Shopping. Tax Free Weekend. Black Friday. Holiday season. Labor Day Sales. Back to School.
For many people, these words bring up anxieties of saving up money or joys thinking about all the new things they are going to buy. For others, these words bring feelings of stress and exhaustion. Those people would be the lovely citizens I like to call retail workers.
The moment I turned 16 my parents began hounding me to get a job. I didn't want to work with food because I know how people get when their orders aren't correct. I loved shopping, so I came to the decision to find a job at the mall. Now, this is a typical first job for a 16-year-old, but little did I know the amount I would learn from working in a store about human behavior and about myself and how much I would grow as an adult.
The world of retail is an interesting one, and it is like a game of chance. You could be lucky if you get a manager who actually cares about your schedule and will work around it, or you could get one that doesn't care if you are working close to 40 hours while still being in school with sports and attempting to have a social life. You could get the super cool coworkers who laugh through the pain of closing on a Friday night, or the ones who barely speak to you. Then you could get the customers who are understanding and pleasant and make you hope that they come back again, or the ones who ruin your night by not understanding the return policy and make you want to rip your hair out.
As a person who has been in retail for years, I have learned quite a few things:
Some customers really stink. They come in with bad attitudes and don't care how many times you have fixed that pile of shirts. They don't know what they want and if you don't give them the help they want to their standards, then they will write you off as a person who doesn't do their job right or that you don't know what you are doing. On the other side, some customers can make your day. They have a smile on their faces, they know exactly what they want and they are in a happy mood that is nothing less than contagious.
Not every manager is the same. I for one, have had a variety of managers. Some were mean and uncooperative, and others played the two characteristics that I believe are important for a manager to have: the fun, easy-going manager and the manager who can lay down the law when it is necessary.
Organization can really become an essential part of your life. When the store is in disarray with shoe boxes in completely different spots, tags "hidden," children running around touching every mirror and pulling merchandise from their spots, you learn to love the quiet moments when you can just focus on one piece of merchandise and get it to perfection, even though you know that someone will come mess it up. A clean store is a happy store. This also gives you an appreciation for the times you have off to be productive and to just relax before going back into the ever changing world of retail.
