For most people, including myself, it wasn’t until I started college that I really understood the value of a dollar. In high school you usually have mom and dad providing you an allowance, or handing you a bill when you wanted to go out to the movies. Once you go to college, the circumstances change. You log into your bank account to see if you can afford to go out, and calculate how much you need to pay for gas and food. Money, especially now, is a weight on our shoulders. This new stress is what I like to call the “initiation” into the real world. With all of these expenses it makes you realize that it’s time to get a job. Mom and dad are no longer going to provide for your social life so now you have to be an adult and make your own money. For me, it wasn’t until the summer after my first year of college that I finally got my first job.
My parents are not wealthy, so I rely on financial aid and loans to go to school and pay for housing. As I entered my second year of college, I needed to get an apartment to live in; this meant I was now going to pay for rent. Irvine is an expensive city so getting a job was not a choice but a necessity. My ideal first job was to work in retail. Like most girls, I glamorized the idea of working in retail. I pictured myself in a cute store, with cute clothes, and making sales without breaking a sweat. I have always had a love for fashion so I thought, why not surround myself with it. Little did I know that the job I was about to get wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be.
I applied to a bunch of stores and Old Navy was the first one to contact me for an interview. Immediately I seized the opportunity and impressed the managers and got the job. Now, Old Navy wasn’t exactly my dream store to work in. In all honesty, I hadn’t been inside an Old Navy in years; I always thought their clothes weren’t exactly meant for my scene. But as I went through orientation, I got excited. The staff was very friendly, and the work didn’t seem too tedious.
My first shift came and it just so happened to be on the day of their notorious $1 flip-flop sale. The managers warned us, they said “It is going to be crazy! Prepare yourselves!” Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to experience. The store was in chaos! There were customers lined up outside the store with security guards maintaining an orderly flow of people coming in and out. The staff was running around trying to find sizes of flip flops that customers couldn’t seem to find. The line for check out went all the way around the store, and cashiers were working as fast as they could to try and get people out quickly.
I was assigned to the toddler girls section, which looked like someone had just taken all the clothes off the shelves and rolled around in them. My only job that day was to try and keep the section organized. I immediately started folding clothes to try and attempt to make this disaster area look decent while making sure to assist customers. I greeted everyone with a smile and tried to help as many people as I could. The day was exhausting. I had spent all day running around the store trying to learn the ropes of working there and helping customers and making sure the store was neat. As soon as I got home and collapsed on the couch, I was finished.
But fortunately, the managers noticed I was a good worker, because as I got more and more shifts, they were eager to train me a lot more. I learned how to work the cashier, mark ups, and shipment. After it all, I was amazed at how much work went into maintaining just one store. I was enjoying the job but I was always exhausted and I finally understood why workers gave customers a bad reputation. It helped me realize that as a staff, we put so much effort into making sure the store is neat and making our customers happy, but in this particular Old Navy, the customers were ruthless.
The Old Navy I worked in was located at Ontario Mills, which is a huge mall that is always visited by tourists and people looking for sales. This meant that “scavenger” customers shop here. I call these customers scavengers because of their method of shopping—They go through everything in the store, searching for a good deal in their size, and destroy any table or rack in their path with no remorse whatsoever. They are the reason why most people cannot stand working in retail. They are skilled at testing our patience.
Our store had thousands of people, yes thousands, visit our store weekly so when it came to closing time, recovery was an absolute nightmare. On the days that we would have big sales, we wouldn’t leave work until 1am. There was no glamour in this job, just was pure hard labor.
Having this job, though, not only made me respect my parents more for working so hard, but also made me a more responsible with my finances. When you spend hours a week working your butt off for your check, you begin to value every dollar. Being a college student not only means a new sense of responsibility, but it also means being an adult. Paying your own bills and rent means you are able to support yourself, and that is the best feeling in the world.
Honestly, I probably would work in retail again because I feel that if I survived working in the insanity of that Old Navy then I could work in any store. So when you think about applying for a job in retail, don’t glamorize it. It is way harder then it seems, and you better know how to control your temper. Customers will get on your last nerves, and cussing them out or retaliating is not an option. But put yourself out there and be independent. College is when we are supposed to have crappy jobs that suck; it will make for good stories for when we get our dream job in the future.