Our Disabled Deli Workers

Politely in pain

Photo by Tony Zohari: https://www.pexels.com/photo/traditional-butcher-shop-in-stockholm-market-35023463/

Who’s working today?

One of our local grocery stores is having a terrible time finding people to work in its deli. Of the four people I see behind that counter on a regular basis, only one appears healthy. Each of them is fine when standing still to cut meat or dish out various salads; it’s getting from one station to the next that is a struggle.

Ben is a huge young man with coke-bottle glasses. Even while wearing his binoculars, he has trouble reading labels. That’s made all the more traumatic due to all the bending he needs to do to get close enough to the containers to determine their contents.

Like his coworkers, Ben is a very likable person: friendly and happy to help. Seeing him work is like watching someone try to parallel park on a busy street when they’ve never done it before. His large body doesn’t fit very well in the confined spaces of the deli.

Lori has one leg that’s decidedly shorter than the other. The resulting limp looks laborious. Asking her to retrieve items from one end of the counter to the other feels absolutely cruel. To her credit, she doesn’t seem to mind and keeps a pleasant smile displayed for all her customers to see.

Pearl is the healthy one of the bunch. She’s a tiny fireball from Indonesia; a little hard to understand, but full of energy and love. The deli is one of several jobs for her. Pearl often talks about quitting, but she’s still with us.

Deb is the one who prompted this article. She is easily in her mid to late 70s and uses one of the deli’s carts as a walker or rollator. It’s not just that her gait is labored; it’s the look of pain in motion. Every step is difficult and accompanied by a facial grimace.

Holding onto the cart for dear life, she shuffles along. I wonder about her story. What happened in her life that she still needs to be working after many of her body parts have already called it quits? Is it a case of poor planning, tragic occurrences, a lifetime of struggle, or all three?

Whenever I see that she’s the only person in the deli, I forgo my order. I refuse to put another human being through torture so that I can have some lunch meat and cole slaw.

I was hungry

That is, until this past week. I was having a lunch supply crisis. My needs couldn’t wait for another day, hoping that Pearl would be on duty. Since there were no other customers in line, I hoped Deb wouldn’t feel rushed.

Complicating things is that the deli workers are expected to assemble party trays of lunch meats, cheeses, lettuce, pickles, and condiments that have been ordered. They do that in between waiting on customers. With only one person manning the station at a time, it looks overwhelming.

As I approached the counter, I saw Deb tucked in near the back, cutting meat on the slicer for a pre-ordered tray. I stood in front of the display case for several minutes before she looked up and saw me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“No problem,” I replied.

She kept slicing meat until she was done with the loaf she was working on. Looking up again, she asked, “What can I get for you?”

I limited my order to two items. What got to me was the look on her face. She didn’t appear to be inconvenienced. She gave me that look your grandma used to give you when she was happy to see you.

Latching onto her cart, she inched her way to the meat case. She was moving even slower than I had remembered. As she maneuvered, I flogged myself with lashes of guilt for putting this nice old gal through all this pain so I could have a ham and cheese sandwich when I got home. I’m a selfish man.

While she worked her way around to the various stops, we struck up a conversation. Deb was all but bubbly, which helped put me at ease. I had ordered half a pound of my favorite ham lunch meat, sliced thin.

To fill that portion of my order, Deb needed to hobble over to the meat case, put the ham on her walker/cart, push it over to the slicer, then carry the sliced meat to the scales. It was a longer conversation than I expected.

Landing the meat on the scale, it read .87 pounds. “Oh, I went over,” she said as she began to lift some of the ham off the scale.

“Leave it there. I’ll take it,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

Our conversation continued through the cole slaw retrieval process. Deb’s movements suggested a body under duress, but she maintained a pleasant demeanor. By the end of the encounter, my guilt was put into remission.

I walked away feeling blessed that I’m able to be retired. For many, that’s not a choice, regardless of their age.

Help wanted

There is a prominent sign atop the deli meat case advertising their need for workers, along with the website where a person could apply for the job.

Are they really looking for more help, or is the sign there to caution customers not to complain about the length of time it takes to fill an order? After all, one physically challenged person can only move so fast.

To feel other than a combination of sympathy and gratitude would be inhumane. I don’t think that Deb, Lori, or Ben are doing this to get out of their mansion for a while. They do what they do because they’ve got bills to pay.

Isn’t life cruel sometimes? Healthy people often sit behind a desk for hours at a time, while the least able-bodied among us do the work.

On a scale from 1–10, I’d give our deli workers a 3 for performance and a 9 for enthusiasm. What would you do? Would you put these people through the paces to get what you need or go to a different deli?

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