Annabelle could never get the work she wanted because she lacked the education. After eighteen years at K-Mart, she became unemployed when it closed its doors in 1998. Needing to work to supplement her husband’s disability income, she tried to find suitable work or training. At 53, she enrolled in the Minto CASP, to try to get her GED, so she might pursue her aptitude for clerical work. Succeeding, she now loves her work as a casual filing clerk for NB Power.

Like a lot of young people, I was in a hurry to get nice clothes that were in fashion. I quit in grade nine. I worked most of my life, since I was 15, in restaurants, laundries, and factories. I got a job at the Post Office in Ontario and worked there almost a year before deciding to come back home. Here, I went back to factories. I worked at the cotton mill. It was hard.

At the K-Mart, I was only the floor walker. I didn’t have the education to go to work as a clerk because they wanted high school graduates. After 5 years of being the walker, I was getting discouraged with the high shelves, in trying not to lose sight of the person I was watching. When they brought in the layaway program, I asked to be put on it and the manager said, “It’s your baby.” They brought in people from Montreal to train (me). I stayed on that for the rest of the time I worked at K-Mart. Then came the word that K-Mart was sold and I thought life was over. Most of us cried. We didn’t know what was going to happen to us.

During the last month I worked, I took a homemaker course on working with seniors, using all my sick days and time I had coming to me, in order to take it. I knew it was something that I could do. I thought that it’s a backup anyway. That’s what it’s turned out to be. I started working for Services to Seniors right away.