When I was a teenager I went with a friend who was job hunting on the weekend. She was a bit older and was very attractive and well dressed like she could be a 20-something office employee in some large company. I was 16 and she had turned 19 so I hung out with her as she dropped off resumes and had some friendly interactions with managers of retail stores that had ‘hiring’ signs.

We walked by one really nice new boutique style store that was specialising in fine teas, tea pots and related items and pasteries and which had a small area with some tables that served tea for those who wanted to sit for a cup much like a cafe. Most most of the products at the sit down cafe area were tea and they did have cappaccinos and espressos etc. The store was painted and decorated in bright white and off-white colours in a very French Parisian style with a few prints of the Eiffel tower and I thought what a beautiful place to work, so I suggested to my friend that we should drop her resume at the boutique because it appeared to be a new place that just opened recently and there was still some painting and decorating being done in the back as we could see.

Just before we entered the boutique we walked past what I thought was some homeless lady sitting outside where some workmen were building a new outdoor patio for extra tables with large planter boxes with soil to serve as the border that would enclose their store-front dining outdoor patio. She was dressed in grubby clothes and her slightly-graying hair had flecks of paint and she was sipping tea in a paper cup.

The ‘homeless lady’ smiled and said, ‘Good afternoon’ and I responded with a smile and a ‘Good afternoon to you ma’am’. I then asked her if ‘she wanted some more tea and a treat from the cafe boutique’ which I was happy to buy for her since it was a bright July early afternoon and being a nice person I wanted to do something nice for someone less fortunate. She responded with a ‘Thanks but I’m okay’.

As my friend and I walked into the boutique which already had most of the front set up with all its products in the store and some customers sitting at the tables in the cafe area my friend said loudly enough, “why would you offer to buy some food for that homeless grubby woman. She looks like some creepy old hag and she might even be a drug addict who would steal from this pretty place”? I answered, “well even if she is a homeless person she’s still a human being and she was nice enough to say ‘Good afternoon’ with a smile” to which my friend responded, “Well if she’s homeless she probably deserves to be there otherwise she could be working at this fine place and I doubt they’d hire a creepy old hag like her”.

Some of the workmen dressed in painting disposable coveralls glanced over at us and didn’t say anything as they walked in and out with some tools and items for the patio they were building and they smiled with one of them saying, ‘Good afternoon’ and I nodded with a smile while my friend just ignored the greeting. My friend walked up to an attractive young woman with a strong French accent and asked ‘if the boutique was hiring and if so could we speak to the manager’. The young woman, who was about my age of 16 or possibly even 15 told us that ‘her mom was just on lunch break but would be back in about five minutes’ so we were offered each a free cup of some wonderful ‘Moroccan Mint’ tea at the tables and we sat down and waited.

About 10 minutes later the young woman brought over one of the workmen, the same one who said ‘Good Morning’, who was wearing a coverall with paint splashed over and his hands all grubby and with his strong French accent he told us that ‘he and his wife are the owners of the new establishment and she’ll be happy to meet us in a about a minute’.

The next minute that same ‘homeless’ woman came over to our table and had combed her hair back and tied into a bun and came over and smiled and my friend said loudly enough, “No Thanks, we’re waiting for the owner” and the French man dressed in the paint splattered coveralls looked at us with wide eyes and was rather shocked. The ‘homeless woman’ introduced herself and said, “Me and my husband here are the owners and I understand you want to apply to work here”. Her smile was gone but my friend stood up and said, “you own this place?”, to which the French man said, “yes we do and we’re looking to open another location next year if this one does well”. The woman apologized for her appearance explaining that ‘they had just finished setting up the back and finished much of the painting and had to stock the store’ and the Frenchman then left us to go do some more work as my friend handed over her resume from the designer purse/briefcase she was carrying.

The woman sat down with us and scanned over my friend’s resume and asked both of us some questions but I explained that I wasn’t really looking for work but my friend was as the friend that I was with was coldly answering questions about availability and experiences and still looking rather disgusted at the owner’s appearance with a judgemental look.

When I asked the woman - who was an English-speaking Canadian - about the boutique and its French flair to show some interest in her and her business she happily shared that ‘she lived in France for the last 20+ years and fell in love with France and met her husband when she worked at a restaurant and she always wanted to own a cafe style boutique and she and her husband loved drinking tea’.

The interview ended and the owner said that ‘she’d call my friend to let her know either way since she had some more people to interview’ and she asked for my number as well, since I shared that ‘I also speak French and that I’d love to visit Paris one day and other areas of France’.

About two days later I got a call from the husband who wanted to come for an interview with him and his wife and I happily brought my resume even though I wasn’t really looking for a job at the moment. I came that weekend and was hired on the spot and by the end of the week my friend called me to tell me that she never heard back from the boutique and was complaining about ‘that grubby woman who should’ve known to dress better if she had lived in France for over 20 years’.

I never told my friend that I got hired at the boutique until she walked by one weekend and saw me working behind the counter and she stood on the sidewalk outside the store.

She called me and accused me of ‘being a backstabber’ and that she felt betrayed and she said that ‘she’d never speak to me again and that was the ‘end of the relationship’.

I worked at that boutique cafe for about a year and my friend left to go to university overseas and I’m not sure what’s she doing today.

So, that’s my long story about someone who judged a book by its cover.

The boutique had opened four more locations since it first started and it was later sold to a larger company and is franchised out now with hundreds of locations in North America and the original owners are still connected as CEOs or directors in some fashion and they’re millionaires today as well.