Two-and-a-half year old Keenan lit up when he saw his favourite cashier at Donalds Market.
Carmen Louie, the bespectacled object of his affection, gave the little boy a hug and with a warm, gap-toothed smile greeted grandma and mom by name. Moments later, Louie greeted an elderly woman in Mandarin, then corrected herself and called the pleased woman grandma in Cantonese.
Another customer tried to teach Louie a bit of Arabic by paying her a compliment. I made your day, right? he said to Louie. You made my day first.
Louie didnt know the mans name, which is rare because Louie has memorized more than 7,000 of Donalds customers names in the nearly eight years shes worked at the grocery store on East Hastings near Nanaimo. My pastor said its not work any more, its more like a vocation, Louie said. I said Amen, brother.
In March 2004, a customer asked Louie how many shoppers names she knew. She recorded all the names she could recall on her lunch break and counted 32. Then I said maybe I should set a goal.
She aimed for 100 names by April, 200 names by May, and 300 names by June. She saw how much joy feeling known gave her customers and carried on with the project. In the beginning, I [studied] maybe five hours a week, or more, Louie said.
Shed think of their names while gardening, washing dishes and lying in bed. Her husband and three sons think shes crazy. But her obsession has won her legions of fans. Louie was dubbed Cashier with the longest lineups and the most friends by the Georgia Straight and praised in a review of Donalds Market on the online review site Yelp. Mike McCardell of Global BC wrote about Louie in a chapter entitled Feel-Good Folks in his book The Expanded Reilly Method. Composer Peter Hannan wrote a song called Saint Carmen for his fourpart Happiness Index work that premiered at the Vancouver International Dance Festival in 2009.
Louie records new names by numbering them and including associative memory cues on receipt slips then transfers them into slim notebooks. She stores the original slips for backup.
The latest entry in her fourth double-sided note pad reads, 7076, Jude, sing The Beatles Hey Jude.
A former Catholic village girl from the Philippines who first spoke Ilocano then Tagalog, when Louie went on holiday for a week in 2010, the store posted a sign to explain that she was away after so many customers asked about her whereabouts.
The Hastings-Sunrise resident, who also works at the nearby CIBC bank, teaches Sunday school and serves lunch to seniors at the Burnaby North Baptist Church, said her connection with Jesus feeds her joy. I come to work, I pray, I say Lord bless me today and let me shine for you, for these people.
This story originally appeared in the Vancouver Courier.
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