Retail Hell: How I Sold My Soul to the Store Read online

  Retail Hell

  How I Sold My Soul to The Store

  Confessions of Tortured Sales Associate

  Freeman Hall

  Avon, Massachusetts

  Copyright © 2010 by Freeman Hall

  Originally printed in hardcover in 2009. All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in anyform without permission from the publisher; exceptions aremade for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

  Published by

  Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

  www.adamsmedia.com

  Paperback ISBN 10: 1-4405-0577-2

  Paperback ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0577-5

  Paperback eISBN 10: 1-4405-0876-3

  Paperback eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0876-9

  Hardcover ISBN 10: 1-60550-102-6

  Hardcover ISBN 13: 978-1-60550-102-4

  Hardcover eISBN 10: 1-4405-0433-4

  Hardcover eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-0433-4

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  is available from the publisher.

  Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their product are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

  PRAISE FOR RETAIL HELL

  “[Freeman is] a retail-centric Perez Hilton.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “[Retail Hell] was delivered this morning and . . . I’ve been laughing ’til I’m burple in the face!”

  — Michael Tonello, bestselling author of Bringing Home the Birkin

  “. . . An amusing window into the world of hyper-consumption . . . full of outrageous — and humorous — tales of shoppers behaving badly, all in pursuit of an ‘It’ bag.”

  — LA Times fashion critic Booth Moore

  “Gucci hawker-turned-author Freeman Hall shares hilarious tales of his twenty-year servitude as a sales guy, from crazy customers to the cloyingly cheerful store culture.”

  — Washington Post Express

  “An entertaining look at the view from his side of the handbag counter. . . . Meet the Piggy Shoppers, the Discount Rats, and the Blood-suckers — all of them customers who shop at fine stores, terrorize the sales staff, and now are exposed . . . .”

  — Reuters

  “Retail Hell . . . omits few offenses that writer Freeman Hall faced on the sales floor. Readers . . . will get a glimpse of the crassness of shoppers and salespeople, depending on the situation.”

  — Women’s Wear Daily

  For my mom, Janie Burchett, who encouraged me to follow my dreams and taught me that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  Author’s Note

  The situations and characters in this book are based on my twentyplus years of retail experience. However, the names of stores and people have been changed, timelines are out of sync, and the situations have been cleverly disguised, ripped inside out, and run over several times. For the purposes of the book, my Retail Hell takes place at a department store I’ll call The Big Fancy. As satisfying as it would have been to name names, my ass would be sued up one side of the escalator and down the other. And that would be painful on my ass.

  Contents

  Introduction: Freeman’s Inferno

  Act 1: The Big Fancy Underworld

  Hell in a Handbag

  Free-Spirit Personality

  Climbing Mount Fancy

  Sunshine from Satan’s Ass

  The P-Word

  Angels and Demons in My Head

  Can I Interest You in a Dead Animal Hide Hobo Named Lucifer?

  Falling Down Mount Fancy

  Guns and Toilets

  I’m Not Ready to Rumble

  Polly Wants to Talk

  Big Nightmare #1

  Act 2: Sinners, Serpents, and the Craziest Crazy-Lady Customers

  Queer-Eye Handbag Guy

  Shoposaurus Carnotaurus

  Monique Jonesworthy, Nasty-Ass Thief

  Is Deescount?

  The Two Virginias

  This Little Piggy

  One Picky Bitch

  The Vampire Bavaro

  Big Nightmare #2

  Act 3: Misfire and Brimstone at The Big Fancy

  Sale Smack-Down

  Babysitting the Devil’s Spawn

  Hot Stuff on Mount Fancy

  The Shitting Room

  Merry Strep Throat and a Happy New Flu

  Cock in a Box

  Full Moon Fancy

  Big Nightmare #3

  Conclusion: Satan’s Superstar

  Free Gift with Purchase! Bonus Section

  Branded by Numbers

  The Customer Is Always Right

  The Do’s and Don’ts of Shopping

  Retail Hell Readers’ Discussion Guide

  Free Bonus eBook Content: Customers Behaving Badly!

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Freeman’s Inferno

  Move over, Dante.

  A Wednesday afternoon at The Big Fancy. Someone out sick. Some-one at lunch. Someone in a training class. And my manager in a meeting with the store manager. Probably playing footsie. I’m flying solo at the handbag counter.

