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Speaker 1: Welcome to On the Job. This season, we're focusing on

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Speaker 1: how people and businesses are getting back to work. Let's

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Speaker 1: call it a great transformation, a change in the way

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Speaker 1: workers are thinking. Employers need people to work more than ever,

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Speaker 1: putting laborers in a sort of position of power. We'll

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Speaker 1: be hearing from people navigating this new normal for themselves

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Speaker 1: as they find their life's work. Across the US, small

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Speaker 1: business owners are facing a huge hiring crisis. COVID put

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Speaker 1: a lot of people out of work and displaced even more. Now,

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Speaker 1: businesses need people back and just can't find them. In

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Speaker 1: rural Vermont, Karen Banks faces this issue if she manages

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Speaker 1: a general store, which is the lifeblood of little towns

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Speaker 1: like hers. Well, today we talked to Karen about her

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Speaker 1: fight to keep the store open as the number of

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Speaker 1: her employees dwindles and the population of her town skyrockets. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we're just gonna get started here. On a rainy

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Speaker 1: winter evening, I drove over to Bonville, Vermont to meet Karen.

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Speaker 1: Karen Banks and I am the manager of a large

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Speaker 1: boutique style country grocery store in Bombville, Vermont, the wind

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Speaker 1: Hall Market. We have the fortune of doing an in

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Speaker 1: person interview in her cozy apartment, which is very conveniently

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Speaker 1: located above the market she manages. I shouldn't I should

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Speaker 1: mention for the tape that we're joined by Crispy. Crispy's

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Speaker 1: a big, fat white cat. She's twenty years old and

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Speaker 1: very needy. Okay, So the Windhall Market that Karen manages,

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Speaker 1: it looks like a typical country store in the center

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Speaker 1: of town. If you walk into a smallish room with

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Speaker 1: a delhi a cash register, but you take a right

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Speaker 1: right around the cash register counter and there is a

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Speaker 1: lot more to it. We have a produced section, we

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Speaker 1: have a wine room, we have a big grocery section,

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Speaker 1: and everybody that comes in says, wow, this place is

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Speaker 1: way bigger than it looks like. Karen is the face

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Speaker 1: you see on any given day you walk into the market,

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Speaker 1: and her job basically is to run the entire show

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Speaker 1: from the time it opens until the time it closes,

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Speaker 1: take care of customers, put out fires. Literal fires are

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Speaker 1: like metaphorical metaphorical fires. You know, if there are any

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Speaker 1: problems in the day, I take care of it. I

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Speaker 1: receive I order, I make a lot of phone calls,

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Speaker 1: I sell a lot of groceries. Karen is a creature

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Speaker 1: of habit and statistics. She pours over her sales history,

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Speaker 1: constantly reads about new and trending products she can bring

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Speaker 1: into the store. She knows good business, but at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, her job is to know people.

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Speaker 1: Oh I do and have relationships with them. I can

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Speaker 1: know a customer and know when they come in what

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Speaker 1: they're going to pick up and put in there in

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Speaker 1: their basket. I order everything, every box of cereal, every

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Speaker 1: Cannabians it comes to me. I just know what they like.

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Speaker 1: The Windhall Market is at the base of Stratton Mountain,

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Speaker 1: which means it's a busy, rural ski town. We have

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Speaker 1: a very broad base of customers. We have a lot

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Speaker 1: of visitors. We have some international traffic here, high income millionaires,

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Speaker 1: regular people just the working class like me. So we

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Speaker 1: cater to all of those people. Besides being where you

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Speaker 1: get your stuff, a general store is also the social

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Speaker 1: hub in little towns like Bondville. If you want to

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Speaker 1: know any gossip, if you want to know anything that's happened,

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Speaker 1: you come down to the store and you can find out.

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Speaker 1: So one of the roles I guess for us is

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Speaker 1: to communicate with the community, meaning they're heavily involved in

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Speaker 1: all community events, everything that's happening. If there's a fire

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Speaker 1: somewhere in town during the night, they'll open up and

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Speaker 1: deliver coffee to the fireman. They're involved in the summer

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Speaker 1: concert series in town. The post office is right next door.

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Speaker 1: Just if you live in a town like this store

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Speaker 1: is a central part of your life. Oh it is.

