and as of late, it seems like her mind is going.
She does and says peculiar things. Today, asked me to do evaluations for our cashiers, and at 6pm when it was time for her lunch, she handed over the walkie, the hand-held palm thing that gives me cashier requests, and the keys, and told me I was fine and fixed up until 6:3o. What she neglected to tell me was that instead of staggering the breaks and lunches, she sent both at 6, and left me with one express, and two belts open on a Saturday evening. That's not enough registers, and it was vital information. She also left me with less that $200 dollars in singles, (we usually try to keep $5oo), and around $2oo in fives( we usually keep around $1000).
She left me in a bad way. It could have gotten bad, but lucky for me it didn't, but it could have.
At Kimball, I worked with a variety of older women, from ones who had no clue about how anything worked, to ones who kept up with everything, and sometimes made me feel like I didn't have a clue. Here lately, it seems like I'm continually having to explain and re-explain my actions, or how systems work or how computers work, or any other number of things, that
seasoned employees should know.
I never thought that I would have to explain things like this to Ms. Janet. But here lately, I'm having to. I had to stop my evaluations today, to go pull up a warranty that she couldn't pull up because she couldn't see it. Which I suspect is why I had to do the evals, because she couldn't see them. I never want to get to the point where I hide things from people, and play them off as other ailments just because I don't want to slow down.
I have always said I will never color my hair when I go gray. I will have earned those gray hairs, for whatever reason, other than life itself, but I will earn them. But that's just me talking.
I am getting older, and I'm noticing it more every day. The crow's feet, and the deeper indentions of the "nasal-labial" fold are getting worse. But, I'm not one for botox, or even the Beyonce treatment of caviar masques. I just wish to grow old gracefully, and to possibly look good for my age, always.
But I'd also like to be able to think well, and act well for my age too.
