We’re used to hearing these idioms throughout our lives: “Walk it off” (for minor injuries); “Grin and bear it”; “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”; or the slightly rough, “Suck it up, buttercup,” which is a World War II aviation phrase. These all basically mean the same thing: Work through, learn from and endure the temporary setback.
In this produce scribe’s career, I had a handful of jobs along the way that I just loathed. Here are just a few that come to mind.
Wet-Rack Cleaning
As a new clerk, this was — and I suspect still is — the dirtiest job in the produce department. Every Wednesday night, I was assigned to pull the entire rack, hose down all the racks, trays, dividers and clean out all the accumulated dirt and slimy gunk beneath. Then reassemble, re-mat, scrub every inch of the display mirrors and polish all the chrome.
The store closed at 10 p.m. I was lucky to clock out by 12:30 a.m. or 1 a.m. then make it to my first-period class at 7 a.m.
Produce Broker
This was my first nonretail job in my mid-30s. I learned quickly that while the retail segment was tough, produce sales gave a job a whole new dimension of difficulty. When you have to sing for your supper (as I used to say about sales) every day, you’re always chasing volume. If I brokered (sourced, bought and sold) three trucks of produce a week, why wasn’t it five? If I sold five, why wasn’t it seven?
As our team followed produce seasons around the country, it was a daily problem-solving stress pot of finding trucks, selling, loading, unloading, dealing with rejections, inspections, fumigation; ice charges, pallet charges, cooling charges, Techrol charges; facing deadlines, malfunctioning reefers, late deliveries — and that’s just the tip of that proverbial iceberg. And it was pretty much seven days a week, to boot.
Produce Buyer
Again, not all my buyer positions were like this. However, at one retailer, the company offered just average pay, but it was coupled with a halfway decent annual bonus — which no one ever attained. Sure, I qualified for the bonus, all right, as I met all my dangling-carrot incentives. However, the boss always said the same thing at year’s end: “We just don’t have it in the budget.”
When a company commits to something so important, it’s imperative that they deliver. They didn’t, and I moved on from the short and painful chapter.
Quality Control Inspector
I was compelled to cover the dock after a round of layoffs at another company, a stark detour from my buying desk and a stretch on the cold dock and warehouse. Along the way, I learned firsthand about USDA inspections, inventory management, ripening, and so much more. No need for lunchtime exercises here, either. I must have walked 10 miles a day in that warehouse.
The Good From the Bad
The points to consider are that I could not have advanced to better jobs — and succeeded as well in any next move — had it not been for the less-than-desirable stops along the way. I compared it with the old tale of having to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.
I learned with all this compelled produce-related diversity, important things about transportation, about dealing with vendors, about grades, sizes, tolerances — the wide produce spectrum in both retail and foodservice. All the important lessons came from laboring in the trenches and doing the grunge work, one year at a time.
I hated the roles, and was often thrust into them unwillingly, yet I could not have survived without them.
Armand Lobato’s more than 50 years of experience in the produce business span a range of foodservice and retail positions. He has written a weekly retail column for two decades.
