FOR 21 years, Michael Harris — one of two deaf employees at Brooklyn Supermarket in Kingston — has packed groceries for customers, a job he indicates he would not trade for any other.

Career & Education recently sat with the 43-year-old for an interview, during which he wrote his responses.

According to Harris, who was educated at St Christopher’s School of the Deaf in St Ann, packing groceries is something he loves doing.

The job is one he has no problem travelling from his home, located in Above Rocks, to perform six days a week in Half-Way-Tree.

After graduating from St Christopher’s School of the Deaf, Harris wrote that he migrated with his mother into the United States of America in 1985.

However, he was uncomfortable with the seasonal climate, especially the cold, and decided to return to Jamaica in 1988.

On returning to the island, he lived with his grandmother and secured employment as a football coach. Four years later, in 1992, secured the position as a supermarket packer at Master’s Supermarket.

He worked for Master’s for nine years, during which time he was stationed at their Orange Street location in downtown Kingston and then at Pavilion Mall, before they closed 12 years ago.

SuperPlus Supermarket took over the management of Master’s Supermarket location in Pavillion Mall, and, thankfully, Harris was not made redundant. He was, instead, given the opportunity to continue working at the location where he had come to feel at home. Most of the customers knew him and were aware that he was deaf.

Over the years, Harris wrote that his work has a packer has not proven challenging for precisely this reason — and the fact that he has, over time, had good supervisors who were understanding of his disability.

Cynthia Martin is one such supervisor. And according to her, Harris is a dream to supervise.

“Harris is trustworthy. If someone steals something and he sees them, although he is not able to speak, he makes a sound to alert you. If something happens, I can depend on Harris to tell me what took place,” she said. “I can send him to the bank to pay a bill and he does it. He doesn’t steal and he does what he’s told.”

Critical to effectively working with members of the deaf of community, she said, is patience.

“You have to have patience with them [deaf staff members]. If there is a problem with him [Harris], I’m the person they always call because I understand him and I have patience with him,” she said.

Meanwhile, asked what he liked most about his job, Harris wrote “I like packing bags”, adding in sign language that the tips he received had proven a real incentive to continue in his work, prompting laughter from Martin.

On a more serious note, he said it was important that persons with disabilities not allow their disability to get the better of them. There is, he wrote, no excuse not to find a purpose in life.

For himself, Harris said he is inspired by his two sons — Kirk, 20 and Shawn, 12 — and his own need to be independent.

His job, he said, may not be the most glamorous, but it helps to give him purpose and has provided him with a community of friends — hearing and deaf.