30 Jun July at Experienced Goods
by Jennie Reichman
Lately I find myself doing battle with a word: Aging. I rebel against the idea that after, say, age 50, I should think of myself as “old” and act, dress, talk and engage in the world differently than I previously did when I was “young,” that I have become irrelevant and inconsequential. It bothers me that many people my age are resistant to change and are convinced that the ways they did things 20 or 30 years ago were better than how life is evolving today. This is a mindset that creates polarization and in fact deprives both younger generations and older ones of benefiting from each other’s experiences and knowledge. So I do my best to stay engaged, keep up on fashion, technology and world events, be cognizant of the world we are creating for the people who will be inheriting it, and try to cultivate relationships with people younger than me.
That said, we live in a time when some things have changed for the worse. Mass shootings, violence in public places, police brutality, these are horrors we are getting used to hearing and reading about. They happen so frequently and so widely that I experience a kind of desensitization each time I hear another shocking news report, but always in the back of my mind is the thought, “What if that happened here?” Given that gun violence and other attacks are happening in communities large and small across the country, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Even laid-back, inclusive Brattleboro has seen violence fueled by anger, fear, drug use, conflict. At Experienced Goods, we have been confronted with shoplifting and other disruptive behaviors for many years and have had to take action by no-trespassing several people. But recently it became clear that, in the interest of staff and volunteer safety and the preservation of the shop as a reliably nonviolent space, we needed some input from the professionals.
Enter JM Spartan Training, LLC. One morning last month, two seasoned former police officers and detectives spent a few hours with the staff talking with us about the potential for violence in our community and how to recognize it and address it. They helped us design a plan of action for evacuating the store should an event occur, and they gave us language for identifying behaviors that, in their words, connect the dots leading to violent action. As unsettling as it is to think about needing to utilize these skills, having protocols in place that all of us are aware of and have had a hand in creating goes a long way toward feeling safe and prepared.
It’s sad that we have to address these issues, but that is how the world has changed. We want all of our shoppers and donors to know that safety and preparedness are how we intend for Experienced Goods to remain the welcoming, enjoyable store we all love. We will continue to receive further training and are in the process of creating written protocols that will become a permanent part of the Employee Handbook. In the meantime and as always, your support and patronage mean the world to us, and if anything can help deter violence in the world, it is people pulling together and supporting each other.