On Wednesday, I will leave the world of retail behind. Hopefully, for good.
What started out as a part-time job after graduating (because I had no idea what to do with myself and my life was in complete disarrary) turned into a four-year sentence in the modern-day sweatshops that are many small-level and discount retailers.
I think sometimes that it would have been nice to have taken George's advice two years ago and started a blog about my adventures in retail. It was only a job, never a career choice. There is no "career choice" when you are working with no benefits, no breaks, and litte to no "future with the company." There didn't seem to be any value in writing about it.
Now, as I am about to step out of that world, I am looking back across my time there, and I understand that many people have no clue what retail work is about.
My friend Bill and I had a conversation about retail work one day. He, too, was working retail around the same time as myself. He, too, is middle-aged, has had real careers and has also been something of a life-explorer. We talked about how, when we were children and how things are still in European retailers, working in a clothing specialty had some cachet. A salesperson had to know not only the various products, but how to measure for them, how to advise people how to wear them, etc. And customers not only expected but respected the knowledge of the specialty salesperson.
Lingerie used to be a specialty back in the days when women had to wear "foundation garments." Foundations were necessary to make one's clothing fit properly. But in a time when all that is really necessary to wear the up-to-the-moment styles is an anorexic, 20-something body, who really needs a foundation garment??
The retailer I have had the displeasure of working for has been trying to build its name again by refashioning itself into an old-fashioned lingerie retailer. We are expected to know how to fit bras and corsets, understand what a foundation garment is (even though there aren't any in the store), comprehend how various pieces of their numerous collections will fit on the variety of women's bodies that walk thru the store. We are expected to make women feel that they are they twig-thin, ultra-airbrushed young women they see in the photographs that adorn the store.
But the company pays wages that one can barely survive on, provides benefits only when necessary, holds no workshops or other programs to educate its employees, and blames its lowest level employees for the company's flagging sales. Many of the managers are young and high-school educated, do not know labor law nor OSHA regulations and because of this cannot advise employees of their rights. Many rights, including maternity leave, are never taken because of the ignorance of managers. Managers are so young that they may never have heard the words 'foundation garment' and have no clue what those words might mean, yet are responsible for the training and education of staff. There is no direct supervision from distric managers--years may go by without ever seeing one. Store goals are so high that if individual employees are to meet them, they must work thru breaks and lunches. Often the goals cannot be met because the mall traffic is not high enough to support them--yet the store is always shamed because the goals are not met. If sales are not there, it is because we do not push enough. If one wants to make a living wage, one must work a *solid* eight hours without breaks or lunches. Employees must endure the abuse of irate customers--many who return soiled and torn garments--because if a complaint about "customer service" is called in (as it often is by abusive pigs), district managers will become irate and refer to staff as "nimrods" or "assholes" and complain how the store is making the district manager "look bad" in the eyes of Corporate. The district manager will earn a $1,000 to $2,500 bonus for indivdual store inventories under 1%--store managers earn up to $1,000 while employees, the ones who take the most abuse and must stop shoplifters, the lower-level, hourly employees, earn nothing.
Employees are supposed to feel good about a company that does nothing to enforce its return policy, considers a $.25 an hour annual raise to be generous, pays employees according to a regional earning scale yet expects all employees to believe they are equal, makes offers for promotions but will not reimburse for travel expenses in order to take the promotion, discontinues its meager bonus incentive plan to one region while increasing it in another, purchases goods that no one is interested in buying yet expects low-level employees to sell-sell-sell, gears its sales to teenagers in an effort to imitate retailers like J Crew and Abercrombie & Fitch and completely ignores its true customer base which is women over the age of 30, and expects merchandising strategies for the West Coast to succeed in the East Coast (which is far more reserved and much colder--we don't buy white in March when we're still in winter coats).
Do I sound like a "disgruntled employee"? Perhaps. No, make that an emphatic YES!
Do I care? No...not at all. When a company is so grossly mismanaged, when a company takes out its bad corporate decisions on the least-educated, lowest paid of its employees, it does not deserve any respect.
It's a shame too. They have good products. But if they do not change their ways, their products may one day cease to be available to anyone, and that includes the teenage customer base it courts so aggressively.
There is, however, nothing I can do to change them. I did, in the beginning, feel that I might want to help the manager get things up to speed. And I have done just that. They now know that when soiled clothing comes in, it's considered a biohazard and, even if it insults the customer, we can use latex gloves to handle the merchandise. They know how to fit a corset and tie it properly. They know how to deal with a pervert call without it turning into a phone-sex session, how deal with cross-dressers in a mature and respectful manner, and how to throw people out of the dressing rooms who might be doing things they shouldn't ought to. They know they can take maternity leave (by law, although without pay).
And they *all* know what a foundation garment is.
So, I've done my job. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I have a real career to attend to and no spare time to waste fighting anxiety attacks in order stand around in uncomfortable shoes listening to the same bad muzak for 6 hours at a clip.
After Wednesday...it will all be over. Thank God.
What started out as a part-time job after graduating (because I had no idea what to do with myself and my life was in complete disarrary) turned into a four-year sentence in the modern-day sweatshops that are many small-level and discount retailers.
I think sometimes that it would have been nice to have taken George's advice two years ago and started a blog about my adventures in retail. It was only a job, never a career choice. There is no "career choice" when you are working with no benefits, no breaks, and litte to no "future with the company." There didn't seem to be any value in writing about it.
Now, as I am about to step out of that world, I am looking back across my time there, and I understand that many people have no clue what retail work is about.
My friend Bill and I had a conversation about retail work one day. He, too, was working retail around the same time as myself. He, too, is middle-aged, has had real careers and has also been something of a life-explorer. We talked about how, when we were children and how things are still in European retailers, working in a clothing specialty had some cachet. A salesperson had to know not only the various products, but how to measure for them, how to advise people how to wear them, etc. And customers not only expected but respected the knowledge of the specialty salesperson.
