0:07

Welcome to on the Job. This season,

0:10

we're focusing on how people and businesses

0:12

are getting back to work. Let's call

0:14

it a great transformation, a change

0:16

in the way workers are thinking. Employers

0:19

need people to work more than ever, putting

0:21

laborers in a sort of position of power. We'll

0:24

be hearing from people navigating this new normal

0:26

for themselves as they find their life's work.

0:31

Across the US, small business owners are

0:33

facing a huge hiring crisis. COVID

0:36

put a lot of people out of work and displaced even

0:38

more. Now, businesses need

0:40

people back and just can't find them.

0:43

In rural Vermont, Karen Banks faces

0:45

this issue if she manages a general store,

0:47

which is the lifeblood of little towns like hers.

0:50

Well, today we talked to Karen about her fight

0:52

to keep the store open as the number of her employees

0:55

dwindles and the population of her town

0:57

skyrockets. Um.

1:01

Okay, so we're just gonna

1:03

get started here. Um. On a rainy

1:05

winter evening, I drove over to Bondville,

1:07

Vermont to meet Karen. Karen Banks,

1:10

and I am the manager of a

1:13

large boutique style country grocery

1:15

store in Bombville, Vermont, the wind Hall

1:17

Market. We have the fortune of doing

1:19

an in person interview in her cozy apartment,

1:22

which is very conveniently located above

1:24

the market she manages. I should should

1:26

mention for the tape that we're joined by

1:29

Crispy. Crispy is a big, fat

1:31

white cat. She's twenty years old and

1:34

very needy. Okay,

1:37

So the Windhall market that Karen manages,

1:40

it looks like a typical country store in the

1:42

center of town. If you walk into a smallest

1:44

room with a delhi a cash register, but

1:46

you take a right right around the cash register counter

1:49

and there is a lot more to it. We have a produced

1:51

section, we have a wine room, we have a

1:53

big grocery section, and everybody

1:56

that comes in says, wow, this

1:58

place is way bigger than it looks like. Karen

2:01

is the face you see on any given day you walk

2:03

into the market, and her job basically

2:05

is to run the entire show from the time it opens

2:08

until the time it closes, take care

2:10

of customers, put out fires.

2:13

Literal fires are like metaphorical metaphorical

2:15

fires. You know, if there are any problems in the

2:17

day, I take care of it. I receive I

2:20

order, I make a lot of phone calls, I

2:23

sell a lot of groceries. Karen

2:25

is a creature of habit and statistics. She

2:27

pours over her sales history, constantly

2:30

reads about new and trending products you can bring

2:32

into the store. She knows good business,

2:35

but at the end of the day, her job is

2:37

to know people do and

2:39

have relationships with them.

2:42

I can know a customer and know when

2:44

they come in what they're going to pick up

2:46

and put in there in their basket. I

2:49

order everything, every

2:51

box of cereal, every Cannabians

2:54

it comes to me. I just

2:56

know what they like. The

3:01

Windhall Market is at the base of Stratton

3:03

Mountain, which means it's a busy, rural

3:05

ski town. We have a

3:08

very broad base of

3:10

customers. Uh we have a lot of

3:12

visitors. We have some international traffic

3:14

here, high income millionaires,

3:17

regular people, just the working

3:20

class like me. Uh So we

3:22

cater to all of those people. Besides

3:25

being where you get your stuff, a general store

3:27

is also the social hub a little towns like Bondville.

3:30

If you want to know any gossip, if you

3:32

want to know anything that's happened, you

3:34

come down to the store and you can find out.

3:37

So one of the roles I guess

3:40

for us is to communicate

3:42

with the community, meaning

3:44

they're heavily involved in all community events,

3:47

everything that's happening. If there's a fire somewhere

3:49

in town during the night, they'll open up and deliver

3:51

coffee to the fireman. They're involved in

3:53

the summer concert series in town. The

3:56

post office is right next door. Just

3:58

if you live in a town like this, the store

4:00

is a central part of your life. Oh it is.

