Thursday - Cheapskate!
Jul. 27th, 2006 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about, Sharon, the Korean woman who used to run the deli in building where I work. Everyone in my office adored her, but the rest of the building regarded her with terror. The idea that a plump Korean grandmother standing less than 5 feet tall could intimidate anyone might sound strange, unless you met her. It then became perfectly clear.
Sharon did not suffer fools easily. She did not like people who came into her deli, looked around and left without buy anything. She did not like people who wanted her to prepare something different from the way usually did, including asking her to leave something off. Extra cheese would cost you extra, but leaving off the cheese wasn't going to get you a discount. She also did not like people who bought their food and sat down to eat in at one of her tables instead of taking it back to their office. She liked to watch her soaps and having customers in the dining area distracted her. If she did not like you, she did not hide it.
When my company first moved into this building two and a half years ago, she questioned each one of us the first time we came in. What floor did we work on? In which suite? How many of us were there? The demographics of the building meant a lot to her.
"Only 4 people? Too small!" she told me, scowling. She apparently expected a tenant to provide more new customers than this. On behalf of my company, I apologized. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed. What could she do?
Despite our being small, she liked us. We ate at our desks, like we were supposed to. We quickly learned that if we went into her deli, we had best not leave empty handed. We left our change in her tip jar, much to her delight. Within a week, she learned our names and if one of us did not come down one day, she asked the others where we were.
"Go downstairs and buy some gum or something," my office manager, Matt, would say, "Sharon hasn't seen you in a couple of days and she's upset about it."
One day The Cajun Queen and I went to the grocery store to buy sandwich fixings, since it strained our budgets to buy lunch from Sharon every day. We hoped she didn't see us when we walked past her door with our shopping bags as we came in from the parking garage. She did. The next day, we faced the music when we visited her to buy breakfast.
"Why you buy groceries yesterday?" she asked, "I sell food here. You no need groceries!" She looked equal parts hurt and disgusted.
The Queen and I looked at each other and blinked.
"Matt's a cheapskate," I told Sharon. "He doesn't pay us enough to buy our lunch from you everyday." The Cajun Queen nodded in agreement.
"Cheap-a-skake?" Sharon asked. She wanted to know how to spell it and wrote it down. She kept an English-Korean dictionary next to her cash register, and every time she heard an English word that was new to her she looked it up. We didn't know it yet, but we had introduced her to her new favorite word.
A couple of weeks later, Matt came up from a visit to the deli with a slightly chagrined look on his face.
"Cheap-a-skake," he said, "Why does Sharon keep calling me a cheap-a-skake? Every time I'm down there, she looks at me and says that." The Cajun Queen and I both started laughing and couldn't stop. This told Matt that it his new nickname was entirely our fault.
"OK, what did y'all say to her?" he asked. We told him the story, explaining how we had to use him as a scapegoat to atone for our sin of bringing groceries into the building.
"Great," he said, shaking his head. He couldn't help from smiling.
"To be fair, Matt, you are kind of a cheapskate."
"True," he agreed, "But I'm not in charge of much you get paid." Indeed, a different set of cheapskates in California made that decision.
"Sharon doesn't know that, though," I said, "Deal with it, cheapskate."
Eventually, Sharon sold her deli and now it belongs to a different Korean grandmother named Sunny. Sunny is not quite the cook that Sharon was, but she is very sweet and her deli is always full. People aren't afraid sit down and eat in it because they know that Sunny will not glare at them until they leave. When she asks, "Is that all?" it sounds like a polite inquiry to make sure you do not want anything else, instead of a thinly veiled suggestion that you need to order something else, cheapskate.
Still, I miss Sharon a little bit. Sunny is nice to everyone, but Sharon was only nice to the people she liked. The Cajun Queen and I were on her good list.
"I like you," she told us on more than one occasion. "You no cause trouble. Other people, complain, cause trouble. You okay, nice ladies."
Considering the source, this is about the kindest thing anyone has ever said about me.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Sharon did not suffer fools easily. She did not like people who came into her deli, looked around and left without buy anything. She did not like people who wanted her to prepare something different from the way usually did, including asking her to leave something off. Extra cheese would cost you extra, but leaving off the cheese wasn't going to get you a discount. She also did not like people who bought their food and sat down to eat in at one of her tables instead of taking it back to their office. She liked to watch her soaps and having customers in the dining area distracted her. If she did not like you, she did not hide it.