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Speaker 1: Everybody that lives in this town comes in the store

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Speaker 1: at one point or another. The thing about general stores

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Speaker 1: that makes them unique is that each one needs to

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Speaker 1: be so specifically catered to the area that they're in

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Speaker 1: to be successful simultaneously. It's usually the only shot for miles.

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Speaker 1: So its purpose is right in the name general store,

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Speaker 1: meaning you generally have everything we try. There are very

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Speaker 1: few times I've had to look at somebody and say, no,

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Speaker 1: we don't have that. I'm very competitive, so I'm very

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Speaker 1: competitive about not being out of anything, she says. She

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Speaker 1: sees it as a game, and it's the game she likes.

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Speaker 1: There's about six thousand products in the store, and it's

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Speaker 1: her job to meticulously look at all her reports, her

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Speaker 1: buying history, seasonal trends, just to keep the right things

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Speaker 1: on the shelves at the right times. It's a thoughtful

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Speaker 1: process ordering for the market. It's a competition with myself.

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Speaker 1: I guess I like to stay right on it, make

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Speaker 1: sure I have everything that everybody needs. Probably one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest overachievers you'll ever meet. Running a place like

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Speaker 1: this is hard in any environment, but with COVID and

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Speaker 1: complications like short staffing, supply chain issues, and keeping the

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Speaker 1: store COVID free, Karen's competitive attitude has really been put

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Speaker 1: to the test, and she is constantly in a battle

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Speaker 1: to keep the store from closing. Well. I can't imagine

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Speaker 1: what would happen. I mean, you'd be driving fifteen miles

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Speaker 1: one way or another to go to a grocery, which,

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Speaker 1: in a place like this is a really big impact

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Speaker 1: on your day. It is. It is a big impact

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Speaker 1: on your day. It's gas, it's your time. Are the

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Speaker 1: roads good or are the roads bad? It just would

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Speaker 1: be unbelievable for us not to be here. You might

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Speaker 1: have picked up on Karen's accent. She's not from Vermont.

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Speaker 1: Young Karen is from the South and she's an army

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Speaker 1: brat and grew up all over the country. I was

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Speaker 1: born in Virginia, lived in Alaska, Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, just

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Speaker 1: screw up all over the place. She had a loving family,

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Speaker 1: says that they were huggers. She was the only girl.

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Speaker 1: She grew up with three brothers. Big tom boy, I

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Speaker 1: can fight. I could give you a black eye. Pretty

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Speaker 1: great childhood. She went to a University of Kentucky, where

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Speaker 1: she came out a highly trained dentist assistant. And we

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Speaker 1: were trained to be the dentist's right hand. We could

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Speaker 1: do anything that wasn't permanent. The dentist would come in

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Speaker 1: and he would prep the tooth. I'd come in and

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Speaker 1: finish it. Very unusual to see that in any state,

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Speaker 1: which made it a great career. She got paid well.

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Speaker 1: She did that for about twenty five years. She had

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Speaker 1: a son named Kelly. They moved to Vermont, and the

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Speaker 1: laws were different here. So she was making less as

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Speaker 1: a dentist' assistant because she was allowed to do less,

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Speaker 1: not what I was used to making. And so my

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Speaker 1: son and I we like to do some expensive stuff.

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Speaker 1: We like ski We loved Nascar. We like to travel

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Speaker 1: to races, and that's not cheap. So I decided to segue.

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Speaker 1: Someone in town said that she might be perfect for

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Speaker 1: a job organizing banquets at a nearby resort, and I

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Speaker 1: was really good at it. From there, she got hired

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Speaker 1: at Stratton, the big ski mountain in town, where I

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Speaker 1: met the former owner of this market. I was a

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Speaker 1: middle manager at the private ski club where she and

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Speaker 1: her family were members. This woman's name was Lorraine. Then

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Speaker 1: they hit it off. Immediately after Karen's son graduated high school,

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Speaker 1: she wanted to move closer to work and moved to

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Speaker 1: this apartment above the store which Lorraine owned. When Lorraine's

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Speaker 1: GM left the store, she asked Karen if she'd take

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Speaker 1: the job, and I did. The rest is history. What

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Speaker 1: were your first impressions? I knew nothing about grocery. She

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Speaker 1: brought me in here knowing that I knew absolutely nothing