4:02

Everybody that lives in this town comes in the store

4:05

at one point or another. The

4:07

thing about general stores that makes them unique

4:09

is that each one needs to be so specifically

4:12

catered to the area that they're in to be successful

4:15

simultaneously. It's usually the

4:17

only shop for miles, so its purpose

4:19

is right in the name general store, meaning

4:21

you generally have everything we

4:24

try. There are very few times I've had

4:26

to look at somebody and say, no, we don't have that. I'm

4:28

very competitive, so I'm very

4:31

competitive about not being

4:33

out of anything. She says.

4:35

She sees it as a game, and it's the game she

4:37

likes. There's about six thousand products

4:39

in the store, and it's her job to meticulously

4:42

look at all her reports or buying history,

4:44

seasonal trends, just to keep the right

4:46

things on the shelves at the right times. It's

4:49

a thoughtful process ordering

4:51

for the market. It's a competition with

4:53

myself. I guess I like

4:55

to stay right on it, make sure

4:57

I have everything that everybody needs. Probably

5:00

one of the biggest overachievers

5:02

you'll ever meet. Running

5:04

a place like this is hard in any environment,

5:07

but with COVID and complications like short

5:09

staffing, supply chain issues, and

5:12

keeping the store COVID free, Karen's

5:14

competitive attitude has really been put

5:16

to the test, and she is constantly in a

5:18

battle to keep the store from closing. But

5:20

I can't imagine what

5:22

would happen. I mean, you'd be driving

5:25

fifteen miles one way or

5:27

another to go to a grocery, which, in a place

5:29

like this is a really big impact

5:31

on your day. It is. It is a big impact

5:33

on your day. It's gas, it's your

5:35

time. Are the roads good or

5:38

are the roads bad? It just would

5:40

be unbelievable for us not to be here.

5:46

You might have picked up on Karen's accent. She's

5:49

not from Vermont. Young Karen is from

5:51

the South, and she's an army brat and

5:53

grew up all over the country. I was born

5:55

in Virginia, lived in Alaska,

5:57

Missouri, Georgia, Alabama,

6:00

just grew up all over the place. She had

6:02

a loving family, says that they were huggers.

6:05

She was the only girl. She grew up with three brothers.

6:07

Big tom boy, I can

6:09

fight. I could give you

6:11

a black eye. Pretty great childhood,

6:15

do you. Went to University of Kentucky where she came

6:17

out a highly trained dentist assistant.

6:19

And we were trained to be the dentist's

6:22

right hand. We could do anything

6:24

that wasn't permanent. The dentist

6:26

would come in and he would prep the tooth. I'd

6:29

come in and finish it. Very unusual

6:31

to see that in any state, which

6:34

made it a great career. She got paid

6:36

well. She did that for about twenty five

6:38

years. She had a son named Kelly.

6:40

They moved to Vermont, and the laws were

6:43

different here. So she was making less

6:45

as a dentist assistant because she was allowed

6:47

to do less, not what I was used to making.