When my company first moved into this building two and a half years ago, she questioned each one of us the first time we came in. What floor did we work on? In which suite? How many of us were there? The demographics of the building meant a lot to her.
"Only 4 people? Too small!" she told me, scowling. She apparently expected a tenant to provide more new customers than this. On behalf of my company, I apologized. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed. What could she do?
Despite our being small, she liked us. We ate at our desks, like we were supposed to. We quickly learned that if we went into her deli, we had best not leave empty handed. We left our change in her tip jar, much to her delight. Within a week, she learned our names and if one of us did not come down one day, she asked the others where we were.
"Go downstairs and buy some gum or something," my office manager, Matt, would say, "Sharon hasn't seen you in a couple of days and she's upset about it."
One day The Cajun Queen and I went to the grocery store to buy sandwich fixings, since it strained our budgets to buy lunch from Sharon every day. We hoped she didn't see us when we walked past her door with our shopping bags as we came in from the parking garage. She did. The next day, we faced the music when we visited her to buy breakfast.
"Why you buy groceries yesterday?" she asked, "I sell food here. You no need groceries!" She looked equal parts hurt and disgusted.
The Queen and I looked at each other and blinked.
"Matt's a cheapskate," I told Sharon. "He doesn't pay us enough to buy our lunch from you everyday." The Cajun Queen nodded in agreement.
"Cheap-a-skake?" Sharon asked. She wanted to know how to spell it and wrote it down. She kept an English-Korean dictionary next to her cash register, and every time she heard an English word that was new to her she looked it up. We didn't know it yet, but we had introduced her to her new favorite word.
A couple of weeks later, Matt came up from a visit to the deli with a slightly chagrined look on his face.
"Cheap-a-skake," he said, "Why does Sharon keep calling me a cheap-a-skake? Every time I'm down there, she looks at me and says that." The Cajun Queen and I both started laughing and couldn't stop. This told Matt that it his new nickname was entirely our fault.
"OK, what did y'all say to her?" he asked. We told him the story, explaining how we had to use him as a scapegoat to atone for our sin of bringing groceries into the building.
"Great," he said, shaking his head. He couldn't help from smiling.
"To be fair, Matt, you are kind of a cheapskate."
"True," he agreed, "But I'm not in charge of much you get paid." Indeed, a different set of cheapskates in California made that decision.
"Sharon doesn't know that, though," I said, "Deal with it, cheapskate."
Eventually, Sharon sold her deli and now it belongs to a different Korean grandmother named Sunny. Sunny is not quite the cook that Sharon was, but she is very sweet and her deli is always full. People aren't afraid sit down and eat in it because they know that Sunny will not glare at them until they leave. When she asks, "Is that all?" it sounds like a polite inquiry to make sure you do not want anything else, instead of a thinly veiled suggestion that you need to order something else, cheapskate.
Still, I miss Sharon a little bit. Sunny is nice to everyone, but Sharon was only nice to the people she liked. The Cajun Queen and I were on her good list.
"I like you," she told us on more than one occasion. "You no cause trouble. Other people, complain, cause trouble. You okay, nice ladies."
Considering the source, this is about the kindest thing anyone has ever said about me.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 09:43 pm (UTC)That's awesome.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 09:55 pm (UTC)hahaha :D
i already smile and lean back when i read your "on my way to work ... while i was driving to...." introductions.
when is that book of yours coming out again? :)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-27 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 03:37 pm (UTC)Somehow, I keep seeing Sharon as Mrs. Kim from Gilmore Girls... :-0
I'm also curious as to how Sharon came to be her name. I'm guessing that if English isn't her first language, it's not exactly like she was born Sharon...but that's not a particularly common name in English, either...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-28 05:10 pm (UTC)It seems a little sad to me to abandon your heritage in order to try to fit in, but I haven't walked in their shoes so I'm not really in a position to judge them or ask why they thought it was important to adopt a "common" sounding name. Ironically, a lot of Westerners try to give their children names that are uncommon and unique.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-01 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 03:13 am (UTC)I love this post.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-07 09:11 pm (UTC)