Working Retail: A Personal Experience

Hey guys!

Have you ever had a job that kinda sucked and after leaving it, you promised yourself you'd never work that kind of job again? Well, that's retail for me.

In my working career, I've worked two different places in retail so far. Once when I was 18 and once these past couple of months (while I've been 21). Both times I was in different places in my life. But I wanted to talk about retail, and the things that people in retail have to deal with (at least some of it).

Short-Handed*

My first job ever was working at Short-Handed at the tail-end of my high school education and starting college. I was 18 when I applied and worked, and mostly got the job because they were shorthanded and really needed people. I worked in various womens' departments: misses, juniors, plus, activewear, and dresses. Though I did get called in a couple times to work over in accessories, which was, in a way, pretty scary. I was never really trained in that department, didn't know much about watches or brands over there, and there was one point where I had to unlock a case to grab a watch for an interested customer and it took me a solid 10 minutes to try to get it open before I forced a manager who was walking by to do it for me (he opened it in, like, 10 seconds).

When I first got hired, I was excited. I felt like I was finally like an adult. Y'know, like how kids always look up to adults and want to be like them? Yeah, I still had a fraction of that mindset all the way through high school. I wanted the freedom, the responsibility. I was excited. But, like most jobs, the newness and excitement waned. Quickly.

Now, even though the newness and excitement wasn't really there anymore, that doesn't mean my work suffered. I was always polite, always tried to make sure I did what was expected of me, and made sure that customers walked away satisfied. I mean, there were times when I was commended for my service by customers and coworkers. I loved it. I always like to feel like I'm doing a good job, and their praise made me want to continue doing well and strive to do better. But the thing that made it worse was the management. Mostly my direct manager. My apparel manager was named *Robbie. She was... I don't want to say terrible, but she really was not a good manager. She belittled my elderly coworkers. She threatened me that I would lose my job because my mom (who was sick with stage 4 colon cancer) asked me to stay home to take care of her after one of her doctor's appointments because she was feeling woozy still from the anesthetic. She told me, consistently, that my work was not up to par and to step it up, even though I knew that I was doing a good job and even had the support of my coworkers. I busted my ass for $8/hour, working 10+ hours more a week than I signed up for, coming in when I wasn't supposed to to help out a few times, and was told that I wasn't "doing enough" or "doing well enough" for a raise. Meanwhile, she was trying to relate to me and be friends, telling me about her mother-in-law who went through chemo and ended up having numb hands and feet for years afterwards. Like?? No, that's not going to make things up to me. It was ridiculous. She was the main reason I ended up leaving. I even stuck through the busy season (Black Friday, Christmas) so that my coworkers (who I really cared for) didn't have to stress out and worry about the messes with one less pair of hands to work with. Once Christmas ended, I handed in my two weeks notice (which Robbie replied with "oh, is that your two weeks notice? I was wondering when you'd hand that in").

Anyways, after that experience, I promised myself I'd never work in retail again. Or at least for them again. They ended up doing a major overhaul of management after I left, and things started looking up because of new programs the new management put in. That is, until a few days when I went to look around and one my old coworkers told me that they'd recently gotten a different store manager who basically changed things back the way they were when I was there. I felt so bad for them. But I just said hi, sympathized with them, and went on my way. Not much else I could do, especially since PJ and I are moving soon.

But I ended up breaking my promise.

Value*

Now,  this is a little more uncharted territory for me, as, in the time I'm writing this, I still work here (I scheduled this to publish the day after my last day).

In January, my job that I'd had since I left Short-Handed started to refuse my hours, saying that they didn't have enough work for me. For all of January and February, I developed an acute stress disorder. This included insomnia, lack of appetite, high anxiety, a lot of nausea, vomiting (including finding out that you can throw up through your nose 🙊), lots of breakdowns, and really bad depression. During this time, I ended up finding out that I could apply to unemployment and did that while I was looking for a new job. I applied to a few (since you kind of have to for unemployment benefits). And one of them that called me back was Value. I thought, "It's retail, but it's not too far away from home, and Short-Handed wasn't so bad when I worked there, so it shouldn't be too bad, right?". I ended up getting a job there as an "Apparel Teammate", where I found out that my reputation preceded me. Everyone in Apparel asked if I was "the girl who worked at Short-Handed", which made me feel kinda weirded out. Like, Short-Handed isn't that big a deal? Why do you keep assuming it's that big a deal? I worked there, like, 3 years ago. You'll still have to train me how you do things and what to do - it's not like they do everything the same way everywhere.

