I was 18 the day my friend Alex stood at one end of the pharmacy aisle, looking at me and fidgeting with the trim of his official(ly hideous) CVS-issued vest.
When I finally noticed he was staring, I paused my careful arrangement of Vitamin C bottles on the crowded shelf.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Okay.” He turned away and went back to stacking Depends in teetering piles.
Was that it? Good grief. We’d been both been unloading stock since we got here at 3pm (the WORST shift when you were a senior in high school).
I assumed Alex was getting punchy. I turned a moment too late to stop the blue plastic blur from hitting me square in the face.
“Gah!”
I picked the offending box of Depends off the floor and fired them back in Alex’s direction.
See, Alex and I were good kids. The kind of who have Top 10 GPAs and refuse to drink in high school.
I think we were okay, as far as part-time employees go. We showed up for our shifts and didn’t cause much of a ruckus.
Except when we got bored.
That’s because I’m the kind of person who needs lots of projects to do at once.
Shelving widgets (and nothing else) soothes me for about 20 minutes, after which time, I start throwing disposable underwear in public.
How do I know it wasn’t some burst of teenage immaturity that I’ve totally outgrown?
Because a) I have NEVER ONCE been an immature person*, and b) I’m still the same way.
*sarcasm
In fact, back in my corporate days, I once threw a box of paperclips at a coworker while we were standing inside the supply closet.
The things that are most true about us never change.
When it comes to building your personal brand and writing with authenticity, it helps to have a firm grasp on those unique “quirks” and delightful, evergreen aspects of who you are.
Once you aggregate the common denominators in your life, you have permission to play them up in your personal brand.
You show off your obsession with order and cleanliness in a blog post about organization hacks that benefit your ideal clients’ lives. You write a Facebook post ranting about the benefits of a laissez faire lifestyle. You embrace the nuttiness God gave you, give your truth some airtime, and you attract attention from your ideal clients.
Here’s a writing prompt to help you uncover the truth about YOU that’s hiding in plain sight.
Step 1: Pull out your journal and set your timer for 10 minutes.
Step 2: Write about your first job—whatever memories strike you.
Write about the ink smudges you always had on your fingers, how your boss’s awful perfume lingered in the bathroom, that one time you made a customer cry (with joy or fury).
Step 3: Step back. Let it swirl. Then make a list. of the qualities, habits, and quirks that still ring true.
What qualities, habits, and quirks did you demonstrate then that still ring true today? Do you see yourself doing certain things the same way in your current business? What did you learn during your time in that place that you’d to share with your customers?
Step 4: Turn those two parts into a social media post.
Lead with your sensory description of the place, the feeling, the name of the job. Then get into the guts of what you learned or how younger you still shows up in your daily practice. Bonus points if you can relate it to how you help people and touch on that in the post.
Who said a first job was just a stepping stone?
It might be your window into so much more.
P.S. and you’re welcome:
While I was still working at CVS, I wrote a(n award-winning)(seriously) poem for my creative writing class. Because no matter where it is you’re working, you can’t fight who you truly are. 🙂
The 3 to 10 Shift
The shifts at CVS are long.
I mean long.
I don’t measure time by daylight because I never see it anymore.
I suppose the sun still rises and falls, but I can’t be sure.
My clock is the little green line
on the bottom of your receipt.
My seasons change in the promo bins
as face paint and bite-size Snickers
give way to perfume gift sets and Russ turkeys.
On Tuesdays we ‘do truck’.
For me that means unloading trays in Aisle 4,
shelving vitamins and every gastrointestinal product known to man.
We’re selling more Tylenol Sinus now,
and school supplies are 75% off.
One day I notice the fruit-patterned plates
and citronella candles are gone.
I felt sorry for those last ones,
costing less than a quarter
while behind the counter it becomes clear
there are some summer memories no one will buy.
I put away Power Bars and boxes of Depends
for so many hours I become disjointed.
And it sounds like God’s voice booming down:
“Help to the front to ring, please.”
I’m up like a shot. I race to the registers
and scan those tampons with a vengeance.
The year is different for everybody.