6:49

And so my son and I we

6:52

like to do some expensive stuff that

6:54

ski. We love Nascar,

6:56

We like to travel to races, and

6:58

that's not cheap. So um

7:00

I decided to segue. Someone

7:03

in town said that she might be perfect for a job

7:05

organizing banquets at a nearby resort,

7:07

and I was really good at

7:09

it. From there, she got hired at Stratton,

7:12

the big ski mountain in town, where I met

7:14

the former owner of this market. I

7:17

was a middle manager at the private ski club where

7:19

she and her family were members. This

7:21

woman's name was Lorraine. Then they hit it off. Immediately

7:24

after Karen's son graduated high school,

7:26

she wanted to move closer to work and moved

7:29

to this apartment above the store which

7:31

Lorraine owned. When Lorraine's

7:33

GM left the store, she asked Karen

7:35

if she'd take the job, and I did. The

7:39

rest is history. What

7:42

were your first impressions? I

7:45

knew nothing about grocery she

7:47

she brought me in here knowing that I knew absolutely

7:50

nothing about running a grocery

7:53

store. But what I am is very

7:55

detail oriented, great memory,

7:58

great customer service skills, and

8:00

knew a lot of her customers. Unsurprisingly,

8:05

Karen was really good at it. She jumped

8:07

right in and has been the face of the wind home market

8:09

ever since. I know

8:11

Karen makes it sound easy, but to give an

8:14

example of how hard a business this is.

8:16

In my little town of Belmont, Vermont,

8:19

I've seen the general store passed through five

8:21

different owners in twenty five years. The

8:23

burnout ray is high. And anyone

8:25

going into this business knows that what

8:28

did you have any like reservations

8:30

when you first came in and like thinking if

8:33

I don't know if I could do this? Now I'm full speed

8:35

ahead. I'm that kind of girl that

8:37

that just jumps in with both feet. I

8:40

don't I don't think there's anything you can't learn

8:42

to do. I raised a child

8:44

with a rare genetic syndrome, less

8:47

than a hundred cases in the world, Karen's

8:50

son, Kelly. He has ours COG, which

8:52

is a rare disorder that can prevent physical

8:54

growth and messes with your short and long

8:56

term memory. So on any given day,

8:59

he may or may not be

9:01

able to tell you what his birthday is. He

9:04

almost stopped growing when he was a little over two years

9:06

old, but they got him on the right medication

9:08

and he's five ten now. Don't feel sorry

9:10

for him. He's got two degrees. He graduated

9:13

Magna and Simicum wild from his colleges.

9:16

He's a smart kid. I

9:18

didn't raise him to think that he

9:20

had a disability. I raised him

9:22

to believe that he can do anything he wants to do,

9:26

and he does anything he wants to

9:28

do. He never whined

9:31

about it. No whining in our

9:33

family and absolutely

9:35

not allowed because

9:37

look around, there

9:39

are so many people in the world that

9:42

are disadvantaged and not

9:44

able to work, not able to provide for

9:46

themselves with their family. If you

9:48

can get up and walk on your two legs every day

9:51

and go to work and earn money and

9:53

and make a decent living, you're incredibly

9:56

blessed. You

9:58

seem like a very stubborn, class

10:00

half full person. Oh my glass,

10:03

my glass is running over. Let

10:08

me get back from the break. The unstoppable force

10:11

that is Karen Banks meets the immovable object

10:13

that is COVID. A

10:16

strong work ethic takes

10:18

pride in a job well done, sweats

10:22

over the details. This

10:24

is you. But to get an honest

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out. The

11:16

winner of twenty nineteen was a busy one in bond

11:18

Bill, Vermont. There was a lot of snow,

11:21

a lot of terrorists, and when COVID hit

11:23

that march, everything changed. It

11:25

just was. It was crazy. It

11:27

was unreal how

11:30

difficult it was and how fast

11:33

we had to react in the food chain

11:35

business too, to get the

11:37

things that our customers needed. The

11:39

store actually didn't close right away. It

11:41

was chaotic. They hustled to get their website

11:44

streamlined for online ordering, and

11:46

then they locked the doors and they went

11:48

curbside. We went tremendous curbside

11:51

we had and we had

11:53

a lot of employees here at the time. I bet

11:55

we had fourteen employees. We

11:57

worked eight hours, nine hours a day.

12:00

All we did was shop, shop, shop, shop, shop,

12:03

no talking, no no

12:05

lunch, no brakes, sometimes

12:07

eighty orders a day, eight

12:11

orders a day. It's

12:13

common knowledge that most businesses face

12:15

supply issues around this time and still do.

