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?
The closest I got to retail was an ice cream parlor in a hotel. We stayed up well past midnight serving banana splits to conference-goers.
I *still* want to work at Target though. I want to scan items, work the register and yes, even wearing the red shirt would make me happy.
You speak of retailing in the past tense. Never thought about doing it again?
I love it and I do miss it sometimes. However, I like having weekends and money to make mortgage payments… two things that working retail does not usually offer.