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Speaker 1: about running a grocery store. But what I am is

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Speaker 1: very detail oriented, great memory, great customer service skills, and

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Speaker 1: knew a lot of her customers. Unsurprisingly, Karen was really

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Speaker 1: good at it. She jumped right in and has been

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Speaker 1: the face of the wind home market ever since. I

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Speaker 1: know Karen makes it sound easy, but to give an

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Speaker 1: example of how hard a business this is. In my

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Speaker 1: little town of Belmont, Vermont. I've seen the general store

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Speaker 1: passed through five different owners in twenty five years. The

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Speaker 1: burnout ray is high, and anyone going into this business

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Speaker 1: knows that. Well, did you have any reservations when you

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Speaker 1: first came in and like thinking, Oh, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if I could do this. No, I'm full speed ahead.

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Speaker 1: I'm that kind of girl that that just jumps him

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Speaker 1: with both feet. I don't think there's anything you can't

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Speaker 1: learn to do. I raised a child with a rare

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Speaker 1: genetic syndrome, less than a hundred cases in the world,

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Speaker 1: Karen's son, Kelly. He has ARSCOG, which is a rare

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Speaker 1: disorder that can prevent physical growth and messes with your

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Speaker 1: short and long term memory. So on any given day,

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Speaker 1: he may or may not be able to tell you

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Speaker 1: what his birthday is. He almost stopped growing when he

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Speaker 1: was a little over two years old, but they got

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Speaker 1: him on the right medication and he's five ten now.

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Speaker 1: Don't feel sorry for him. He's got two degrees. He

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Speaker 1: graduated Magna and Sumac hm WOUD from his colleges. He's

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Speaker 1: a smart kid. I didn't raise him to think that

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Speaker 1: he had a disability. I raised him to believe that

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Speaker 1: he can do anything he wants to do, and he

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Speaker 1: does anything he wants to do. He never whined about it.

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Speaker 1: No whining in our family and absolutely not allowed because

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Speaker 1: look around, there are so many people in the world

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Speaker 1: that are disadvantaged and not able to work, not able

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Speaker 1: to provide for themselves or their family. If you can

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Speaker 1: get up and walk on your two legs every day

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Speaker 1: and go to work and earn money and make a

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Speaker 1: decent living, you're incredibly blessed. You seem like a very stubborn,

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Speaker 1: class half full person. Yoh myas my glass is running over.

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Speaker 1: When we get back from the break, the unstoppable force

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Speaker 1: that is Karen Banks meets the immovable object that is COVID.

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Speaker 1: A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,

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Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is you. But to get

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Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a response. You need

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Speaker 1: a callback. You need a job. Express Employment professionals can

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Speaker 1: help because we understand what it takes to get a job.

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Speaker 1: It takes more than just online searches to land a job.

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Speaker 1: It takes someone who will identify your talents, a person

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Speaker 1: invested in your success. At Express, we can even complete

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Speaker 1: your application with you over the phone, will prepare you

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Speaker 1: for interviews and will connect you to the right company.

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Speaker 1: Plus we'll never charge a fee to find you a

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Speaker 1: job at Express. We could put you to work with

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Speaker 1: companies of all sizes and industries from the production floor

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Speaker 1: to the front office. Expressns jobs get to No Express,

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Speaker 1: find your location at expresspros dot com or on the

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Speaker 1: Express Jobs out The winner of twenty nineteen was a

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Speaker 1: busy one in Bondville, Vermont. There was a lot of snow,

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Speaker 1: a lot of tourists, and when COVID hit that March,

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Speaker 1: everything changed. It just was. It was crazy. It was

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Speaker 1: unreal how difficult it was and how fast we had

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Speaker 1: to react in the food chain business to get the

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Speaker 1: things that our customers needed. The store actually didn't close

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Speaker 1: right away. It was chaotic. They hustled to get their

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Speaker 1: website streamlined for online ordering, and then they locked the

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Speaker 1: doors and they went curbside. We went tremendous curbside we

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Speaker 1: had and we had a lot of employees here at

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Speaker 1: the time. I bet we had fourteen employees. We worked

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Speaker 1: eight hours, nine hours a day. All we did was shop, shop, shop, shop, shop,

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Speaker 1: no talking, no lunch, no breaks. Sometimes eighty orders a day,

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Speaker 1: eighty orders a day. It's common knowledge that most businesses

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Speaker 1: face supply issues around this time and still do, but

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Speaker 1: in a general store with six thousand items, the supply

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Speaker 1: chain issues of COVID affected virtually everything in Karen's life.

