Retail Hell (5 page)

Billingsworth, Senior Marketing Corporate Credit Analyst
Senior Advisor.

What the hell is a Corporate Credit Analyst Senior Advisor?

Expect to be the best and you will.
—
Mr. Michael, President,
CEO, The Big Fancy.

I wonder if he has ever climbed these stairs.

Work is not all about work.
—
Diana Soon-Smith, Corporate
Human Resources Director of the Southwest Division 2.

Evidently
it’s
also about a workout! I almost vomited all over Diana
Soon-
Smith’s
quote.

I couldn’t read anymore. Sweat dripped into my eyes. The rest of the signs were a blur as I hauled myself up step after hideous step, breathing like I was going into labor. By the time I reached the seventh flight after what seemed like an eternity of sweat and pain, I considered screaming for help. But I was alone on Mount Fancy. Just the Headless Mannequins and me. They weren’t going to help. Death was imminent if I stopped. I considered turning around, but I quickly realized I’d have to go back down all the stairs I’d just come up. What if I found out after going down them that I’d have to go back up them all over again?

Not.

Happening.

I kept climbing. Lifting, stretching, pulling. Halfway up the seventh flight, my thighs felt as if they were being pulled on a taffy machine from all the lunging. I clutched the handrail like it was a life preserver. The eighth flight turned out to be a hot, sticky, breathless blackout.

Am I at 50,000 feet? When does the atmosphere give out?

My throbbing feet were on auto-climb-pilot: moving through the pain. When I finally heaved my sweaty, exhausted body up onto the ninth platform and saw the brown door with
Store Entrance
stenciled on it, I sighed with disgusted relief and said, “There is no fucking way I am EVER doing that again.”

“No fucking way” are famous last words of just about every Retail Slave. For me, this was a defining moment. Little did I know I was about to find myself saying and doing many Big Fancy things after uttering the phrase, “No fucking way.”

Although Two-Tone Tammy had failed to mention that I’d be climbing eight flights of stairs every day, she had made it crystal clear about using the entrance: “Not using the Employee Entrance can be grounds for termination, ” she had said, in Dragon tone. “Every employee is required to use the Employee Entrance upon the start of their shift and upon leaving the store.”

Who in their right mind goes up and down eight flights of stairs for work
every day? Why
isn’t
there an elevator or escalator or sky tram here?
It’s
a Big
Fancy department store, for chrissake!
I’d
settle for a pack mule! Eight flights
of stairs? I just
don’t
understand it. How could someone have designed an
Employee Entrance like this? I CALL BULLSHIT!!!

Mount Fancy has head injury written all over it.

Feeling like a contestant on
The Biggest Loser
, I attempted to pull my sweaty, out-of-breath self together on the steel mountain’s ninth summit as I slid across the carpet toward the door. Next to it was a giant wall calendar with holidays, special events, and employee birthdays.

God, I hope my name never ends up there.

What The Big Fancy really needs to put on the ninth platform is a comfy rest area with couches, a big-screen TV with cable, and maybe a nice tropical fish tank. They also need showers. I’m sure many of us climbers end up smelling like eau de sweat by the time we reach the top. Lockers would be a good idea too. Then we could climb the mountain in workout clothes and tennis shoes. Massage therapy would be nice for our tired retail feet, and a full bar wouldn’t hurt either. Watermelon margaritas can take away just about any pain.

Behind the heavy brown Store Entrance door is a small foyer area opening to a narrow hallway that runs by offices into Customer Service and, eventually, leads to the fourth floor of the store. Inside the foyer there are two electronic time clocks mounted on the wall, surrounded by a bunch of store reports hanging from binder rings. On the opposite wall are department mailboxes next to a window with a shelf. This is what The Big Fancy calls the Employee Check-In (ECI). All employees (except managers) are required to check in any belongings larger than 5" × 7". This includes handbags, packs, coats, umbrellas, and store purchases. None of these items are allowed on the sales floor for fear we might load them up with merchandise. ECI is a pain in the ass, but I get it. We live in a world where people steal Halloween decorations off front lawns.

When I blundered through the Store Entrance door that first time, breathing as if I was having an asthma attack, I found a young, brown-haired, makeup-free woman who looked like she’d just woken up sitting behind the ECI counter.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“I’m here for training.”

“Just need you to sign, since you can’t clock in yet.”

She pushed a clipboard toward me and I scribbled across it, still panting.

I could barely talk, but I managed to ask, “Is the meeting room around here?”

“It’s in the basement.”

My breath suddenly caught up to me.

“No fucking way. You’ve got to be shitting me, ” I said, throwing any concern about my first impression right out the window.

Luckily, Security Agent Girl didn’t hold my language against me.

She knew why I was agitated.

“Don’t worry, ” she said smiling, “You can take the elevator in the store.”

Thank you, Jesus!

After you’ve had to climb eight flights of stairs at 7:45 in the morning, getting into an elevator is like being rescued by a helicopter from the roof of your car during a flood. My feet were still throbbing, my clothes wet with sweat, and my breathing still unbalanced, but at least I was in an elevator.

The Big Fancy’s basement is the complete opposite of its sparkling, picture-perfect store.

Windowless and industrial, it resembles the cargo hold of a plane.

Metal pipes hold rows of clothes suspended from the ceiling and chain-link cages contain wooden shelves of everything from shirts and pants to coffeemakers and the purses I’d soon be selling. The basement’s dimly lit hallway gave me the creeps; it was a place Hannibal Lecter could call home.

I quickly got myself to the meeting room.

