On Target Canada’s closing, one year later.
One year ago this Friday, my life was good. Exams were coming up, and I was studying hard, a normal review session on a normal thursday. My phone, on my desk, with my music plugged in as I did questions on organic compounds. The music stopped playing, and texts flooded in. “I’m sorry bub, I just heard”. “Are you okay?”. I didn’t know why I wouldn’t be.
That’s how the news broke. My first job, the place I loved more than anywhere but the rink on a good day, Target, had declared bankrupcy. I’m not sure if the tears came as I was asking to get a drink of water, as I walked out of the room, or as I steadied myself on the fountain. all i know is that 5 minutes later, someone came and checked on me, and there was a puddle at my feet, my face was as red as the shirt in my backpack, for the shift that evening. My friends know, that job was critical to my identity, an extreme source of pride that also gave me 10.80 an hour.
I learned many lessons over the weeks that followed until the doors shut for good. The company you keep is not the company as a whole. Your coworkers care about you. Your managers, if they’re good, care about you. They will be cut loose with you when the numbers don’t shake out. I learned that the media will know before even the regional manager, and they’ll be asking you for a quote as you walk in wearing your khakis. People will claim you deserve it for what “you” did to the store that was there before.
The people you work will crack at different times, some as the aisles they helped put together get torn apart for fixture sales. Some as they get yelled at for the third time that day because the liquidation sale is only 15% that day. Some on the last day, as the cash registers crash 5 minutes after opening, dragging out the last day. Some, if they’re lucky, make it until the doors close the last time, and every face you came to love day in and day out gather around the registers and swap stories, a bittersweet final meeting. And then you will lay awake in bed 6 months later, and you will cry for what you have lost. Every red shirt became a reminder. The company doesn’t care. The whole country was a write off.
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