It was in that particular phase I learned that retail and service weren't going to work out for me, that the people I worked under would never promote someone with my outlook and attitude, regardless of numbers. It was also when I learned that the kids (even the ones who weren't kids at all) were the only real source of joy for me. Part of it was the energy, the crackle of youthful exuberance and poor life choices when poor life choices are still a thing you can bounce back from. But for the most part, it was because working with them was the only thing that made me feel like what I was doing actually meant something and could continue to mean something. For some of the kids, it was their first real job. For others, the first time they'd ever dealt with a manager who didn't immediately react to dysfunction with corrective action. My great hope, when I look back at that time, is always that I left them in a better place than I found them, that whatever we went through together, whatever stressful and absurd situation we found ourselves in, my presence was a net positive.

I don't remember what the topic of conversation was, but it somehow led to one of the kids, Sloane, sharing a story about a time she was walking down the street with a friend when a man neither of them knew pulled over in a van and called out "Hey, you girls wanna make some money?"

"Doing what?" she replied.

I remember lifting my head and looking at her, somewhere between horrified and amused.

"Just tell me you didn't get into the van," I said.

She didn't, as I recall, but I knew by then that there was commonality between Sloane and I. We shared a birthday, an addictive personality, and an endless struggle with saying no to things we knew were bad. We recognized one another, like alcoholics at a meeting.

I know more than most about good customer service, what brings people back and forges relationships that last in a community. You can teach any fool to make a smoothie or a latte, to restock a shelf or unload a truck. But you can't teach personality and you can't teach charisma. Sloane had both in spades. She had a thousand watt smile and a seemingly endless supply of weird and wonderful questions and stories. She was constantly asking me Would You Rathers. She engaged people. She was asked for by name. 

She had a gift.

On the other side of the coin, she was lazy and unreliable. She drank and smoked too much. Once she showed up to work out of her skull on Xanax, slurring and stumbling to the point I had to send her home. That night, for the first time, I felt the eyes of some of the other kids on me.

A few days later, I sat down with Sloane. I told her that her performance was unacceptable and that we had reached the limit of what I was willing to let slide in the name of us all being trapped in this shitshow together. Then I told her what I saw in her, what I admired, and shared that what I really wanted to do was let her use that gift, to be out there engaging people, growing the business, putting her name on things our much-maligned higher-ups paid attention to. She was better than what she was doing, I told her, but I needed to see a commitment.

She burst into tears. She thanked me. She promised I would have my commitment.

A few weeks later, she transferred to another store, and not too long after that, I left the company.

We remained friends on social media, though we only ever really spoke when June 14th, our mutual birthday, rolled around. Each year I'd post something, then go take a look at what she was up to, how she was doing. But for the most part, we were estranged.

I was having a conversation with a friend last night where the concept of birthday twins came up, and it was in the back of my mind as I lay sleepless in bed in the early hours of the morning. Finally, I rolled over, picked up my phone, and looked her up.

She died on December 1st. An overdose.

I sat there looking at a picture of that thousand watt smile, of a girl who could have done a thousand other things, and for a long time I thought about those kids and the many different circumstances that had led them to the stacked deck of minimum wage employment, of customer service, of being treated like shit and compensated like shit. It's no life, it really isn't, and I just wanted to make it a place where they learned something valuable.

I saw myself in Sloane. I saw myself in a lot of the kids. I saw them going places I'd been, and I tried, in my way, to be a guide, to be an example. But you can teach any fool to make a smoothie or a latte, to restock a shelf or unload a truck.