No Small Moments - Flynn - August 2, 2026

No Small Moments

“Flynn”

©Hubcatstide2026

Her name is Flynn. Actually, it’s Joanne Flynn, but the Area Sales Managers and employees who worked for her called her “Flynn.” She was the manager at Dillard’s in West Fort Worth, and it felt like she had eyes in the back of her head. That woman didn’t miss a thing. She could spy a mis hung garment from five hundred paces. She would slide twenty shirts onto one arm and reach into a box full of boxes and hang those suckers faster than the Trinty River during a flood. Flynn led by example. She spent more time on the floor straightening Ralph Lauren or China displays than she did in her office. She was a manager, a leader, and a teacher who led with empathy, compassion, accountability, trust, and an iron fist when needed.

In 2001, I had to leave Calgary and return to Fort Worth to file for permanent residency in Canada. My mother’s second home was Dillard’s and watching Flynn engage with my mother was like watching a comedy on a big screen, the only thing missing was popcorn. Both women could start a conversation with anyone, and they appreciated textures, especially Lauren’s choice of fabric.

Flynn hired me and paid me the top hourly wage of $12 per hour and placed me in the perfume section. I’m not sure if she watched me via a camera in our camera room. Cameras were everywhere in the store because theft, especially “gypsies” planned heists, were brutal. One Christmas, the Estee Lauder “U” shaped kiosk glass counters were full of Christmas Estee Lauder baskets. Usually two, sometimes three women were scheduled at the same time to cover the sides and front of the “U.” A group of roaming thieves took their time surveying when the women would take their lunch breaks. One day, only one woman was in working in the kiosk. The some of the thieves intentionally called the woman to the far left side and kept her busy as they asked questions about the baskets and product, while the rest of the thieves ready with huge black plastic bags swooped the baskets on the front and right side into their bags and ran. Ther store lost 11.8 thousand dollars that day in that one kiosk.

So, Flynn may have been watching me with customers or employees via a camera, or from standing somewhere else and observing. She called me into her office and told me she wanted to teach me some back-room management responsibilities like doing markdowns, printing sales tickets, how the switch board worked, accounting regarding checks, and more. After 911, during Christmas Flynn asked me to help set up the Christmas trees, each one decorated with an ornament theme, teaching me merchandising. I learned there is a hidden store inside the walls full of storage, merchandise, and area sales management offices. She taught me how to schedule employees and let me roam and work in every section of the store. On December 21st, a well-known woman, an influencer in Fort Worth, came into the store. Her family had suffered a tragic and unexpected loss of a family member, and she had not been able to do any shopping for gifts. Flynn called me to her office and said, “Hey, you have gifts around empathy and grief, you know this store, you are organized, and this is the story…and the woman only has two hours to shop for sixteen people. I grabbed some straight pins, two pens, post its, and a flatbed cart from our receiving area and met the woman. I wrote down the names of each person she was shopping for and led her to the Ralph Laren Pad to shop for the men in her life. I asked her to describe what each person was like, their taste and sizes, and gathered 2 to 3 complete outfits. We did the same with the women in her life. Each outfit had the person’s name on a post it, pinned to the item on top. We went to the cologne and perfume sections, jewelry, fine jewelry, watches, basically everywhere in the store, and we accomplished her list in 2 hours and fifteen minutes. She paid for everything at the office customer service. Her bill was almost twenty thousand dollars. I walked her to her car, and she hugged me with tears streaming down her face.

After waving goodbye, I ran to find Flynn and asked her if I could personally wrap each gift to ensure there were no mix ups, and if I could take one of the Dillard’s trucks and personally deliver them to the woman’s house. Flynn said, “Get on it woman’ and I did. The next day, I called the woman and asked her if I could deliver the gifts and she was overjoyed. I knocked on her beautiful massive front door and when she opened it, the foyer must have contained two hundred poinsettias, all stacked and displayed like live velvet. I asked her if I could bring the gifts in and place them under her Christmas Tree, and happy tears flowed down her face. It took an hour to carefully place each gift and we hugged goodbye. In the fifteen minutes it took to drive back to Dillard’s, the woman had called Flynn and talked with her about her experience. She said, I have called three friends and shared how you and Traci took care of me. Would you be open to having an after-hours shopping time for me and twenty of my friends tomorrow, December 23rd? I know you are busy and exhausted, but I promise this will be a night to remember. Flynn obliged. The women came with wine and red cups, and shopped for two hours, Flynn kept a skeleton crew, so we were hopping like rabbits. That event brought in $124,000. The day after Christmas, Flynn called me into her office. I thought, “Oh no! I mixed up a nametag on a gift.”

“Have a seat,” she said.

My knees were shaking. Flynn went over the story the woman shared about her experience, she talked about the after-hours event, and said, “You were responsible for bringing in an unforeseen $140,000 profit this Christmas. And that’s great. But what impressed me was your intention and care for the woman and her family. Your customer service was a humanitarian service of kindness. I am recommending you for management.”

That’s how my retail management career began. By caring about and being with another person in their grief.

A year later, Flynn said, “You want to be with your girls in Calgary.” (I was financially supporting them while jumping through all the immigration hoops). “Yes. I want this more than anything. The Hubcats need to be together.”

Flynn said, I know a guy, actually he’s a friend. He owns “Lammle’s Western Wear.” He has twenty-four stores, many in Calgary, and his office is in Calgary. His name is Doug Lammle, and I have already talked with him about you. You are going to Calgary to cook Spaghetti and Meatballs for Sarah’s birthday next month, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, here is Doug’s cell phone number. He wants to interview you for a management position in one of his Calgary stores.”

When I left Flynn’s office, I went outside and wept. In April 2006, the Hubcats became permanent residents in Canada, and in May, I began managing a store in Shawnessy, Calgary. Over the past twenty one years, Doug and his wife Audrey have become family to me. In 2009, I began a position in paid accountable ministry in the United Church of Canada. In 2016, my daughters and I became Canadian citizens. In December 2024, I became the minister of Lake Country United Church. A lot of life happened in between all these years, love and loss that took me to my knees. But every step of my journey has been guided by the Spirit working in people I met, inside of me, preparing me, transforming me, and paving the way to this moment behind my desk in my office at church.

Mom introduced me to Flynn long before I became her apprentice and martini maker. My Mom cannot physically be here, and I would not wish that for her...for her heart to continue to ache with so much loss and pain.

But Flynn, you are here...and your heart is larger than you know...your spirit is stronger than you know. And you have changed lives for the better much more than you can fathom. And this June evening, as I finish this blog from home looking at Lake Okanagan, I wish you were here to see how you open the door to possibilities and a new beginning for me and my daughters. I've got the time, lime, and buckets of gratitude.

So, as you once said to me, “Get on it woman.”

There are no small moments.

Traci Hubbard