So today was black friday.
I had to wake up at 2am to I could be at work by 3:30am.
When i got there, there was a line outside the store.
It's always crazy. People were pretty well-behaved today though. Usually people are yelling at each other over who was next in line and who was waiting the longest. Thankfully that didn't happen much this year.
Working at the big BS has taught me a lot.
I realized yesterday that I can name over 75 brands of shoes off the top of my head.
I can tell you how to take care of what kind of material your shoes are made of.
I can tell you which brands run smaller, bigger, narrow, wide or true.
Mostly I've learned a lot about people.
People can be extremely aggressive when it comes to shopping.
I've had people call me stupid, throw things at me (with the intent to hit me, by the way), and think little of me and not be afraid to let me know.
I don't understand what it is, but most customers think that people who work in the shoe department of a store are lazy or beneath regular people.
The most recent example of this is a couple days ago. But first I have to explain how it works.
We have a pair on display for each style and color of shoes/boots that we have. They're out on tables organized by brand. A customer asks us for a shoe and we look at the bottom of the shoe where there is a sticker with the style name on it. For example the brand might be Nine West and the style on the bottom is "Made." So we go into the stockroom, (where there are 34,000 pairs of shoes) find the nine west section, then the style and color and finally size.
Now after doing this for 3 years, you develop a damn good memory.
Anyhoo, this woman asked me for 4 pairs of shoes. I looked at the style names and left the shoes on the counter so that they could be put back on display and so I would actually be able to carry the boxes out to her. She asked me if i needed to take them with me and I said no and that I would be back in a minute. After I went into the stockroom, a coworker came in and told me that the woman looked at her and said "We'll see if she can remember all that" in a really snotty way.
I had all of the shoes in her size and brought them all out to her.
She was surprised i have a functioning brain.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
Not anyone can do this job.
We've had people work 1 day, then quit.
In the past year there was Marla, Nick, Nathan, Jennifer, Jason quit during their first or second shift. Then we stopped hiring people. I never met 3 of them.
We just hired a new guy I havent met yet, but I dont think he'll be around long.
It is really intense. You never stop moving. I wear a pedometer to work sometimes and I never have walked less than 10 miles at work.
It is a hard job, but there are some people who make it worth it.
Most of my coworkers are awesome.
I do meet some really interesting people.
My favorite people are the one who realize that shopping is just that; shopping. It's not life or death.
Those are the people you can joke around with and when that happens, you start to feel human again.
Happy Thanksgiving
I had to wake up at 2am to I could be at work by 3:30am.
When i got there, there was a line outside the store.
It's always crazy. People were pretty well-behaved today though. Usually people are yelling at each other over who was next in line and who was waiting the longest. Thankfully that didn't happen much this year.
Working at the big BS has taught me a lot.
I realized yesterday that I can name over 75 brands of shoes off the top of my head.
I can tell you how to take care of what kind of material your shoes are made of.
I can tell you which brands run smaller, bigger, narrow, wide or true.
Mostly I've learned a lot about people.
People can be extremely aggressive when it comes to shopping.
I've had people call me stupid, throw things at me (with the intent to hit me, by the way), and think little of me and not be afraid to let me know.
I don't understand what it is, but most customers think that people who work in the shoe department of a store are lazy or beneath regular people.
The most recent example of this is a couple days ago. But first I have to explain how it works.
We have a pair on display for each style and color of shoes/boots that we have. They're out on tables organized by brand. A customer asks us for a shoe and we look at the bottom of the shoe where there is a sticker with the style name on it. For example the brand might be Nine West and the style on the bottom is "Made." So we go into the stockroom, (where there are 34,000 pairs of shoes) find the nine west section, then the style and color and finally size.
Now after doing this for 3 years, you develop a damn good memory.
Anyhoo, this woman asked me for 4 pairs of shoes. I looked at the style names and left the shoes on the counter so that they could be put back on display and so I would actually be able to carry the boxes out to her. She asked me if i needed to take them with me and I said no and that I would be back in a minute. After I went into the stockroom, a coworker came in and told me that the woman looked at her and said "We'll see if she can remember all that" in a really snotty way.
I had all of the shoes in her size and brought them all out to her.
She was surprised i have a functioning brain.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
Not anyone can do this job.
We've had people work 1 day, then quit.
In the past year there was Marla, Nick, Nathan, Jennifer, Jason quit during their first or second shift. Then we stopped hiring people. I never met 3 of them.
We just hired a new guy I havent met yet, but I dont think he'll be around long.
It is really intense. You never stop moving. I wear a pedometer to work sometimes and I never have walked less than 10 miles at work.
It is a hard job, but there are some people who make it worth it.
Most of my coworkers are awesome.
I do meet some really interesting people.
My favorite people are the one who realize that shopping is just that; shopping. It's not life or death.
Those are the people you can joke around with and when that happens, you start to feel human again.
Happy Thanksgiving
burntsolace:
Well Damn sounds like a crazy job.
lielock:
I can relate only a little use to have some shoes (only about 50) in a store I worked in (the stock room was in the basement down really crappy wood steps) so it sucked. I always brought the shoe with me because I wasn't always in shoes but yeah not easy.....not at all.