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Speaker 1: And we had to do something that I didn't think

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Speaker 1: I would ever have to do and I hope I

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Speaker 1: never have to do it again. I had to rash

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Speaker 1: in toilet paper. I had to tell somebody, no, you

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Speaker 1: can only have three rolls of toilet paper. Two things

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Speaker 1: of strawberries and chicken wings were non existent, and it

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Speaker 1: was just awful to have to tell people that they

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Speaker 1: couldn't have what they wanted, because your job is to

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Speaker 1: provide what people want. That's right. More than anything. The

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Speaker 1: biggest challenge for Karen was to see all of those

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Speaker 1: people that she saw on a daily basis adjusting to

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Speaker 1: their new reality. It was heartbreaking to see people afraid, afraid.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people came to pick up their groceries

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Speaker 1: and we couldn't have any contact with them, and we

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Speaker 1: would leave their groceries outside. They'd wear gloves, they'd be masked,

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Speaker 1: they'd have disinfectant wipes. It was just sad for me

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Speaker 1: to see how scared people were. In addition to that,

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Speaker 1: a ton of people swarmed to towns like this from

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Speaker 1: cities terrified of the pandemic. She remembers a young couple

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Speaker 1: coming into the store right before they went curbside, and

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Speaker 1: the wife was obviously pregnant, and he was asking some

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Speaker 1: questions about the neighborhood and I said, oh, you guys

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Speaker 1: just getting here and he said, oh yeah, we just

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Speaker 1: came up from Manhattan. We're trying to get out of

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Speaker 1: the city. And I said, oh, do you realize you

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Speaker 1: need to quarantine? Have you quarantined? And he said, no,

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Speaker 1: we haven't. He said, you're not going to call the

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Speaker 1: police on me, are you. I just needed to get

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Speaker 1: my wife out of the city. She's pregnant. I'm afraid

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Speaker 1: for her. And then well, of course I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to call the police. I'm I'm just saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: you need to quarantine. Be careful. He was afraid that

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Speaker 1: I was going to call a police on him. How

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Speaker 1: sad is that as a pandemic went on, the Windhall

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Speaker 1: Market eventually did open their doors up and we're not

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Speaker 1: strictly curbside, but by twenty twenty two, Karen was facing

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Speaker 1: a whole new set of challenges in this new normal.

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Speaker 1: A big one was population. You know that young couple

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Speaker 1: that was coming from the city to escape with the

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Speaker 1: pregnant wife. Thousands and thousands of people did that. A

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Speaker 1: lot of them stayed. We had three to five thousand

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Speaker 1: extra people living here during COVID. That's I don't say

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Speaker 1: it's I don't think people understand how big that is

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Speaker 1: for a small place like that. That's double the population.

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Speaker 1: That's huge. So now in twenty twenty two, do you

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Speaker 1: have more customers coming into the store than you ever have? Yes,

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Speaker 1: at the moment. How many people do you have working

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Speaker 1: in the store? Four? How many should be really fifteen?

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Speaker 1: We should be fifteen strong. We have not had a break,

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Speaker 1: I would say since twenty nineteen. Just to remind you listening,

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Speaker 1: they had fourteen people when the pandemic started. This specifically

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Speaker 1: is a huge problem in rural areas like this. All

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Speaker 1: the properties around here got bought up by people coming

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Speaker 1: from an estate, and any extra rooms that locals do

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Speaker 1: have are being used for Airbnb instead of apartments for

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Speaker 1: potential employees that live there. You can't find people to

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Speaker 1: work because there aren't people here. No, No, there aren't

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Speaker 1: alien abductions. That's what I think. If you have more

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Speaker 1: customers than you ever have and you only have four

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Speaker 1: when you think you're stuff fifteen, how do you do it?

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Speaker 1: We work long hours. The employees that are there are

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Speaker 1: very high integrity, high production employees. We can get a

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Speaker 1: lot done in a short amount of time, but we

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Speaker 1: work a lot of hours. I work anywhere from Oh

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Speaker 1: I think my paycheck this time was seventy two hours.

