Sarah Morgan
Having worked retail is kind of like having a Jeep Wrangler or a sailor’s tattoo. Your brethren just get it in ways that outsiders couldn’t.
I’ve worked at the most high-end shopping mall in the country, and I’ve worked retail in a small town where I’d rent movies with a customer’s pet skunk in my arms.
Sophy, her name was. The skunk, not the customer. But I digress.
I’ve filled prescriptions and wrapped Christmas presents, stood at the same register for eight hours straight, worn smocks and name badges, assembled furniture and sold diamonds. I know facing and planogramming, endcaps and returns, inventory and daily deposits.
I know retail – and I should, after eight years – and this means I know customers. I know how to handle complaints, I know how to read people, and I know how to translate what people say they want into what they actually want.
Also, I fold excellently well, but that’s less pertinent.Â
Retail was one of the best groundings into business I could ever have gotten, and, like my fellow veteran Briana, I believe that anyone who missed retail work has missed a lot.
What’s your best retail war story?
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