So I waitressed full-time for a long, long time. Then, in 1989, I was at this coffee shop on Flatbush Avenue and you know how the years go by and you contract different things? Well, I contracted bronchitis and had to get away from all sorts of things like smoke and gruel and that type of environment. So I had to give my boss three months notice. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but then some of my customers spoke to Jay--the fellow I work for now--and told him that I was leaving my job because of health problems. Jay happen to be looking for somebody to run one of his cashiers at his stationary store. And I had experience with registers from waitressing, so I started with Jay and I've been here ever since.

I love this job. I love Jay. I love the people I work with and I love a lot of the customers. I'm happy all the time. I just love everything about it. This is going to be the place I stay forever.

I work about eleven hours a day, six days a week. I don't really take breaks. I mean, I eat and all that, but it's not a structured break type of thing. When you start eating, you eat; when you're finished, you're finished. But nobody judges me because I never sit. If I have a coffee or a piece of cake, I just take a sip and I take care of my customers and do my job. That's me.

Jay is the manager and part owner here. He's my boss. I've never really seen the other owners. It's a corporation. So I don't know about them, I just deal with Jay. He also has some other businesses--a coffee and pastry shop and a video store. This is his main thing, though. To me, Jay is a very, very nice person. Very considerate, very generous. Sometimes people see him come in and he's rushing. But anybody in business knows that's how it is sometimes. If you're the boss, you've got a lot to do. Who's going to smile all the time?

I not only do the cashiering, I do a lot of side jobs behind the counter as well. I stack the papers, order the pens, make sure all displays look good. It's a stationary store, but we also have a copy counter and we do film developing, so I make sure that all the envelopes are straightened so that when people need to pick up their film prints and copies, everything's all ready to go. So I do like a combination of tasks--many little jobs in addition to taking care of the cash register. That makes it fun.

I live right down the street. I just wake up and walk to work, which is like a vacation compared to taking the subway. Usually one of my co-workers is waiting here for me, one of the fellows who works in the copy area or the stock room. Jay doesn't want me to open the store by myself--my being a woman I guess he thinks it would be unsafe--so I give the fellow the keys, and he opens the gate. I walk in and do the alarm. Then I turn on all the copy machines and the register. Then I go into the back. We have a dog in the store who belongs to Jay, and I make sure that he gets his cold water and food every morning.

At nine o'clock, I go behind my counter and customers start coming in. They come pretty fast at first. Sometimes, they're already lined up on the street when we open the door. A lot of people come before they go to work or school. And these people have only but a few minutes and they don't want to spend a lot of their time playing guessing games around a stationary store. So the start of the day is always a rush.

I'm the only register in the store. The customers come to me with all their questions. "Gloria, do me a favor, I'm not really satisfied with this. Where's the such-and-such?" And so forth. I always try to solve their problems because I never want a customer to leave upset--I don't even want to see someone upset for one minute. That's why they sometimes call me Dear Abby, because I always try to solve problems. And I've been pretty lucky--I've never had a situation where a customer didn't come back because they were unhappy. It always works out. They always come back and they're happy, and we don't lose customers.

After the morning rush, things usually slow down and I start paying the bills. We get bills from UPS, and bills for the pens and stuff that I order. Then we get lots of deliveries and I pay for those. With some deliveries, I put away the stuff myself, but I can't leave the register, so sometimes I call on my stock fellow and we sort of work together. Plus I'm still dealing with the customers all day long, so I'm staying busy. And then also Jay usually comes in three or four time a day and takes money out of the register, you know, and gives me instructions and I tell him what's going on. Then the store closes at seven, and I usually leave by about quarter to eight and that's like a typical day.

I really enjoy working and it doesn't matter if I'm here early in the morning or even if we have to stay late or whatever. A lot of these young guys who work here, they have girls, so I can see at seven-thirty that they really want to get out. But with me, if I stay until nine or ten, it really doesn't matter. I mean, I have a daughter, I have a granddaughter, then I have my cats. After that, I just have my job and the friends I see here.

The only real problem is the shoplifters. They frighten me a bit. Some days, they'll be groups that come in and hang around the pen area and ask you questions on one side and their friends try to take things on the other side. You have to know how to deal with them. I mean, I'm just a small woman and if I let them know that I'm onto them, you never know. They may want to get even with me later. So we have an intercom button behind the register and if I press it, the stock fellows come out and we have sort of an eye signal thing where I point out the situation to them and they deal with the shoplifters. And those fellows are not to be fooled with.

But all things considering, we're pretty lucky with shoplifting. We just get minor stuff. Just young teenagers, mostly looking for markers for graffiti. Some of them come in with there long sleeves. I know all the tricks. I've been around here so long (laughs) I know when they hold it up and ask "How much is this?" that before they put it back, it's up their sleeves. Things like that.

We also get these over-twenty groups, these drug addicts. They'll do anything for a fix. They steal date books and stuff--twenty dollar items that they can sell for five dollars. I've caught quite a few of them using the intercom. I've been around a long time. I know who's bad. I can tell by their looks. When people come in showing their money, you know they are going to steal. Or if people ignore me when I say "Good Morning," or don't look at me, they are going to steal. Not all the time, but usually it works out like that. So I use the intercom to notify the others to be around just in case. They never really call the cops. They just say "Put back what you took and get out of here." That usually works.

There's only one other thing I don't like about this job and that's coughing. When I get my bronchitis, I just cough and cough. Sometime I have to stand here all day in front of customers non-stop coughing. I get it like three weeks in a row. I have my lozenges and my water and I don't feel that bad, but I don't like coughing in front of people. But other than that, I have no complaints at all about the job.

If had to live my life over again, I probably would do just what I've done. I'm comfortable with it. I can't think of what I would change. Maybe it's because I've never done it, but I have no interest to sit in an office and do that kind of work--you know, to just sit down? I never sit on the job. I never sit until at least ten-thirty at night. I like just working on my feet, dealing with the public and so forth. Besides, I have five sisters and they all work in offices and I make more money than any of them. And they have the education. They all finished high school and I never did. But that's the way it works. They have the diploma and I have the money. And I've made a lot of friends and met very nice people. I've had my good days.

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