Brand Name Attracted Me
After I left that dreaded place, I realized I still had quite a fair bit of time before my college started. So I was chatting with another high school friend whom I was close with, *Kathy.
She was working for a branded retail chain, and they had vacancies for the holiday season. I asked for the contact details, went down to their HQ for interview, and got myself a retail position.
Oh well, I had always been curious to try out being a retailer i.e.. shop assistant anyway. It should be fun - I would be courteous with a great friendly smile, helping the customers to choose great clothes, while getting to shop while I worked, right?
First Day at Work
I wore kitten heels despite their suggestions to be in "comfortable footwear". I always wore heels, so I figured it should not be an issue.
My uniforms were not ready, so I wore a half-sleeved white, zip-front shirt over charcoal pants and heels, looking smart. In fact, I secretly thought that I looked more like the shop supervisor than an assistant.
They asked me to browse through the racks to familiarize myself with the merchandise on display, including the bags and cosmetics counter.
So I went through the racks of sweaters, dresses, pants - starting with the formal wear and slowly moving onto the casual line.
I was awed by the colors I was seeing - lavender, lilac, violet, purple - every item came with different shades in each hue, not just "purple, orange, pink" etc.
The store supervisor then taught me how to read the price and size tags, how to pin them on and remove them.
By noon, my feet were hurting. I felt like someone had hammered through the bones of my foot's arch. But I slowly dragged my feet to the cafe for lunch. I learned that we would be taking lunch in staggered shifts, often alone. Oh man, was this going to be lonely!
After lunch, I was mostly stuck in the storeroom tidying up the storeroom. During the previous day, they had messed up up the rooms while searching for new pieces or the right sizes for customers. I did not mind as the storeroom was clean, and I could remove my shoes to climb up and down the racks.
The outlet I was working at closed by 9pm. So we turned the sign to read "Closed", pulled the shutters halfway, and began the mundane and dirty routine of fetching water in pails, wiping the shelves and mopping the floors.
I was somewhat appalled as I was not aware that we had to handle these tasks as well.
By the time I boarded the bus for home, my feet felt like breaking literally, and I was tired from the standing, moving about and storeroom labor. I wondered if I should call it quits.
The Days Passed By
I continued there for another month though. It got fun as the days passed by.
Morning shift: we fetched water and wash the flannel cloths for cleaning of display shelves. The one advantage was that we also got to use the cosmetics at the makeup counter before the shop opened its doors to the public. I always looked forward to that.
Afternoon shift: we got to wake up later; that was about the only perk. Then we did the usual closing duty and waited while the supervisor tabulated the day's total sales before we could leave together.
I liked it when there were customers to serve. We welcomed them verbally, with a warm smile and offers to help, follow them around the store while they checked out potential purchases (even though some of them did not like the attention), made recommendations and followed them to the cashier so that the sale would be keyed under our names (for sales quota and KPI's purposes?).
When there were no customers, we could not sit down. We had to make the rounds, occasionally touching up on stuff so we appeared busy. I would hide behind some shelf and yawn continuously, then went around selecting clothes I liked. There was a dark purple turtleneck sweater, a black tote with large silver zips, a beige camisole with sequins that caught my fancy. I stashed them aside secretly so that when payday came, I could make them mine.
Top Sales of the Day
There came a day when I sold a watch to a nice couple - a young gentleman buying a gift for his girlfriend. I was the one who served them, and they were really nice. So that made me the top sales of the day.
There were incentives and compliments of course, but they informed me that temporary staff were not included in the incentives! It maddened me.
One plump retailer who claimed she was the top salesgirl in her previous outlet even went outright to suggest that "they probably bought from you because they find you cute, so young and silly-looking.."
I had retorted that they probably did not buy from her because they were concerned about her weight and did not want her to eat more if she received more commission.
Tossing the Letter
Of course, there were small blunders I had made, such as informing callers over the phone we had a certain item. When they came down to buy, they realized it was not the exact model they were looking for.
Oh well, it wasn't the internet age back then, so they couldn't browse online before heading down too, so what could I do?
The big break came when I needed to apply for leave for a day. The GCE "O" levels results were released, so I needed to go back to collect the certificates.
Our branch manager did not allow for it. So I had insisted by applying first for a half-day leave which I had every intention of stretching.
They rang my home ten times just to find me when I did not turn up in the afternoon. Worse, I was unfortunate enough to be spotted shopping in town with my best friend and we were both wearing very hot outfits (intentions to go clubbing at night). Guess who spotted me?
The manager herself.
Needless to say, although I had prepared a resignation letter, the management chose to terminate my services with the company. Well, I did not care. I loathed that job and the other retail assistants there anyway.
There - that's the end of my retail career.
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