Day One
So, I’m not working a full-time job for the first time in… well, in my adult life, I guess. I decided I should take this opportunity to do things I didn’t have time to do before. I am volunteering at a high school for pregnant and parenting teens. I’m cooking and baking bread – a lot. I am pretending to be a lady who lunches. I am spending more time with my friends. And, since freelance work is thin on the ground in December, I got myself a holiday sales job.
I have not worked retail since the mid-1990s. When I landed that non-customer service related job, I celebrated – NO MORE CUSTOMERS! Because, face it, most of you are mean and impatient on a good day; and at Christmastime… you’re all demons. Well, I’m back again in sales-land, in the ladies shoe department of an Undisclosed Retail Location (URL).
Tonight was my first time on the sales floor. I have had no training. I don’t know how to clock in. I cannot ring up a sale. There is no manager around to tell me what I should be doing. I don’t understand how the department is organized. And the 2-story stock room bears an uncanny resemblance to the eighth circle of hell.
I was in the store less than five minutes before being yelled at by a member of the public. While waiting to ask someone just what I should be doing, a customer asked me to ring up a sale. I explained it was my first day, and I didn’t yet know how. She told me she was a manager at the URL and could show me. This didn’t seem right. I don’t know her, and I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to ring up her own sale. So I told her I wasn’t comfortable doing that. This made her very unhappy. She stormed off, and I retreated to the stock room for a tour with a remarkably friendly and helpful young man we’ll call Roger.
After the grand tour of hell, I did some “go-backs” – which had some other odd name I can’t remember – to try to get the hang of things. Roger had to go to dinner, so I was sent to the floor and stapled to Emily – no, that’s not really her name, either, and there were no no actual fasteners involved. In fact, I ended up on my own pretty quick. I was able to help a number of customers and even found some shoes for them down in hell. Most everyone was kind and understanding – I wonder how long I can keep telling people it’s my first day?