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Speaker 1: Whenever they can, they pick up some part time help,

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Speaker 1: like a fourteen year old high school student that comes

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Speaker 1: by sometimes. Great kid. He comes in a couple days

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Speaker 1: after school and gives me an hour. Another guy who

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Speaker 1: works full time at the Scheme Mountain nearby, and we'll

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Speaker 1: come in and sweep and mop and do some heavy

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Speaker 1: lifting for me in the evening. A couple of days

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Speaker 1: a week. She takes extra hours from them whenever she can.

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Speaker 1: Karen all So again conveniently lives in the building, so

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Speaker 1: the administrative part of it is easy for me. I'm

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Speaker 1: not ashamed to say it. I'll sit with a glass

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Speaker 1: of wine and do the grocery order. Thank you earned that,

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Speaker 1: I've earned it, Yeah, I have And that grocery order

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Speaker 1: takes about five hours. I'm constantly thinking of ways to

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Speaker 1: work smarter and not harder in this grocery. But there

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Speaker 1: are literally six thousand things and they have to you

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Speaker 1: have to get them on the shelves, and it's not

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Speaker 1: a piece of cake. But that's where with all of

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Speaker 1: this I said, this market is not going under. It's

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Speaker 1: not going down. We're going to maintain a standard of excellence,

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Speaker 1: a standard of service to the community because they need that.

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Speaker 1: It would be terrible, in my heart, in my mind

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Speaker 1: not to provide that for this community. I spent a

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Speaker 1: long time away from my hometown, a town just like

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Speaker 1: this one, and going to the store growing up, you

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Speaker 1: grabbed what you needed, You saw the same people every day.

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Speaker 1: Often you'd have the same conversations with those people, generally

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Speaker 1: about the weather. It's routine, and I admittedly you took

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Speaker 1: that for granted. Because when I ended up back in

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Speaker 1: Vermont during COVID and couldn't see my friends, you couldn't

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Speaker 1: see my family. I would look forward to going to

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Speaker 1: the store in a way that I never did before,

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Speaker 1: because it was the one place that you could go

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Speaker 1: and check in to make sure that everyone you knew

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Speaker 1: was okay, And at a certain point that's what Karen

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Speaker 1: was providing, not just things people needed, but human connection

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Speaker 1: in a time where there wasn't much. This is a

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Speaker 1: small community, and we know each other, and we care

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Speaker 1: about each other, and we check on each other. You know.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to know if we were okay, and we

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Speaker 1: wanted to know if they were okay. Karen had to

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Speaker 1: shut her doors in the beginning before she went curbside.

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Speaker 1: My town's general store did the same, so we got

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Speaker 1: a taste of what the town would look like without

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Speaker 1: it temporarily. But the idea of it closing and the

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Speaker 1: idea of it not being there is something I don't

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Speaker 1: think I've ever considered, and I'm sure that people here

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Speaker 1: never considered, like it's the it's the general Store, it's

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Speaker 1: the Windhall Market. It will be there, and there's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainty in the last few years, and

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Speaker 1: and it seems that you maybe are like the one

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Speaker 1: certain thing here. Well, we like to think we're the rock.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like, what would people We had to

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Speaker 1: help people. There was no question that we had to

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Speaker 1: help them through the lockdown. There's just not a question

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Speaker 1: that it won't be here regardless of staffing issues, supply chain,

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Speaker 1: or whatever the world throws their way. The town of

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Speaker 1: Bonville can rest easy knowing that Karen Banks is not

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Speaker 1: a whiner and if she wants to do something, she

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Speaker 1: is going to do it. I agreed to it, and

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Speaker 1: I believe that if you take it on, do it

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Speaker 1: with a smile. And I'll do it with a smile

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Speaker 1: at eight o'clock in the morning, and I'll do it

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Speaker 1: if I'm there at eight o'clock at night. I'll still

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Speaker 1: have the same smile. Just so you know listening, Karen

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Speaker 1: has a vacation coming up. She's going to the Philippines

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Speaker 1: with one of her co workers in the store. It'll

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Speaker 1: be the first break they've had since twenty nineteen. For

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Speaker 1: on the job. I'm modus cry to the st