Retail Hell (12 page)

We scrambled like chickens before the slaughter.

As the rumble music continued to pulsate, a female voice pierced the air: “OKAY, EVERYBODY, IT’S RAAAAAAAALLY TIME! COME ON, EVERYBODY! COME ON OVER TO COSMETICS. WE’RE GONNA PUMP IT UP! WHOOHOOOOOOOO!”

It was Big Fancy Rally time.

I wanted to slit my wrist with the broken scissors.

One of the most hateful things The Big Fancy does to keep our Retail Slave angst alive and angry on the selling floor is to constantly inject us with the Cheerleading Virus, using nerve-shredding, eardrum-shattering pep rallies.

I’ve never liked the whole pep-rally thing.

Not even in high school when we were all marched into the gym, segregated onto bleachers by our grades, and forced to clap and cheer for two hours about school spirit.

We’ve
got spirit, yes we do!
We’ve
got spirit, how
’
bout you!

My spirit is exactly where it should be at 9:30 a.m., thank you very much: sleeping.

It does not need whooping and clapping to wake it up.

Maybe some coffee or hot sex, but definitely no whooping and clapping.

Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the Morning Rally. All salespeople are required to attend, per Suzy Satan. No excuses. Doesn’t matter how slammed you are with department work. Doesn’t matter who calls in sick. Doesn’t matter if there is only one opener because the store is cutting hours. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. You’d better get your ass to the Morning Rally and clap and cheer like you’re sitting next to Jack Nicholson at a Lakers game.

As soon as Cammie and I arrived in Cosmetics, we faced the body belonging to the wall of sound.

Stephanie. The store secretary.

“OKAAAAAAAAAY, PEOPLE,” she shrieked. “HOW IS EVERYBODY THIS MORNING? WOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I wanted to rip my ears off.

Stephanie had android-green eyes screwed tight into a perfectly sculpted Barbie doll face, with shiny blond shoulder-length hair and a fake white-teeth smile. I called her the Stephanator because she reminds me of the T-X model Arnold fought in
Terminator 3
.

“WOOHOOOOOOO!” Stephanator screamed again. Her rally war cry was so loud, I’m sure dogs were starting to bark down the street. “I’VE GOT CANDY FOR EVERYBODY! YAAAAAY!”

Without warning, Stephanator had reached into a shopping bag, and mini boxes of Hot Tamales candy rained down like stray bullets.

“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A RED-HOT DAY!!!” screeched Stephanator into the microphone.“HOT, HOT, HOT, HOT TAMALES WILL GIVE YOU A FIERY SUGAR RUSH AND GREAT BREATH TO APPROACH OUR BIG FANCY CUSTOMERS.”

For the next several minutes Stephanator turned herself into a Hot Tamales skeet launch. She managed to hit the Women’s Shoes manager in the back of the head, and one box landed in the large bosom of a woman from Home Goods. Boxes flew everywhere, hitting people who weren’t paying attention. I caught two boxes, but only to stop them from smacking my face. Cammie took one and threw it back, clipping Stephanie in the shoulder. She didn’t even notice.

The little square boxes were all over the floor, being stepped on, kicked, and crushed. A Hot Tamale massacre.

“COME ON, PEOPLE! WAAAAAAAAAKE UP!!!” wailed Stephanator. “I WANT TO HEAR YOU. LET’S CLAP! HOW GREAT IS OUR STORE?”

Quite a few people followed her command, but many more of us were going deaf from pulsing techno music and needed our hands to save our ears.

Stephanator nailed me with a disapproving green-eyed glare. “FREEMAN!” she shouted, “DON’T BE SUCH A FUDDY DUDDY! COME ON, CLAAAAAP!!!”

I gave her a gun-to-the-head, shit-pleasing smile and slowly started clapping.

What else could I do?

I had to clap, just like all the other Retail Slaves.

It was one of those store moments when the Stephanator exerted her managerial power over everyone, even though technically she wasn’t anyone’s boss.

“CLAP, EVERYBODY! KEEP CLAPPING! THAT’S IT! WOOHOOOO!!!”

I continued clapping, but not without praying she’d slip on a box of Hot Tamales and break her neck.

