I was fortunate to grow up in a family where I was not required to get my first job at soon as I was old enough to work. My parents valued school and activities growing up, so I never had to worry about my own finances. I played three sports in high school and my summer often involved two to three practices a day every week with tournaments on the weekends so having a “normal” teenage job would have been difficult to maintain.
Now, this is not to say that I did not work and have money on my own. I would babysit, dogsit or do chores and odd jobs for other family members to make money when I needed it. But all these “jobs” offered lots of flexibility with no strict schedule to follow.
Once I graduated high school my summer was significantly less busy (especially thanks to Covid) and my parents encouraged me to get a job to help save up some spending money for college. I was a 2020 senior, so most places where I could get a job were closed or not hiring due to the pandemic.
With my options limited, I applied mostly at gas stations and grocery stores. Finally, I received a job interview with Walmart and was hired immediately after as a self-checkout host.
I had not been to Walmart or any store really since pre-pandemic days, so this was my first experience being immersed into the new world of masks and sanitization. Every time I came to work I felt like I was walking into a really angry doctor’s office, getting my temperature taken, wearing surgical masks, and constantly sanitizing my hands.
I have always heard the horror stories of working in retail, but one does not truly understand it unless they have lived it. And this is not to say that every day was bad, but I often found that I was getting yelled at for things that are out of my control.
When you are working at the front-end of a retail store, specifically a cashier or a self-checkout host, everything becomes your fault. A customer’s card gets declined, the item is broken, the machine malfunctions, a receipt is not printed, the store goes under renovation and everything rearranges; all of that is somehow your fault.
Not to mention when Walmart decided to control the flow of people by closing off all but one exit or the national coin shortage (I still get nightmares), that is also somehow the fault of the cashiers checking out customers.
Even though I would not recommend this job to people based on my experiences, I still learned a lot from it being my first job.
I learned how to effectively deal with unhappy customers, the importance of building relationships with your co-workers, money management skills and the importance of balancing work and life. I also learned how to properly pack groceries, which I still practice every time I go grocery shopping. This job also opened my eyes as a career I definitely am not interested in doing for the rest of my life.
Working in retail is not for everybody, but I believe that working in retail adds valuable life skills and career skills for everyone.
So thank you Walmart for giving me my first “real job” at 18 in the midst of a global pandemic and thank you for giving me skills that I have been able to translate into the other jobs I have possessed.