Lingerie used to be a specialty back in the days when women had to wear "foundation garments." Foundations were necessary to make one's clothing fit properly. But in a time when all that is really necessary to wear the up-to-the-moment styles is an anorexic, 20-something body, who really needs a foundation garment??
The retailer I have had the displeasure of working for has been trying to build its name again by refashioning itself into an old-fashioned lingerie retailer. We are expected to know how to fit bras and corsets, understand what a foundation garment is (even though there aren't any in the store), comprehend how various pieces of their numerous collections will fit on the variety of women's bodies that walk thru the store. We are expected to make women feel that they are they twig-thin, ultra-airbrushed young women they see in the photographs that adorn the store.
But the company pays wages that one can barely survive on, provides benefits only when necessary, holds no workshops or other programs to educate its employees, and blames its lowest level employees for the company's flagging sales. Many of the managers are young and high-school educated, do not know labor law nor OSHA regulations and because of this cannot advise employees of their rights. Many rights, including maternity leave, are never taken because of the ignorance of managers. Managers are so young that they may never have heard the words 'foundation garment' and have no clue what those words might mean, yet are responsible for the training and education of staff. There is no direct supervision from distric managers--years may go by without ever seeing one. Store goals are so high that if individual employees are to meet them, they must work thru breaks and lunches. Often the goals cannot be met because the mall traffic is not high enough to support them--yet the store is always shamed because the goals are not met. If sales are not there, it is because we do not push enough. If one wants to make a living wage, one must work a *solid* eight hours without breaks or lunches. Employees must endure the abuse of irate customers--many who return soiled and torn garments--because if a complaint about "customer service" is called in (as it often is by abusive pigs), district managers will become irate and refer to staff as "nimrods" or "assholes" and complain how the store is making the district manager "look bad" in the eyes of Corporate. The district manager will earn a $1,000 to $2,500 bonus for indivdual store inventories under 1%--store managers earn up to $1,000 while employees, the ones who take the most abuse and must stop shoplifters, the lower-level, hourly employees, earn nothing.
Employees are supposed to feel good about a company that does nothing to enforce its return policy, considers a $.25 an hour annual raise to be generous, pays employees according to a regional earning scale yet expects all employees to believe they are equal, makes offers for promotions but will not reimburse for travel expenses in order to take the promotion, discontinues its meager bonus incentive plan to one region while increasing it in another, purchases goods that no one is interested in buying yet expects low-level employees to sell-sell-sell, gears its sales to teenagers in an effort to imitate retailers like J Crew and Abercrombie & Fitch and completely ignores its true customer base which is women over the age of 30, and expects merchandising strategies for the West Coast to succeed in the East Coast (which is far more reserved and much colder--we don't buy white in March when we're still in winter coats).
Do I sound like a "disgruntled employee"? Perhaps. No, make that an emphatic YES!
Do I care? No...not at all. When a company is so grossly mismanaged, when a company takes out its bad corporate decisions on the least-educated, lowest paid of its employees, it does not deserve any respect.
It's a shame too. They have good products. But if they do not change their ways, their products may one day cease to be available to anyone, and that includes the teenage customer base it courts so aggressively.
There is, however, nothing I can do to change them. I did, in the beginning, feel that I might want to help the manager get things up to speed. And I have done just that. They now know that when soiled clothing comes in, it's considered a biohazard and, even if it insults the customer, we can use latex gloves to handle the merchandise. They know how to fit a corset and tie it properly. They know how to deal with a pervert call without it turning into a phone-sex session, how deal with cross-dressers in a mature and respectful manner, and how to throw people out of the dressing rooms who might be doing things they shouldn't ought to. They know they can take maternity leave (by law, although without pay).
And they *all* know what a foundation garment is.
So, I've done my job. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I have a real career to attend to and no spare time to waste fighting anxiety attacks in order stand around in uncomfortable shoes listening to the same bad muzak for 6 hours at a clip.
After Wednesday...it will all be over. Thank God.
posted by Tish Grier at 12:09 PM
3 Comments:
Congrats on getting out of retail. I've no clue how you made it through 4 years.
willpower, fear, and an incredibly bad job market....western mass doesn't have much to offer for creative types, so you have to make your own. I finally figured out what my own is and how to go about it. but it took time.
even when I look like I'm wasting time, I never am. there's always something going on.
I loved this posting.... you should consider submitting it to a magazine: Cosmo, or Vanity Fair, etc... I would think that readers of all kinds would find your posting not only interesting, but informative... and you might cause a few customers to treat the retail workers with a bit more respect.
After 10 years of building my career, I decided to take some time off to re-examine my life. It turned into a two year break, during which time I worked in retail. It was hell, esp. during Christmas, the hours were awful, and the pay didn't pay the bills. Most of all: there was little respect from management.
But, there were a few things that I did like. I liked the product that I was selling: books. I got to take home books and read them. Any book. Any time. Just as long as I brought it back in "sell-able" condition.
I also liked that I got to help people- all kinds of people- find the book they were looking for.
I liked that my job required little "brain-power"... I didn't go home (usually) with a splitting headache.
Most of all: once I clocked out, my time was my own. No work to take home, no weekends correcting research papers, no parent-teacher conferences to attend, no lesson plans to make, not sports events to attend, no faculty meetings after school, and no phonecalls from irrate parents. My day off was my day off. Period. Which gave me more time to write.
One thing I learned was this: my career doesn't define me. What I do to pay the bills is not necessarily a reflection of who I am.
Kudos to you for stepping out of retail... sounds as though it's time to venture out into new territory. Four years is long enough.
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