Please, God. Make it happen.
I’ll
owe you! I promise.

Suddenly Suzy Davis-Johnson surged through the crowd, sporting a purple-and-green plaid poncho, denim skirt, and red cowboy boots. She looked like a pint-sized country drag queen about to do a number from a low-budget community theatre production of
Annie Get Your Gun
.

“GOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING!” Cowgirl Suzy blurted out into the mike. “HOW IS EVERYONE THIS MORNING?”

I’m
still sweating, my ears hurt, my palms are turning red from clapping,
my clothes are dirty and wet, my heading is pounding, and
I’m
actually thinking
about opening the box of Hot Tamales.
That’s
how I am, Suzy, thanks for
asking.

A few claps and grunts greeted her back. She was not thrilled.

“OH, COME ON, PEOPLE! SOMEBODY DIDN’T TAKE THEIR POSITIVE PILLS TODAY! I KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT! GIVE ME SOME NOISE. EVERYBODY WAAAAAAAKE UUUUUUUP!!!”

How can she think
we’re
not awake after techno music and the Stephanator
forcing everyone to clap? I am so awake right now I could jump off the roof
and pretend to fly.
I’ll
never sleep again.

As if an applause sign had lit up, the studio audience obeyed instantly, clapping and whooping. My eardrums pleaded with me to take them away from this bad, bad place.

“THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!!! HOW ARE Y’ALL TODAY?” asked Suzy Satan.

“Well let me just tell you how
I
am!
I’ve
been to spinning class this morning and I am OVERFLOWING WITH ENERGY! WOOHOOOOOOO!!! Today I want to talk about SMILING! Smiles are the motivating essence in life. You are never fully dressed without a smile. You should never leave the house without smiling and always come to work with a smile. Smiles are contagious! To-day I want everyone to SMILE! And I want you all to think about smiling and what it does for you. Smile at people walking by your department. Smile at your customers. Smile at each other. Heck, just SMILE! THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT, PEOPLE! LET’S SEE SOME SMILES OUT THERE!”

What the hell? Where did all this smiling bullshit come from? Her Chicken
Soup for the Soul desk calendar? She makes it sound like we can grab one at
the 7-Eleven on the way to work.

Nevertheless, Satan had made a command. I smiled so hard my face felt like it was going to split in half. Cammie looked like Elmo.

“THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, PEOPLE!” she gloated into the mike, with an oversized, eerie cartoon grin, “DOESN’T IT FEEL GREAT! DON’T YOU JUST LOVE SMILING?”

Around the room, everyone smiled, from ear to ear. We were all smiling happy faces. Cammie and I turned to each other with our huge, unnatural, fraudulent smiles. Through her clenched-teeth smile, she uttered, “I can’t ucking elieve this!” Through my own clenched-teeth smile, I responded, “She is ucking insane!”

For the next twenty minutes we were in Big Fancy Retail Rally Hell.

We had to listen to Satan complain about the figures and service. (She wasn’t smiling.)

Then Stephanator yelled out the names of The Big Fancy’s Top Ten Salespeople and the Top Departments with increases — it was a list that never seemed to stop, and we had to clap for each one. My palms hurt.

Then Satan went back to lecturing us about multiple sales, approaching customers within thirty seconds, blah, blah, blah. During the entire rally, all I could do was look over to the Handbag Jungle in the distance. It looked like a designer cargo plane had crash-landed.

Finally, at 9:55, Satan belched out her closing address:

“I WANT TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE IS HIGHLY MOTIVATED AND DEDICATED TO WIN! I know I am! I want to see lots of bright, shiny SMILING faces today! HAVE A RIP-ROARIN’ ROCKIN’ DAY, EVERYBODY!”

Cammie and I bolted for the Handbag Jungle.

“JUST THROW ALL THE SHIT INTO BOXES AND WE’LL PUSH IT BACK,” she shouted in a panic, “I have no fuckin’ idea where any of it is going.”

The store doors opened. Customers poured through, making their way down the main aisle, awkwardly sidestepping over handbags and boxes. One lady bent over, picked up a Dooney bag and said, “Are you guys having a special sale today?”

Suddenly, the Stephanator appeared out of nowhere and screamed, “FREEMAN! MY GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? THE STORE IS OPEN!”

