From cashier to jack of all trades

LIMA — When Naomi Cardwell stopped by DeHaven Home & Garden Showplace almost 23 years ago on a job hunt, she didn't expect that she would still be working there come 2011.

“I was going to business college,” she recalled. “I thought it was time to get out, get busy.”

She stopped by on a day when many other people hoped to find a job at DeHavens. She applied, was “persistent in my phone calls,” and eventually got a part-time job as a cashier.

That part-time gig eventually turned into a full-time job at the family-owned business. Through the years, her work as a cashier has evolved into other jobs, each presenting new challenges.

“I started out as a cashier, then into helping out with receiving, checking in merchandise,” Cardwell said. “Now that's what I do - checking the price, making sure of what you get in, checking for damages, making sure we get the right dating, right price on invoices.”

Since the business also has a store in Findlay, she coordinates inventory with her counterpart there. “We're a multi-store computer,” she said. “So I'm coordinating back and forth with their store.”

Along with having the opportunity to learn new things in her 20-plus years at DeHavens, Cardwell enjoys the variety of the job.

“It's always changing,” she said. “Everything changes from season to season. Every day it's something different. I like that it's just a lot of different things. My job doesn't take a time off. There's always merchandise coming in. You might have a lull. But by the time we're into summer, we may have Christmas stuff coming in.”

She has also learned a lot about customers and how to find what they want. “You learn patience,” she said, chuckling. “You have to be patient with people. Sometimes you have to draw them out. They ask for one thing and you have to draw them out as to what they want. Do they have a different name for it? Maybe they're not sure exactly what they want.”

As well, she's learned to be what she describes as a “jack of all trades around here.”

She recalled the day most of the men in the store were away at a training program. “I taught myself how to make keys,” she said. “It's not a bad thing to know. You have to know a little bit of everything.”

That, says her boss Tim DeHaven, is exactly the quality she possesses.

“Actually Naomi can do anything in our business,” he said. “She does it all. She's been with me a long time.”

Working for a small family business has its rewards, Cardwell said. “I've been here long enough it's just like an extension of my own family. I guess that's the way I look at it.”

That family feeling extended to her during difficult times where her mother was ill a few years ago, and in January when her brother passed away.

During her mom's illness, it was easy for Naomi to take time off to be with her mom in the hospital. “They were really understanding about that,” she said, of the DeHavens. When her brother passed away in January, she felt that same sense of caring. “They were very understanding. There's always somebody here who will back you up, take your place so you don't have to worry.”

“You don't get lost in the shuffle,” she said. “You're not just another peg in the hole. What I do makes a difference.”