During the spring of my sophomore year in 2002, I did my best to find a position related to my degree - computer science. After submitting my resume where I could and getting a few interviews, the summer was nearing and I had nothing lined up. I saw an ad in the Kentucky Kernel from True Value and went for it. I had never worked in a hardware store although I've always considered myself pretty handy in helping my dad with home projects.
The True Value store is located in the Eastland Shopping Center near New Circle Road. I drove from my rented house near campus up Winchester Road, an area I was not very familiar with, for my interview. When you first stepped in the door you immediately felt that this was what a hardware store was supposed to be. It was a dwarf compared to the bix boxes, but it was intimate and comfortable. Country music softly played from the speakers and there was a soft hint of pipe smoke.
My interview with David went spectacularly well and I quickly started my position as an associate a few weeks later. He had used many college students in the past and quickly trusted me with a key to the store. He was a very grandfatherly figure, always wearing jeans, a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pipe in the side of his mouth. I got used to the country music, which took a while I must admit. David's son Todd worked with me, but was mainly in the back room repairing lawn mowers most of the time.
When a customer came in the door, one of us would always be there to quickly greet them and ask if they needed any help. After a week or so I became familiar with where most items were and could direct people to one of our 15 or so aisles. I would hop behind the key counter to cut a key or two if needed and also learned how to mix paint. I got to the point where if someone came in with a screw, I could name the size and length to a fairly high degree.
One of my main duties was repairing screen doors and windows when I wasn't helping customers. When you entered the back room of the store, Todd was usually bent over a lawn mower with grease on his hands and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. My area was nearby, with a big table surrounded with aluminum frames, glass panes, rolls of screen and splines (the rubber lining that holds screens into the frame).
The method of screen replacement wasn't that hard, but getting it to look good took some time. You had to make sure the screen was taut, but not so much so that it bent the frame. You work the spline into the groove of the frame with a pizza-cutter like tool and then cut the excess screen away. This is another thing that took a while to get down, but once I had the hang of it I could repair a frame in a half hour or so. I worked with David for about 3 months and then came in on the weekends during the fall semester to help out when needed. Even after that, I would drop by every now and then to say hello.
The next summer I had an internship lined up that fell through. I came back to David to see if he needed any help, and he thought long and hard about it before turning me down. I know this was a tough decision for him and something that he didn't take lightly. He had already hired someone a few weeks before, otherwise it might have kept me on staff. I wasn't mad because I know that if David had been able to get by with an extra person he would have done so. My job search continued and I eventually found a technical position related to my degree, so it all worked out in the end.
I learned a lot over that summer about hardware in general, but more importantly about the struggle of small businesses and how to treat people. I have since moved away from Lexington and have only driven by the store a few times in the past few years. David made a few upgrades to the store since I left, modernizing the cash registers and rearranging the aisles to a different configuration. Regardless, the customer service never changed. Every now and then I am forced to wander through the big box stores, endlessly searching for what I need. Unfortunately there are no small hardware stores near my house, and every time I enter the big boxes I remember how easy and pleasant it was to walk into Eastland True Value (and have some sense of betrayal to David for not seeking out a True Value or other 'mom and pop'). I wish David the best in his retirement and would like to encourage everyone to support small businesses and shop locally.
Great story. You should send this to David.
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