12:18

But in a general store with six thousand

12:20

items, the supply chain issues of COVID

12:22

affected virtually everything in Karen's

12:25

life. And we had to do something that

12:27

I didn't think I would ever

12:29

have to do and I hope I never have

12:32

to do it again. Um, I had

12:34

to rash in toilet paper. I

12:36

had to tell somebody, no, you

12:38

can only have three rolls of toilet paper.

12:41

Two things of strawberries and

12:45

chicken wings were non existent, and

12:49

um, it was. It was just awful

12:53

to have to tell people

12:56

that they couldn't

12:58

have what they wanted, because

13:00

your job is to provide what people want more

13:05

than anything. The biggest challenge

13:07

for Karen was to see all of those

13:09

people that she saw on a daily basis

13:12

adjusting to their new reality. It

13:14

was heartbreaking to see people afraid, afraid.

13:19

A lot of people came to pick up their groceries

13:21

and h we couldn't have

13:24

any contact with them, and we

13:26

would leave their groceries outside. They'd wear

13:28

gloves, they'd be masked.

13:30

Um, they'd have disinfectant wipes.

13:33

It was just sad for me to see

13:36

how scared people were. In

13:39

addition to that, a ton of people swarmed

13:41

to towns like this from cities terrified

13:43

of the pandemic. She remembers a young

13:46

couple coming into the store right before they went

13:48

curbside, and the wife was obviously

13:50

pregnant, and he

13:53

was asking some questions about the neighborhood

13:55

and I said, oh, you guys just getting here and

13:57

he said, oh, yeah, we just came out from Manhattan.

14:00

We're trying to get out of the city. And I said,

14:02

oh, do you realize you need to quarantine? Have

14:05

you quarantined? And he said,

14:08

no, we haven't. He said, you're not going to call

14:10

the police, saw me, are you? I

14:12

just needed to get my wife out of the city. She's

14:15

pregnant. I'm afraid for her. And

14:17

then well, of course I'm not going to call the police.

14:20

I'm just I'm just saying, you know, you need to quarantine,

14:23

be careful. He was afraid that I

14:25

was going to call the police on him.

14:27

How sad is that as

14:34

a pandemic went on, the Windhall Market

14:36

eventually did open their doors up and we're

14:38

not strictly curbside, but Karen

14:41

was facing a whole new set of challenges

14:44

in this new normal. A big one

14:46

was population. You know that young couple

14:48

that was coming from the city to escape with the

14:50

pregnant wife. Thousands and thousands

14:53

of people did that. A lot of them

14:55

stayed. We had three to

14:57

five thousand extra people living here during

15:00

COVID. That's I

15:02

don't say it's I don't think people

15:04

understand how big that is for a small place

15:07

like that. That's double the

15:09

population. So

15:11

now in do

15:14

you have more customers coming into the store than

15:16

you ever have? Yes, at

15:19

the moment. How many people do you have

15:21

working in the store for how

15:25

many should be? Really,

15:31

we should be fifteen strong. We

15:34

have not had a break, I would say

15:37

since nineteen Just

15:39

to remind you listening, they had fourteen

15:42

people when the pandemic started. This

15:44

specifically is a huge problem in

15:46

rural areas like this. All the properties

15:48

around here got bought up by people coming from

15:51

out of state, and any extra rooms that

15:53

locals do have are being used for Airbnb

15:55

instead of apartments for potential employees

15:58

that live there. You can't find people

16:00

to work because there aren't people

16:02

here. No, No, there aren't. Alien

16:05

abductions That's what I think. If

16:07

you have more customers than you ever have and

16:10

you only have four when you think your

16:12

stuff fifteen, how do you do it? We

16:15

work long hours. The

16:18

employees that are there are very

16:21

high integrity, high

16:24

production employees. We

16:27

we can get a lot done in a short amount of

16:29

time, but we work a lot of hours.

