It’s almost 10pm on a Tuesday. Janice is still wearing her Starbucks
apron. She’s sitting at her kitchen table, working on homework due
at midnight. Behind her, a receipt from her shift sits on the
counter. The till was counted right. It’s a small thing yes but it’s a
win to Janice.
Janice is in her final year at Thompson Rivers University, where she’s studying Human Resources. Alongside her studies, she works two jobs, one at Starbucks and another at Rexall Pharmacy. She also enjoys volunteering at community events around Kamloops whenever she has the opportunity. During tax season, she volunteers at the TRU Tax Clinic, where she helps prepare tax returns for community members.
None of this looks big on its own. It is an accumulative thing. A finished
assignment. A tax form filled out correctly. But Janice says it’s all of
it added up together that matters and tells a bigger story.
“There’s no one big moment where it all clicks,” she says. “You just
Janice G. John
show up, you do the thing in front of you, and you do it again the
next day. Then one day you look back and see you built something.”
That “something” is made of small skills done over and over:
handling cash under pressure, helping a upset customer calm down,
training someone new, staying organized enough to work two jobs and
go to school without dropping the ball.
It’s not a story that makes the headlines. But it’s the kind of story
most people are actually living, portraying one small win at a time.