  As usual, because I’m by myself, the gates of Retail Hell open up: An indecisive woman wants me to retrieve every evening bag we have inside of a glass case, forcing me down on my knees at least sixty-five times. Another woman fires off a barrage of mind-numbing questions about a Juicy Couture bag. The phone rings nonstop: “Why aren’t the markdowns done?” “Can you check on a handbag?” “Is Tiffany there? No? Then can you help me?” A wellknown customer who returns a lot of merch rolls up to the counter carrying two shopping bags loaded with handbags. She wants to have some returned, some exchanged, and others checked to see whether they went on sale so she can get price adjustments. Her receipts look like a pile of wilted lettuce leaves and don’t match the price tickets, which are not attached to any of the bags. While she’s trying to straighten out her mess, another customer gets pushy and begs me to ring up a wallet because apparently she’s the only person on lunch break and in a hurry. I make the annoying Returner wait and ring up the wallet, only to get a code on the register not approving the sale. I call Credit and am immediately bounced to hold. A woman wearing a dirty Mickey Mouse sweatshirt appears at the counter with a $3,000 Marc Jacobs handbag stuffed into a plastic grocery bag. She wants to return it and get her cash back. I can already tell she’s a Nasty-Ass Thief. Another phone line begins to ring. I debate answering it, but risk losing my connection with Credit . . . which would mean I’d have to start all over. The Returner asks me if I can call someone else to help her. The Juicy Couture Questioner seconds her motion. And like the cherry on top of a shit sundae, a new customer forces her way up to the counter and shouts in my face:

  “Excuse me, do you work here?”

  I look like an octopus at the Aquarium of Insanity. How can she even ask me that?

  A dumb-ass question deserves a dumb-ass answer:

  “No, I sure don’t.”

  I turn my back on her and continue to wait for Credit while praying to God to please keep me from freaking out and picking up the fucking register and hurling it at all of them.

  I wasn’t born a Retail Slave. I didn’t pop out from my mother’s womb with a feverish desire to sell things people don’t want or need. I don’t have the bouncy game-show-host personality that would make it easy for me to go up to strangers and say, “Hi! How are you today? How can I help you? Would you like
to see our new Coach bags for spring? Let me tell you what’s on sale! Can I answer any other idiotic questions you might have? Please! Treat me like shit and ruin my day!”

  No, I wasn’t born a Retail Slave, but I was born into a family full of them. My uncommon first name, Freeman, was bestowed upon me in honor of my grandfather, who was named Freeman in honor of his father Freeman. Yep, that’s three Freemans in the family. But the name wasn’t the only thing gifted to me by my elders. I also inherited their retail genes.

  My great-grandfather Freeman owned a furniture and appliance store in Reno, Nevada, where I’m from. He was known as a tenacious salesman who could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. My grandfather Freeman, on the other hand, spent most of his life at the store on the other side of sales: in the service department. His willingness to fix problems could turn a ferocious customer into a purring pussycat.

  How could I dodge that retail bullet?

  My mom, a divorced, single mother of two, spent most of her life in retail, hawking everything from jewelry to drapery to tractors. She could charm anyone into maxing out their AmEx for an antique bauble, saying, “You need to buy this! It’s going to be a collector’s item someday. $3,999 is a real bargain.”

  I, however, showed no signs of a soul headed for a life in retail. As a kid, I hated cleaning and folding, didn’t like talking to strangers, loathed math, couldn’t do ten things at once, wasn’t aggressive, despised cheerleading, and did not like being told what to do. Not exactly a blueprint for a life in retail.

  I had a different plan. I wanted to be just like Steven and Stephen — Spielberg and King. In fifth grade, my English teacher was surprised by my disturbing and detailed book report on The Exorcist. But rather than sending me to the school counselor, she recommended I read ’Salem’s Lot. I thought it would be a lame snooze, but it scared the shit out of me. Stephen King had sunk his teeth into me and that was it. I was his forever. At about the same time, Spielberg put out Close Encounters of the Third Kind and became my hero. And even though I cherished Jaws, the book, my love for the director was cemented once I saw the movie. For days I slept curled up at night, rather than stretched out. My legs were not about to become fish sticks.

