Paul’s last day

By Craig Westcott

Sometimes nice guys do finish on top.
Paul Heffernan is proof of that. 
The friendly giant of a grocery store manager retired last week from Sobey’s in Long Pond, CBS after 44 years in the grocery business – not because he’s sick of it, or because someone wants him out, but simply because, like many sensible, hardworking people, he is ready.
Heffernan leaves behind countless good memories and friendships, and an example of what hard work, smarts and decency can accomplish. It’s also left him grateful. Heffernan met his wife in the grocery business. That’s given him a loving family with grandchildren whom he plans to spend a lot more time with.
At 6’ 4”, Heffernan towers over most of his staff and customers, who are usually quickly disarmed by his smile and gentle manner. He also has a head for details.
That’s handy if you’re managing a store with thousands of customers to satisfy, a hundred or so staff to manage, and thousands of items to track, many of them perishable. Not that Heffernan shows much stress, though he admits it’s probably in the background.
“Once you get used to it, you don’t realize it,” he said. “When you’ve got good folks around you, it makes it easier, people who know their jobs and they do them well… The thing I liked about working out here (in CBS) is that it’s 18 minutes basically from the time I leave here until I get to my door. That’s without any traffic, or stuff. I find that it clears my head. By the time I get home I get through everything that was bugging me for the day and then I’ll go for a walk and that’s even better.”
Heffernan also has a head for dates, especially family events, and numbers. His first job was actually in the newspaper business. “I helped publish an edition of the Daily News, June 27, 1981,” he recalled of that one shift in the press room. “I had just turned 16.”
But a few days later he got a call from a grocery store. He had applied at every supermarket in his area – the Stop and Shop on Topsail Road, Dominion in the Village Mall, Cooper’s and Sobey’s on Topsail Road.
“I was just hoping to hook into a job,” Heffernan said. “Because as you know, in ‘81, the economy wasn’t great back then. I applied to all of them, and we did shop at Sobey’s, believe it or not, and I figured I’d end up getting a job there, but I didn’t. Dominion called me on Monday, June 30, ‘81 and hired me and I started work that afternoon. I’ve been in the business ever since.”
Heffernan spent 18 and a half years with Dominion. That first job at the Village saw him manning a fruit and vegetable stand in the parking lot. 
“That was for the summer, and then when September came, I went up into the store and I was trained as a cashier,” Heffernan said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of male cashiers around. Their thinking was, where we had the carry-out system with the red tote boxes, they’d put you down between two female cashiers and if they had a heavy tote to go over (on the rails) when you were throwing yours over, it would only take a second to grab theirs’s. That’s where I met my wife, back in ‘83. I remember her slaving with the boxes and I’d run down two or three checkouts and say, ‘I’ll get that for you, Joanne,’ and throw it over. Anyway, we started to date and along with my grocery career that romance blossomed and that’s flourished to today too.”
Getting back to that first summer at Dominion, when the fall came, Heffernan’s parents, John and Nellie, expected him to drop the job and concentrate on school. He was part of the last Grade 11 graduating class before the school system changed and high school was extended to Grade 12.
“I remember making a deal with them,” said Heffernan. “I said if my grades don’t drop, I can keep working. If my grades are down by Christmas, I’ll give it up and concentrate on my studies. So, there were weeks I worked between 20 and 30 hours a week while going to school – and there was no Sunday work then – and my grades were better in Grade 11 than they were in Grade 10 because I was motivated, and they let me keep the job and I’ve been at it ever since.”
He loved the work right from the get go.
“It’s funny, I considered myself an introvert, I was very shy,” said Heffernan. “I can remember being at the Village and (back) then you had to page someone to approve a cheque, and they told me, ‘You have to get on the P.A. (public address system), but I’d have someone page for me. But eventually I got over that fear and started using the P.A.”
After he graduated high school, Heffernan was available full time. Soon, Dominion moved him to its Churchill Square store. 
“And then they offered me a produce manager’s job out in Gander,” he said.
He was 19 years old and already moving up in management. After two years in Gander, he was brought back to St. John’s where he was appointed as store manager at National Discount in Kelligrews, site of the former Cooper’s Supermarket. 
Next, he was manager at a succession of stores, including the Dominion on Parade Street, the old General location on Topsail Road where Dollorama is now, then Mount Pearl, where Colemans is now located, followed by Ropewalk Lane, and Pearlgate where he was manager for about two-and-half years before being approached by Sobeys.
That was 1999. It was a big decision to leave Dominion.
“I had three children home and Joanne wanted to be at home with the children,” Heffernan said. “She was getting ready to work (again) part time, but I was the sole breadwinner, you could say. But the funny part was, I remember, talking to her parents. You’ve got to know her mother and father (Betty and the late Len Howell) – I love them dearly. But if one would say ‘black,’ the other would say ‘white.’ Myself and Joanne called them over one night and told them that I had this offer from Sobeys, and the two of them looked at me and said, ‘Take it.’ So, when the two of them agreed on something like that, I figured you don’t mess with this, you take the job and go.”
Heffernan flourished as much at Sobeys as he had at Dominion, and he liked the culture at Sobeys. His first job was as a district manager. He spent a year and a half at that before getting the chance again to manage a store of his own.
“I was most happy in a store, in a store manager’s role,” he admitted. “So, I asked to go back in a store.”
Sobeys asked him to open and manage its new Mount Pearl store on Old Placentia Road. He came on as manager at Sobeys in Long Pond some 15 years ago.
He still loves the work.
“I always got along with people,” said Heffernan. “I always believed in treating people the way I liked to be treated – you know, don’t do anyone wrong. To me, my honesty and my loyalty is what makes me. I’d never take anything on anyone, or anything like that. I’d much rather for someone to come and say you’re fired then take away my honesty, my good name is what I call it.”
It was those traits that no doubt helped Heffernan rise so quickly through the ranks at Dominion at a time in the grocery industry when there wasn’t much training and some of the lessons came via the school of hard knocks. 
“I guess they saw something that maybe even I didn’t see in myself at the time,” Heffernan said, quietly. 
And he was a quick study. One fellow he learned something important from was an older store manager named Noel Conway.
“It was something simple,” Heffernan said. “Today, everyone has got iPads and phones and that. But he always worked from a clipboard. He always walked around in the morning, with a coffee balanced off the end of his clipboard. He’d say to whoever was answering the phones, ‘I want my hour, so just take messages.’ And he’d walk the store and plan his day and talk to his team, follow up with them. And it’s something I still do today. I start the morning with what I call a coffee walk. I basically walk around the store and wish everyone good morning, see how they’re doing… But I’ve been blessed with great teams. You look at them and they enjoy what they do, and it shows when people come in to shop.”
Heffernan knows it’s going to feel funny this week when he doesn’t have to go in the store. But there will be some distractions. Each of Heffernan’s children – Jessica, Geoff and Patrick – have two children each. The oldest of the grandchildren is eight and the youngest just turned three.
“For me, I’ll be 60 next month and I just think it’s time to spend some time with the family before I get to a point where you’re not able or where you start having health issues, or whatever,” he said.
But it will be strange adjusting to a lack of schedule. Mostly, he is going to miss the people, both staff and customers.
“I’m excited. It’s another chapter for life,” said Heffernan. “I’m taking the summer off. It’s the first summer off since I was 15… I really enjoyed my time at Sobeys here. It’s a great family business. And all the customers and folks I met over the years I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. The people in Conception Bay South are just amazing.”