My first complaint about Value, though, was during Orientation. I didn't know how to dress, so I wore something pretty professional looking, just in case. Ended up not having to, as the other chick for orientation wore jeans and a T-shirt, but whatever. Not a big deal. We went through orientation. Pretty easy. Just follow along with prompts, sign here, watch these videos. Went smoothly. Until the Loss Prevention part. Now, I'm not a thief. The only "major" thing I stole once was a broken off piece of chain from a necklace that was for sale because it had a cool color to it and my mom told me they'd just throw it away. But during orientation, the lady doing the orientation and the LP dude stared at me as they talked about how they will know if you steal something from the company. They keep an eye out for that shit. I nodded and I understood. But it seemed like they were only talking to me about it. It was insulting. Like, what makes you think I'm a thief? I basically brushed it off, thinking "maybe they just wanted to make a point of it, or were trying to not make it a race thing by looking at the other girl since she's black".

But then, that behavior continued. Even after my shift ended. During March, they increased the employee discount to 35% off clothes and accessories. PJ and I are broke as fuck, so I made it a point to make use of that discount while it was going on and I still had it. So we went one Friday night after my shift ended to do some shopping for the two of us (mostly him - I don't like shopping for myself anymore). When we got there, I noticed the GM and smiled and waved at him as we walked past. We then walked over to the mens' and picked out some clearance/sale shirts/jackets for PJ. He tried them on, picked ones he liked, then we went over to the misses so that I could look around for myself. We ended up chatting a little bit with the girl who was working the closing shift that night, and I noticed as we started to separate from her so she could work that the GM was staring at us and had this look of suspicion on his face. He nodded and walked away. It made me feel... idk, unsure? I was wondering why he was staring at us and keeping an eye on us. It was weird, especially since he usually doesn't do that with customers, as he tends to be super busy like all the time. I shrugged it off for the moment, looked around for some cheap and cute things that I thought would look good on me, tried some things on, and ended up picking out a shirt for skirt outfits and a sweater that was on clearance and looked cute. We checked out, paid, and then left. When I mentioned it to PJ, he said maybe he was just watching me to gauge my managerialness (since he'd originally wanted to hire me for a manager-like position), but I mentioned how that wouldn't explain why he was watching us while we were shopping. We both kinda concluded that it was because he thought we'd steal, so he was keeping an eye on us. Which offended me again. Like, I work for you. Shouldn't you have some trust in your employees? Especially since I never did anything to show that I'm a thief or can't be trusted.

Then the other thing that majorly made me start to hate the job was the fact that the apparel manager has an "experiment" that she does to test if we're on the ball or something. She first brought this up to me the next day after I closed the night before. She said something like, "So, I like to do this experiment. I like to put things that don't belong into one of your departments and then the next day see if you found them and put them back. Last night, I noticed that one of the things I put in the juniors department didn't get put back, so I just added another one for you to find and put back." I just nodded and said okay with a fake smile plastered to my face, but in my head I was pissed. It's like, no, it's not enough that I have to put away the random shit customers leave behind, I have to search around for the random shit you put into my department and put it back or else I'll fail your experiment? And then what happens? Will you write that down and bring it up during my employee review? "Well, you did okay but you failed my experiment on this day and this day, so we can't give you a raise or praise since you could've done better." Like?? You know what else I have to do with this job? I have to take care of returns, fitting rooms, make sure the tables look neat, size racks, do registers every time I'm called, look for stolen shit, and put shirts and other things that don't belong in my department to their rightful place, and now you're adding to it and grading me on it?? And let's not forget freight days. I mean, some days I'm assigned to do freight, but then I also have to keep an eye out for everything else that I've already mentioned. Like, this job is stressful enough. I barely get time for my feet to stop hurting like I placed them in embers every time I take a step to deal with your shit. The last time I had to put up with her experiment she told me, "I made it easy for you tonight. I put something on the floor of the girls department that isn't supposed to be there" and when I found it (it was a balloon toy), I wanted to head back to her and throw it at her head. It's just so unfair and wrong to, instead of judging the work of your employees based on what they already have to do, add more to the workload. And more stress. It's not fun, it's stress. And maybe that's just another reason why I shouldn't work retail. Maybe I need a different sense of humor or some kind of personality change so that I don't view work as a professional environment and should instead just have "experiments" and stand around joking and talking instead of working. Like, I was raised to view work as a professional environment (at least most jobs) and that if I'm not professional and polite, I might get fired or reprimanded. I treat my managers with respect and rarely joke with them, because they're my superiors. I will approach them with questions or help them with projects or do as they say. But they're not friends, at least not in a work setting. In my off time, sure I might befriend them or make jokes or whatever. But work is work, play is play.

I'm getting lost on a tangent, sorry.

Anyways, I just get so stressed out from this job. I've had more unhappy one-on-one experiences than happy ones, and it just got to me. The other night when I got off work, I broke down sobbing because I just felt shitty. I was stressed out about money, stressed out about not doing a good enough job, stressed out about disappointing customers, management, coworkers, and PJ. I was stressed about what this would mean about future employment. If I could get a job in MN like I need, and what I should now look for. I mean, I feel under qualified for a lot of jobs except retail, food service, and customer service. But I just can't deal with those kinds of stresses for long periods of time.

Do you guys feel this way sometimes? What are your experiences with retail or food service that are similar to what I've described?

*Names have been changed so that I can keep my anonymity