I know I said this blog is going to be about college, but I don’t move in for another 78 days (no, I’m not counting) so I decided to write about some interesting things that have happened at my job.
I work at a semi well-known retail chain that is known for buying and selling clothes. The job itself is relatively easy. I spend the majority of my time at work sorting clothes and entering things into the computer that we want to buy for the store. Other things I do include tagging, security tagging, hanging, running clothes onto the floor, checking people out, checking buys in, and getting fitting rooms. All in all, it’s a decent job. We have good management, my co-workers are pretty cool, and overall the customers are pretty chill. Here are a few stories of not so chill customers
We Couldn’t Buy His Clothes
As a buyer, you have to be aware of several things. We buy based on brand, condition, style, and what we need in the store. Occasionally there will be buys that we don’t find anything we can buy. When that happens, we call the person up to the counter and explain why we couldn’t buy their clothes, thank them for bringing in their items, and tell them to have a good day. Most of the time the customers are chill and understand that we are just doing our jobs and go about their day still being pleasant. Other times they don’t react well.
A while back there was a man who came in to sell clothes. For whatever reason we had to pass on all of his clothes, and we explained why. Unlike the chill customers, he got angry and stormed out of the store. We had some outdoor clearance racks which he rammed with his bag, it fell over, all the clothes fell off, and the rack broke. #MisadventuresInRetail
Drowned Phone
There was this lady who accidentally dropped her phone in the toilet. Understandably, she panicked and asked those of us behind the counter for advice on what to do. One of my coworkers recommended that she get some rice from a little supermarket in the same shopping center as our store to put her phone in. The people in the supermarket were kind enough to give her a shopping bag full of rice free of charge to hopefully save her phone. That was all well and good, until she came back to the store with her bag of rice that had a little hole in the bottom. As she walked around the store, it slowly leaked rice out until she got to the checkout counter and the bottom of the bag burst spilling her phone and all of the rest of the rice all over the floor. I bet you can guess who got to clean up that mess. #MisadventuresInRetail
You found WHAT in a fitting room?
I was running clothes from the rack where people put the clothes they’ve tried on in the fitting rooms with one of my coworkers. A man approached my coworker, and they both went into a fitting room and came out with a disgusted look on her face and told me that there was a piece of poop in the corner of the fitting room. We had no clue how it got there, and none of us wanted to clean it up. We put a sign on the door and made plans to deal with it later. When I checked the man out, he asked if he could get a discount because of what he found. After consulting with my manager, we gave him a $5 coupon for his next visit. After closing, we thoroughly cleaned the fitting room and made sure to disinfect it. I guess you can say I dealt with a lot of crap that day. #MisadventuresInRetail
I almost got a blind date
I was checking a woman out, and somehow my lack of significant other came up. When she found out I was single, she got super excited and started telling me about this guy she knew who was also single. I did my best to tell her politely that I wasn’t interested without showing that I was super uncomfortable with the whole situation. She had also found these boots that she was considering getting, but she wanted to wait and come back and get them later. I put them on the wall on hold like we are supposed to and hoped she wouldn’t recognize me when she came back. Thankfully, she ended up coming back while I was on break, so I didn’t see her again. #MisadventuresInRetail
Thankfully these things don’t happen very often. I have worked at this store for ten months and overall it has been a relatively positive experience. I have learned a lot about clothes and retail but also things like how to get along with people and work with them despite our differences. While it hasn’t always been easy balancing work and school, I am very glad I ended up working here. I will dearly miss my job and my coworkers in September when I leave for college!
Thoughts on Life 