|
Department Store Hell
by
This summer, I have had the unique pleasure of working for a major
department store. Now, I’ve worked retail in the past, so I thought I
knew what I was getting into. The annoying customers, the stupid
questions, the general boredom and annoyance-- but I was in no way
prepared for what I found when I went to work for ‘The Department
Store’.
When I was first hired, I was thrilled. This job, after all, is the
highest-paying one I’ve had in my life to date. But there was something
odd about it...
The training was the first thing that struck me odd. My training at The
second-hand clothing store that I’d worked at the previous summer
consisted of a discussion about the color-coded tags and how to run the
Jurassic register. It took an hour. The training at The Department Store
was two days of intensive brainwashing tactics that put me in the mind
of a Mr. Snaffleburger animation. The general message was, "Welcome to
The Department Store. The Department Store loves you. You will never
leave The Department Store. The Department Store now owns your soul. If
you disparage The Department Store in any way, The Department Store
police will come and take you away to be viciously beaten."
But I managed through training with my wits intact and no particular
desire to conform, consume or obey. It was, after all, just a summer
job. A SUMMER JOB, people. The sort that ends abruptly in September. It
took me three and a half weeks just to pass this though all the skulls
of the people who I worked with. I’d never in my life taken a job that
could be considered a career before. All my summer jobs had been summer
jobs, nobody expected me to do it for LIFE-- and I’d never dealt with
lifers before.
It’s a truly unique individual who chooses to sell women’s clothing as
their CAREER. It’s certainly not something I would choose-- Hell, I got
the job by applying to every store in the mall and taking the one that
offered the most cash. I found myself working with people who got
genuinely excited about new merchandise, and who got genuinely angry at
stock balancing. People for whom the most trivial of useless crap was
the universe. I saw levels of unnecessary stress that disturbed me. And
the cattiness. Oh, the cattiness.
One would think that coming from a women’s college would prepare me for
the full gamut of personality types that can be displayed in womankind.
But I suppose I’ve led a sheltered life, for never before The Department
Store did I experience the level of deceit that I experience there.
People hate one another secretly. Each of my coworkers has confided in
my about the shortcomings of the others, while swearing me to absolute
secrecy. It’s the sort of thing that makes me want to stand up in the
middle of a department powwow and scream "She hates you and you and you,
and she thinks blank about you, and she hates all of you, and none of
you EVER PORTRAYS THE TRUTH!" Falseness is one of my most major pet
peeves. I greatly prefer to know if someone dislikes me, and I do not
have inhibitions about expressing my displeasure with someone to their
face. This is apparently as new a concept to the employees of The
Department Store as is the concept that some people don’t join the
company and hitch on like skin-burrowing parasites, content to dig in
for life, or the concept that some people will take jobs they hate for
the sake of cold hard cash, or the fact that some people are ::GASP::
POOR!
Which brings me to the most startling revelations of all, those
involving class. I always considered myself to be lower middle class,
because, after all, I have food and shelter most of the time, and a lot
of the basic amenities (internet access comes to mind). Sure, I’m living
on credit card debt, and my debt in thousands is greater than my age in
years, but that’s how college students live, right? Well, if The
Department Store has taught me anything, it’s that the gap between the
haves and the have-nots is CAVERNOUS.
I still cannot believe that anyone would pay eighty-eight dollars for a
TANK TOP. I see people come in and buy three or four shirts for a sum of
money that would feed my entire family for two weeks, and think nothing
of it. I see money flow like water-- I see merchandise that proudly says
"MADE IN KOREA/CHINA/VENEZUELA", made from materials that cost about
three dollars, sell for several hundred dollars. And these aren’t even
designer labels, people. The merchandise isn’t that good. It’s not worth
it! I’ve bought similar stuff second-hand for around ten bucks. I have a
personal standard in clothing: I will not pay more than an article is
worth. A plain white tank top with a string of beads attached to it is
NOT worth eighty-eight dollars. The same white top will sell at target
for five bucks, the beads at any craft store for a dollar. Are we to
believe that the workers in Korea/China/Venezuela are getting paid well
for their beadwork? I highly doubt it.
When I mention this to anyone on staff, I get the same reaction all
around. First comes puzzlement, then a sort of smug amusement. "Oh,
isn’t that cute, she still has ideals!" or worse, "You’re going through a phase,
dear, I was just like that at your age. It was the 60’s then, I
understand where you’re coming from, but you’ll grow out of it." It’s
this attitude more than anything that grates on me-- I mean, I prepared
to let my ideals slip a few notches to allow me to work retail at all. I
understand the evils of the retail world, of the ad campaigns, of the
conspicuous consumerism, of the unattainable ideal. I hate it, but I can
reconcile with it in order to pay my bills. It’s the
attitude that my ideals are just a phase that really upsets me.
One of my supervisors cheerfully admits to being a ‘former feminist’.
She speaks wistfully of her college days, when she shopped in
second-hand stores and read Camille Paglia and majored in Women’s
Studies. She tells anecdotes about her start at The Department Store,
about being hired on in the job I currently fill, stock girl, about the
manager who told her in no uncertain terms that if she wanted to get
anywhere in the company she’d have to get a makeover. When I informed
her that a manager telling me to get a makeover would signal the
beginning of my two-week notice, she laughed at me in a condescending
manner and went on her way -- as if the thought of giving up a job for my
ideals was completely out of the question. I was more than a little
shocked at the time, but as I continued working there it began to make
sense...
The pieces came together. It was a patchwork of lost ideals,
unfulfilled dreams and empty lives. It’s a place where careers go to
die, and the greatest dream anyone has involves becoming an all-star
sales associate and managing one's own department. When competition
between branches of the company is fierce, and statistics are thrown
around daily to hype people up. OOOH, WE’RE UP 3.4% FOR THE MONTH! In
order to keep people’s minds off the fact that they’re selling things
that nobody needs for prices that nobody should ever pay, and that it
all means absolutely nothing.
And that’s why I dislike my job. That and the myriad little
annoyances to bitch about:
Customers who don’t understand that I am a stock girl, not a sales
associate. I cannot ring the register, I do not know who helped you last
week, and no, I can’t order something form another store for you. The
best I can do is fetch somebody who CAN do that. Please don’t’ roll your
eyes at me as I do so.
Return customers who DO understand that I’m a stock girl and thusly
think I am endowed with magical powers, even when I’m not holding the
pricing gun. No, I cannot tell you if an item is secretly on sale
without warning, I cannot tell you WHEN an item is going to eventually
go on sale, and no, I cannot mark an item down for you if it’s not on
the markdown list.
Coat hangers, and the fact that there are no less than 17 different
kinds of them in our store, and that sorting and boxing them is my job.
Being the lowest ranking member on the floor, subject ot the whims of
every other person, even the girl who was hired two months after I was
and who knows jack, save for the fact that she’s of higher rank than me,
because she’s a sales associate.
The laborious and unnecessary process of refolding ‘The Sisyphus Table’,
otherwise known as the front display table, where there are folded
shirts that customers must of course unfold and place back in a state of
disarray.
And so many other things...
I do believe this is the most hellish job I’ve ever had, despite being
one of the greatest learning experiences of my life.
I’m glad I did it.
I hate it.
Is it September yet?
|
