When I was sixteen, I had one of those classic first jobs that teaches you more about capitalism than calculus. I was a cashier at Publix. In the 1980s, this was a solid teenage gig. You wore the polyester green uniform, smiled like it was your job—because it was—and never let a customer lift their own bag. Publix was known for customer service that bordered on spiritual devotion.
One day, a customer had a bag filled with four two-liter bottles of soda. I picked it up to place it in their cart, because that’s what polite teens did. As I lifted it, something in my mid-back seized up. It wasn’t a dramatic, fall-to-the-floor moment. It was more of a subtle shift, like my spine quietly saying, “Well, that was a mistake.”
I went to the office and told them I was in pain. The solution? Two Tylenol and a look that said, “You good? Great. Get back out there.” That was workplace medicine in the 80s. No accident report. No offer to clock out or see a nurse. Just painkillers and the unspoken promise that if you couldn’t handle it, someone else would.
But I didn’t get back out there. Instead, I walked out to the parking lot and climbed into my Chevy Chevette. That car was basically a rolling oven. The seats were hot, the air was thicker than soup, and I sat there with my spine baking in the vinyl heat. It felt amazing. My body may have been injured, but I had found the healing power of Florida car seat therapy.
Looking back, I should have filed an accident report. I should have started a workman’s comp claim. I should have seen a doctor. But I didn’t. I just took my sixteen-year-old self home and hoped for the best.
Decades later, guess who still gets mid-back pain when she lifts something wrong or sits too long? This Publix girl. The one who politely carried your soda and paid for it in vertebrae.
So here’s to all of us who came of age before ergonomic awareness and workplace protections. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we sure did it with good customer service and really sore backs.
“paid for it in vertebrae!”