Inside I found a stuffy room with beige walls and fluorescent lighting. Six-foot-long tables had been pushed together in the shape of a square horseshoe, with its ends facing the front of the room. A giant Post-It note sat on an easel displaying the words,
Welcome!
We’re
glad to have you!
Next to it was a smaller, five-foot-long table holding stacks of colored collated paper, piles of pens, and a TV with a built-in VCR. I was the only one in the room.

As I sat down at a corner of the horseshoe wondering if I was in the right place, I noticed a bunch of posters similar to the ones on Mount Fancy:

Customer Service is our number-one priority!

Never underestimate the power of a smile!

Always show the customer the dessert tray and give her
more than one choice.

Greet every customer within 30 seconds.

A larger poster stood out. It had a childlike drawing of a sun below the title
The Sun of Success.
Inside the sun was the word
YOU.
On the lines representing the sun’s rays were the words
Customers,
Merchandise, Salespeople, Managers, Buyers, Board of Directors,
Money, Career, Community, Self-Fulfillment,
and
Family.
Below that, it said:

You are the center of the sun.

How bright you shine affects everything.

I gazed at
The Sun of Success
. It was the biggest load of corporate bullshit I’d ever seen. I may be new to The Big Fancy, but I’m not new to department-store propaganda. I had enough of it shoved down my throat at the store in Reno to know the truth behind it all.

YOU are expendable. YOU are disposable. YOU are replaceable.

YOU aren’t the center of anything in retail.

Everything from that point on went to a very dark, sunless place.

My fellow newbies were all women. Twelve of them. Various ages. I wasn’t thrilled about being the only guy. Many jokes were had at my expense. “Looks like you’re part of the Girls’ Club now! You’re outnumbered! Better hope we don’t decide to do makeovers!”

The first part of my Big Fancy orientation was administered by Two-Tone Tammy, who bounced between her two extremes. She sweetly congratulated us on joining The Big Fancy family, and then seconds later she let out her Dragon, saying The Big Fancy had huge expectations and many people don’t cut it. Some of us might not be the right fit for The Big Fancy.

Sicky-Sweet Tammy excitedly laid out the benefits package for health, vacations, and retirement. Then Fire-Breathing Dragon sternly went over all the things that weren’t tolerated within the company: all the harassments, all the unlawful ringing methods, all the dress code mishaps. The endless list of decrees nearly blew my brain right out of my head.

Then we did something I absolutely hate.

We had to stand and do stupid introductions as if we were at a singles convention.

“Hi, my name is Hilary. I just divorced my jerk of a husband. Turned out he was a queer, so I took the bastard for everything. Now I’m working in the Kitchen Access department.”

Oh, God. I better stay clear of her.

“Hi, my name is Cindy. I used to be vice-president of a bank, until it collapsed. I’ll be at the MAC cosmetic counter doing makeovers. It’s a change, but I’m ready for the challenge!”

Now
she’s
pushing lipsticks? Damn,
that’s
sad.

“Hi, my name is Barbara. My husband is a prominent lawyer in La Crescenta. I’m in Women’s Tailored Clothing, just here for fun, something to do, I don’t really need the money!”

Okay,
that’s
just disgusting. Someone should examine her head.

When my turn rolled around, I said, “Hi, My name is Freeman. I just moved here and I’ve been assigned to the purse department.”

They all stared at me like they were waiting for more, like I was supposed to name off all the people I’d slept with or present a PowerPoint show of my life.
Fuck that.
I shot them my famous shit-pleasing retail smile, a smile that makes me look like I give a shit when I actually don’t. It’s my number-one viable retail asset.

But Two-Tone shot me back with what looked like her own shit-pleasing smile and then made us play ridiculous word-association games on the chalkboard with words like
Team Player, Courtesy,
Follow-Through,
and
Service.

“What do you think of when you hear the word ‘service’?” Tammy asked. I so wanted to yell out “blow job, ” but I held back. The woman named Hilary with the queer ex-husband was nearby, and she might have stabbed me with her ballpoint pen.

Later, we were herded down the dreary corridor to another room called Register Training. Inside were rows of registers. Waiting to take over the reins from Tammy and teach the money handling side was Brandi, The Big Fancy’s Store Operations Manager. Brandi was an annoying woman in her mid-forties who bore a frightening resemblance to TV’s Marcia Brady. Only this Marcia Brady did a baby-talk routine, as if her audience was composed of preschoolers.

“GOOD MORNING, NEWBIES! How are we all this morning?” chanted Baby-Talk Brandi, “I see bright new shiny faces! Are we happy to be here? I know I’m happy to be here and meet all of you! LET’S ALL HAVE A ROUND OF CLAPPING!”

She cannot be fucking serious. Where am I? Sesame Street?

Twelve women and one man stared at her.

“COME ON EVERYBODY!!” shouted Baby-Talk, “GET THE BLOOD FLOWING! CLAP! WE HAVE A LOT TO LEARN IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME AND I NEED YOU PUMPED UP!! IT’S SUPER-FANTASTIC TIME! WOOHOOOO!”

The twelve women and one man clapped. I wanted to super-fucking kill myself.

Like a chipmunk on speed, Brandi chattered uncontrollably about handling money, fraud, credit, pricing, ticketing, and new accounts. “Did everyone get that okay?” she asked to vacant stares, “Do you understand? Great. Perfect. Super-fantastic. Moving on. Onward and upward, class!” And just like that, we were at the registers.

The Big Fancy’s sophisticated computerized registers were supposed to be simple, but to some, operating them ended up being more complicated than learning Chinese. I caught on easily because they were similar to the ones I’d worked with before, but the Lawyer’s Wife had major problems. Her register beeped in error so many times I thought it might explode.

“SUPER-FANTASTIC!” Brandi screamed in my ear after I figured out how to do a Charge Send properly.