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It’s a familiar situation to many. You need a little extra income on the side, and decide to take on a part time job. Retail work seems relaxed and easy so that’s the route to go. You quickly realize though, that even if it’s not physically demanding, it’s still shitty work.
A few years back, I was a rep for a clothing brand that shares its name with small, politically unstable countries with economies dependent on the exportation of limited-resource products. At most, I was making $9 per hour after taxes and it was a living hell. While the job had a few nice perks (i.e. an employee discount) there are some standout issues of retail work that outweigh anything good.
Like almost every store, there was a huge push to get people to sign up for our credit card program. I never felt comfortable badgering people to open a card which I knew had a terrible rate and only got you a mere 10% off. Every day I worked, a manager would give me the low down on any new products, and let me know that my goal should be to get at least five new credit enrollments that day. I would nod, knowing full well I wasn’t going to get any people to sign up.
The one time I did get someone to enroll for a credit card, I encouraged them to get the sign on discount, pay off the balance, then cancel the account. I guess that conversation was overheard by a higher-up and I was in the doghouse for a while. Whoops.
Management was annoying, but the customers were even worse. I learned an important life lesson during my “brand representative” stint, and it’s that people suck.
There would be countless shoppers bitching to me about the quality of the product as if I was the one making the chinos, not some exploited laborer in Indonesia. No one seemed to bat an eye at destroying nicely folded piles of shirts or throwing unwanted items directly on the floor. There was absolutely no sense of self-awareness. A woman once came in and let her toddler ransack the entire place, shattering perfume bottles and toppling a mannequin, all while she calmly asked if we carried a skirt in “petite.”
There was a common phenomenon of people asking me to look for something in the back if we didn’t have a size or color they wanted. There weren’t piles of extra product back there, but I guess people were picturing a whole extra warehouse where we were selfishly keeping all the size 7 shoes. I would go into the storage room, dick around for a few minutes, then come back out and apologize for not having what they were looking for and let them know I could order it online for them.
One of the worst posts you could have was working the dressing rooms. Someone once left a pair of dirty underwear behind on the floor and I came so close to just walking out of the store. How can people be that gross, and why does it have to affect me? It could be fun helping people figure out what clothing combos worked together, or what fit was best for their shape. However, the typical dressing room patron just wants you to unlock a door for them, then take the five thousand items they tried on and didn’t like and put them back.
The most bearable part of the job was ringing up customers. Working a register doesn’t take too much of a skillset. I could mindlessly ring up hundreds of sweaters and take off security tags in one fell swoop. I would come into work praying that they would let me work checkout the whole day and I could text during slow hours and listen to my co-worker complain about her boyfriend DMing other girls on Twitter.
In the end, I was let go by the company once they found out I was in school out of state, and would be going home for the holidays. Because there’s one holy truth in retail: if you can’t work on Black Friday, you may as well be dead. .
Respond
Kell
future soccer mom of America (AKA I drive a Volvo.) Miracle is my favorite movie and it should be yours too.
@backpackfanclub
@instagram
“Oh I’m sorry there’s not a tag on this one.”
“So it must be free!”… No, Karen but I appreciate your originality.
Everyone should have to work in retail or food service in high school or college
Try working in healthcare, it will make you hate everyone
Can confirm. People are shit.
I worked retail throughout college. If I had a dime for every time I asked someone ‘can I help you find anything’ and they responded ‘nope just looking’ I wouldn’t need to work for the rest of my life
My personal favorite response to that question: “No we’re just looking. But where is (insert product name here)?”
So, you worked at GAP?
nah, Apple Democracy
Love that place but Squash Dictatorship has better blindfolds
(Which is owned by GAP…)
And Mold Gravy
BR has some nice clothes, but are way overpriced.
Agree. Only time I bought BR was when my girlfriend worked there and I got to use her discount. Hello “domestic partner”.
Plot twist: It was Girl that was the coworker complaining about her boyfriend DMing people on Twitter. All PGP content occurs in the same universe
Currently side-hustling nights ans weekends at Target to make some extra cash for the holidays and to pay down some debt. It sucks, I’m always tired, and I hate it, but I hate being broke and stressed out more, so I’m sticking it out at least until the end of the year.
I survived working in retail by giving occasionally smartass answers to questions by customers, such as:
Customer: where’s the parking garage?
Me: Well, we have 2. Which one are you in?
Customer: I’m in the underground parking garage.
Me: Both of our parking garages are above ground.
Worked as a service coordinator on-and-off throughout late high school/early college for my dad’s small retail business. You occasionally get calls from people who you think can’t actually be like that, but they are. You build more character and learn more about people working in retail than you do in most other jobs out there