The Retail World v. The Real World

Many of you know what it is like to work retail. For many of you, retail serviced as a job that was able to give you money to pay bills or go out; it was a way for you to get money and start to rely less on your parents and become more independent. I am no different. I am 18 and on my second job, I have been at this place of employment for close to two years now, this place is Babies R Us.

I've recently taken a step back and realized that those in retail or those who have worked retail have seen both sides. Now this may seem like an obvious thing, but we have the power to see things from both points of view and those points of view, those perspectives, make us two different people. On one hand we have the normal version of us, the regular version, the version of ourselves where we are the customer in someone else's store. We feel the pressure to sign up for the store's credit card, to sign up for the rewards card, we feel the pressure to not let them pressure us that so often we give in to their millions of questions. We are just another victim of another retail experience.

Then we have our retail selves. We have the version of ourselves that are cold-hearted and careless. The version of ourselves that is trained to never take no for an answer. The version of ourselves that are constantly getting hammered about metrics. "You need to get this many credit card sign ups." "You need this many rewards cards." "You need to sell this amount of stuff."

When you think about it, it's all just one long chain of pressure. Corporate is pressuring the store manager, the store manager is pressuring the assistants, the assistants are pressuring the supervisors who are then pressuring the employees who then pressure the customers which then leave in a bad mood because of it and snap at their families. It's just this strain of stress and pressure that starts at the top of the food chain and it doesn't just trickle down, it floods down. There is so much stress and pressure in making everyone happy and meeting this expectations and while that's fine when those expectations are reasonable, sometimes they aren't and sometimes they just aren't possible. And while many times we try our best, or at least should, when we get shut down we blame ourselves. Constructive criticism is great, but not when it tears you apart.

I guess this rant started in one place and may end in another. Remember that the employees at the stores you shop at are people too and remember that your customers are just like you. That's a good message and that's where I started, but I think where I am ending is that don't let other people's reactions determine your worth. If you are expected to get x amount of whatever and you don't, but you tried your hardest, then you succeeded that day. All you can do is try.

We are all human, we are all living, and we all just need to learn to coexist and take care of each other.