I just stared at her.

Did the Megatron monster think I was unaware of that?
WOO-FUCKING-HOOOOOO!

“Dig in Stephanie, there’s plenty to go around,” I answered.

Her fiber-optic eyes seared into me as she snapped, “If you and Cammie had gotten your work done before the rally started, you wouldn’t be in this position. I’ll be having a conversation with Suzy about it.”

“GO RIGHT AHEAD,” Cammie shouted from behind her, “And while you’re at it, tell her we need a stock person, LIKE A NORMAL STORE!”

I turned a box on its side to scoop up a bunch of DKNY wallets and stacked five boxes in two rows. Then I bent over and pushed them, like a broken-down car, down the aisle leading to the double doors that opened into our stock area.

My face flushed red. Stephanie pissed me off.

If we had gotten our work done before the rally! She has no fucking clue
what we have to go through every hateful morning here. I think
I’ll
go accidentally
spill coffee all over her desk when no one is looking.

When I came out of the stockroom, it was a freakin’ retail riot. Cammie, along with salespeople and managers from Women’s Shoes, scurried around, picking up handbags and wallets. The Stephanator had taken command and barked orders: “THE STORE IS OPEN, YOU GUYS! WE HAVE TO GET THIS DONE!”

I watched with a sigh as they haphazardly threw handbags and wallets behind the Corral and behind the door of our stockroom. It would take all day for us to clean up the mess.

In her whirlwind to control, Stephanie violently snatched up a bunch of Coach bags and heaved them over the counter with bionic force. A $698 black leather Coach satchel flew through the air without wings. The Coach went airborne, sailing across the Corral, eventually hitting the top of the register, bouncing down it, and smacking the tape dispenser before disappearing from sight.

The Stephanator ran down the aisle, hysterical, head completely up her ass.

She had no clue about the murder she’d committed.

I rushed behind the Corral. The $698 Coach bag had fallen in the metal trash bin under the register. A horrible deep scrape marred the front leather flap above the buckle.

Ruined. The Coach was dead. Caught in the destructive path of a short-circuiting Retail Droid. No woman would want it now. Not even marked down.

Killed by an out-of-control store secretary and Scotch tape dispenser.

Before I could decide on how to handle the burial arrangements for the deceased $698 Coach bag, a customer ambled up to the counter and scrutinized it.

“Oh my,” she said, “that beautiful bag has an awful scratch on it!”

I tossed her my shit-pleasing retail smile and said, “How may I help you this morning?”

She put a shopping bag on the counter and said, “I want to return this.” I looked inside. A $1,500 Marc Jacobs stared up at me. One that I had sold.

Sonofabitch. Now
I’m
starting the day in a financial hole.

Around me the Handbag department churned like a stormy sea.

Another customer asked one of the helping managers about a bag thrown behind the counter.

Another customer needing help hailed me from the end of the Corral.

Suzy was now on the scene, and Stephanie yapped at her wildly about the handbag mess.

Cammie got pissed and jumped into the fray, yelling at Suzy.

The phone started ringing.

A trickle of sweat slid down my forehead.

My clothes were damp, dirty, and disheveled.

My ears were ringing.

My palms had turned bright red.

My stomach felt like it was housing an alien.

Techno dance music banged away in my head.

And my Rip-Roarin’ Rockin’ Day had only just begun.

My first official Big Fancy Shopper Stalker was a woman I never met. She did all her shopper stalking over the phone.

“Hi, Mr. Freeman, how are yooou?”

That was how every single phone call started with Polly.

Polly was a Crazy Lady who loved to call me Mr. Freeman and ask, “How are yooooou?” like she was some kind of freaky ghost.

My unwanted hella-communication with her started because I was the unlucky idiot who picked up her call. Abiding by Big Fancy Customer Service Phone Etiquette, I happily assisted her for a good hour as she interrogated me about the brands we carried, the styles, and what was new.

Fresh out of Handbag-Selling School with Jules, Cammie, and Marsha, I was eager to nail as many sales as possible — over the phone or otherwise. In Polly’s case, she decided on Fendi because her coworker had one and she loved my story about the Fendi sisters, so she had me put five handbags on hold.