Jobs I’ve Had: Yes, I worked a lot of retail
I spent at least two summers and a lot of holidays at Petite Sophisticate. It was a pretty sweet deal; I basically walked in and became a defacto third key and sort of worked where ever they needed me – I could close any of the three stores, stock and merchandise any of the three stores, and everyone there was like a family. However, my sophomore year of college, my roommate and I decided we wanted to say in Charlotte for the summer, so we got an on-campus apartment. She already had a job at CVS, but needed to find something to do. Since I’d worked retail successfully two summers previous, I figured this would not be too hard. The local Kohl’s was hiring for an “area supervisor” and since I’d done merchandising at Petite, I figured this was an awesome fit for me. I can’t remember really how I was hired on to begin with – they were a little leery of hiring me on as a supervisor, and I feel like someone quit or something and I was defacto promoted, but I could be making that up. Anyway, Kohl’s was not a bad gig. It was much more corporate than Petite had been, but there was a lot to do in the Misses’ area, so it wasn’t like anyone really had any opportunity to mess with me, since I definitely got the job done. As dopey as it probably sounds, I was proud of the work I did and the skills I already had when I got to Kohl’s – I was young, but I was responsible and I kept my department in ship shape. I wasn’t a total bear to my part time girls and I picked up and managed the other section in our department when other people had emergencies.
The one thing I did learn about myself there is that I am not suited to work overnight. Sometimes at these big department stores, they will allow day staff to work over night for time-and-a-half to do big mid-season stockups. I am sure the money is why I volunteered to do it, and it was basically the weirdest thing I have ever done as far as work. For one thing, the store was utterly silent. I didn’t have an iPod at the time but in retrospect, I would have been much happier with one then, since I was working by myself, in relative silence, stocking and merchandising. The worst thing though, was that you had to bring your lunch (okay, I did pretty often anyway) and that, clearly, you had to eat it inside, in the breakroom, and you could not leave the building. The not leaving the building and the silence were the weirdest things I’ve dealt with in my working life, and I never volunteered to work over night again.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Funny, I think I would really dig the silence myself. It got like that in my mom’s office sometimes with just she and I there, and her in her office way down the hall. I liked it then at least, but I also wasn’t in a cavernous store where I knew I couldn’t step outside if it got weird.
May 24th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I think that’s really it. And, I was used to the whole muzak/customers/chatter/etc.