16:31

I work anywhere from

16:33

Oh I think my paycheck this time was seventy

16:36

two hours. Whenever they can,

16:39

they pick up some part time help, like a fourteen

16:41

year old high school student that comes by sometimes.

16:44

Great kid. He comes in a couple of

16:46

days after school and gives me an hour. Another

16:48

guy who works full time at the Scheme Mountain

16:51

nearby, and we'll come in and sweep and mop

16:53

and do some heavy lifting for me in the evening.

16:55

A couple of days a week. She takes extra

16:57

hours from them whenever she can. Karen all

17:00

So again conveniently lives in the building.

17:02

So the administrative part of it is easy

17:04

for me. I'm not ashamed to say

17:06

it. I'll sit with a glass of wine and do

17:09

the grocery order. I've

17:11

earned it, yeah I have. And that grocery

17:13

order takes about five hours. I'm

17:16

constantly thinking of ways to work

17:19

smarter and not harder in

17:21

this grocery. But there are literally

17:23

six thousand things and they have to

17:26

you have to get them on the shelves and

17:28

it's not a piece of cake. But

17:32

that's where with

17:34

all of this I said,

17:37

this market is not going under,

17:41

it's not going down. We're going to maintain

17:44

a standard of excellence,

17:47

a standard of service to

17:49

the community because they need that. It

17:52

would be terrible in my heart,

17:55

in my mind not to provide

17:57

that for this community.

18:03

I spent a long time away from my hometown,

18:06

a town just like this one, and

18:08

going to the store growing up, you grab

18:11

what you needed. You saw the same people every

18:13

day. Often you'd have the same conversations

18:15

with those people, generally about the weather.

18:18

It's routine, and I admittedly you

18:20

took that for granted. Because when

18:22

I ended up back in Vermont during COVID

18:25

and couldn't see my friends, you couldn't

18:27

see my family, I would look

18:29

forward to going to the store in a way that I

18:32

never did before because it was

18:34

the one place that you could go and

18:36

check in to make sure that everyone you knew

18:39

was okay. And at a certain

18:41

point, that's what Karen was providing

18:44

not just things people needed, but human

18:46

connection in a time where there wasn't

18:48

much. This is

18:50

a small community, and we

18:53

know each other, and we care about each other,

18:56

and we check on each other. You know. They wanted

18:58

to know if we were okay, and we wanted

19:00

to know if they were okay.

19:04

Karen had to shut her doors in the beginning

19:06

before she went curbside. My town's

19:08

general store did the same, so we

19:10

got a taste of what the town would look like without

19:12

it temporarily. But the idea of

19:14

it closing and the idea of

19:16

it not being there is something I

19:19

don't think I've ever considered, and I'm

19:21

sure that people are here never

19:23

considered like it's the it's the general

19:26

Store, it's the wind Hall Market. It will be there,

19:28

and there's

19:30

been a lot of uncertainty in the last few years,

19:33

and

19:35

and it seems that you maybe are like the

19:38

one certain thing here. Well,

19:40

we we like to think where the rock, you

19:43

know, it's like, what

19:45

would people We had to help people.

19:48

There was no question that we had

19:50

to help them through the lockdown. There's

19:53

just not a question that it won't be here, regardless

20:03

of staffing issues, supply chain or

20:06

whatever the world throws their way, the town

20:08

of Bonville can rest easy knowing that Karen

20:10

Banks is not a whiner and

20:12

if she wants to do something, she is

20:14

going to do it. I agreed

20:16

to it, and I believe that if

20:19

you take it on, do it with a smile.

20:22

And I'll do it with a smile at eight o'clock in the

20:24

morning, and I'll do it if I'm there

20:26

at eight o'clock at night. I'll still have

20:29

the same smile. Just

20:43

so you know listening. Karen has a vacation

20:45

coming up. She's going to the Philippines with

20:47

one of her co workers in the store. It'll

20:49

be the first break they've had since two thousand nine. For

20:53

on the job. I motuscry there

21:00

to do these things.