Lessons from the mall
Well, I've survived orientation (5 hours of customer service dribble), training (5 minutes of how to avoid breaking the cash register) and my first few shifts at the fine retail establishment where I'll be working until January so I feel qualified to offer my initial impressions of the lotion and soap selling world and the whole mall at the holidays experience:
1. Christmas is not just a day...it is "a season and an experience"...that starts on October 15th. Seriously. The store where I work put up the Christmas tree in the middle of October and now, in the middle of November, we are in the second phase of the holiday shopping experience. It is slightly surreal to walk in from an 85 degree day and face fake snow and ornaments and "White Christmas" on the CD player.
2. Hanukkah does not exist. It is all about Christmas. We have a countdown to Christmas in the backroom, we have Christmas music, we have Christmas poster and I have yet to hear anyone mention Hanukkah. Weird. I am a Christmas celebrater but the assumption that so is everyone who comes in to the store is so short sighted to me. Of course, Christmas in the true sense of the word doesn't really exist here either. I could start a rant about how annoying it is that Christmas=spending money but I trust that you will all watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special this year, so Linus can explain why this is annoying and I can move on to make fun of children.
3. Teenage girls are exactly the same as they have always been. They travel in packs. They giggle. They shriek. They dress alike. They love them some glitter lip gloss. They are also, according to the managers, our biggest shoplifters (the lure of glitter lip gloss is irresistible to some, I guess) so watch out giggly girls...I've got my eyes on you*
4. Teenage girls are exactly the same as they have always been...but sluttier. I know that this makes me sound like I am a million years old, but seriously. Attention 14 year old girls of the world: I am not interested in seeing A) your belly B) your thong C) your cameltoe or D) your cleavage. Take it across the mall to Victoria's Secret where it belongs.
5. Vanilla is, apparently, an incredibly versatile scent. We have, no kidding, 6 different vanilla scents: Fresh Vanilla, Warm Vanilla Sugar, Vanilla Wafer, Vanilla Bean Noel, Black Raspberry vanilla and lavender Vanilla. Why we need 6 scents that all basically make the wearer smell like sugar cookies I just don't understand.
6. Related to #5, we have a whole line of products with scents like chocolate decadence, amaretto, dulce de leche and tiramisu. Apparently there are some women who really, really want to smell like a dessert tray.
7. We have testers of all of our products, including lip sticks and lip glosses. The lip product testers have little plastic spreaders right next to them. A frightening number of people totally disregard these tools of hygiene in favor of putting the tester right on their lips. Ew. Why, Chappy McColdsore, would you do that?
8. I am officially old and becoming borderline curmudgeon. My knees hurt from stocking shelves, I think my 19 year old co-workers** with their endless drama and gossiping are kind of annoying and the prospect of getting to eat McDonald's at the food court several times a week kind of makes me want to retch. Sigh. I'm a week or two away from wearing sensible shoes and elastic waist jeans, I just know it.
9. Ultimately, making a piddling hourly wage is better than nothing at all.
*Yes, I know that I am making sweeping generalizations and that everyone is unique and blah, blah, blah but this is my blog so I can be snarky if I want to. Also, the really cool 14 year old girls are probably not shrieking around my store.
* Yes, the caffeinated sugar monkey is quite the ageist today
1. Christmas is not just a day...it is "a season and an experience"...that starts on October 15th. Seriously. The store where I work put up the Christmas tree in the middle of October and now, in the middle of November, we are in the second phase of the holiday shopping experience. It is slightly surreal to walk in from an 85 degree day and face fake snow and ornaments and "White Christmas" on the CD player.
2. Hanukkah does not exist. It is all about Christmas. We have a countdown to Christmas in the backroom, we have Christmas music, we have Christmas poster and I have yet to hear anyone mention Hanukkah. Weird. I am a Christmas celebrater but the assumption that so is everyone who comes in to the store is so short sighted to me. Of course, Christmas in the true sense of the word doesn't really exist here either. I could start a rant about how annoying it is that Christmas=spending money but I trust that you will all watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special this year, so Linus can explain why this is annoying and I can move on to make fun of children.
3. Teenage girls are exactly the same as they have always been. They travel in packs. They giggle. They shriek. They dress alike. They love them some glitter lip gloss. They are also, according to the managers, our biggest shoplifters (the lure of glitter lip gloss is irresistible to some, I guess) so watch out giggly girls...I've got my eyes on you*
4. Teenage girls are exactly the same as they have always been...but sluttier. I know that this makes me sound like I am a million years old, but seriously. Attention 14 year old girls of the world: I am not interested in seeing A) your belly B) your thong C) your cameltoe or D) your cleavage. Take it across the mall to Victoria's Secret where it belongs.
5. Vanilla is, apparently, an incredibly versatile scent. We have, no kidding, 6 different vanilla scents: Fresh Vanilla, Warm Vanilla Sugar, Vanilla Wafer, Vanilla Bean Noel, Black Raspberry vanilla and lavender Vanilla. Why we need 6 scents that all basically make the wearer smell like sugar cookies I just don't understand.
6. Related to #5, we have a whole line of products with scents like chocolate decadence, amaretto, dulce de leche and tiramisu. Apparently there are some women who really, really want to smell like a dessert tray.
7. We have testers of all of our products, including lip sticks and lip glosses. The lip product testers have little plastic spreaders right next to them. A frightening number of people totally disregard these tools of hygiene in favor of putting the tester right on their lips. Ew. Why, Chappy McColdsore, would you do that?
8. I am officially old and becoming borderline curmudgeon. My knees hurt from stocking shelves, I think my 19 year old co-workers** with their endless drama and gossiping are kind of annoying and the prospect of getting to eat McDonald's at the food court several times a week kind of makes me want to retch. Sigh. I'm a week or two away from wearing sensible shoes and elastic waist jeans, I just know it.
9. Ultimately, making a piddling hourly wage is better than nothing at all.
*Yes, I know that I am making sweeping generalizations and that everyone is unique and blah, blah, blah but this is my blog so I can be snarky if I want to. Also, the really cool 14 year old girls are probably not shrieking around my store.
* Yes, the caffeinated sugar monkey is quite the ageist today
posted by Mrs.Robinson at
2:36 PM
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