  At a young age, my heart was set on emulating my idols and crafting a million-dollar screenplay . . . so what in Retail Hell happened to me?

  I’ll tell you what happened. In a word: clothes.

  We all have our addictions. Belgian chocolate. QVC porcelain dolls. Crack cocaine. Mine just happens to involve shirts and pants. Designer shirts and pants. And trendy shoes that look hot with them.

  No big surprise there. Young gay guy lured to the dark side by fashion. It’s not headline news. But as I neared adulthood, my love for cool clothes got the best of me when I won the underage lottery by scoring a fake ID.

  In college, during the early 80s, I fed my film obsession by working at a majestic old movie house downtown, selling tickets to classics like E.T. and Flashdance. The assistant manager was a cool guy who was several years older. He also happened to be the owner of a driver’s license displaying a picture that looked exactly like me. After begging and offering everything in my bank account (a whopping $50), he agreed to get a new license and sell me the “lost” one.

  This was a huge social coup for me. Most of my friends were over twenty-one, and I hated not being able to hang with them at clubs and casinos. Thanks to my older, blond-haired, blue-eyed twin, that was about to change.

  Fake ID in hand, I rushed to my favorite department store (one of only two in Reno). If I was going to dance and drink the night away at the only gay club in town, I had to do it looking like I’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ. I was a broke college kid, but I desperately wanted a pair of Calvin Klein jeans. Everyone wanted his name on their ass, and I was no different. But sadly, the only thing I could afford on my meager movie-house paycheck were Calvin’s undies — and that was only if I bought them at Marshalls! After trying on a bunch of sale-rack rejects, I found a funky brand-name shirt that would have to do. As the cute Preppy Sales Guy rang up the shirt, I asked him if the Calvin jeans ever went on sale.

  “Not often,” he replied, “But if you want to get a discount on them, you should work here. Employees get 20% off.”

  I did a double take. What? Was he shitting me? Twenty percent off? Department store salespeople get discounts? On Calvin Klein jeans? I could not believe my ears. I felt dizzy.

  “Even on the Calvins?” I asked.

  “Yes, even on the Calvins. It’s on everything,” he replied, “I got a pair for only fifteen bucks.”

  I almost passed out.

  “You know what else?” he said, “They also automatically give you a credit card when you start, even if you’ve never had credit before. All employees get an eight-hundred-dollar limit.”

  Break out the smelling salts. A CREDIT CARD!!? I didn’t have one, but I had wanted one for a long time. Badly.

  Was that all I had to do? Work at the department store for discounts and credit cards?

  I suddenly saw myself with a closet full of Calvin Klein everything. Put me on the cover of GQ!

  “You know what else?” Preppy Sales Guy said, leaning in, “Major studs shop here.”

  His gaydar was on target. I gave him a sheepish smile and said, “Wow. I hadn’t thought about that before.”

  After that, I only had one question: “Where’s the personnel department?”

  A week later I landed a gig with the department store and was in Retail Shangri-La, with Visa card in hand, surrounded by fabulous designer clothes and potential dates. It was not long before I had my very own CK jeans, and I proclaimed, “The only thing coming between me and my Calvins is a cute boy.”Along with my dream jeans, I racked up pieces from Perry Ellis, Ralph Lauren, and Lacoste; a Swatch watch; Wayfarer shades; and the ever-popular Sperry Topsiders. My fashion planets had aligned. The world was at my feet. And I looked damn good!

  Working in men’s sportswear was my first retail job (aside from selling lemonade and movie tickets), and it wasn’t particularly hellish. In fact, sometimes it was quite retailicious: flirting with cute male customers, taking long breaks, gossiping about coworkers, having vodka collins lunches, creating hip displays, opening boxes of clothes I wanted to buy. In the stockroom I had an entire rolling rack acting as my own personal hold shelf. It was loaded with merch I planned on buying as soon as it all dropped to 75% off and funds became available in my checking account.

  Of course, there were hellacious moments, like a customer reaching into the middle of a table of sweaters and yanking from the bottom, knocking them all over like dominos after I’d just spent an hour folding. Or a customer yelling at me because he wanted a Polo shirt on sale the day after a sale ended. Or the scary old man coming on to me in the fitting rooms, asking if the Speedo looked good on him. Ewww.

  Good times, bad times — through it all, my retail genes were raging. Although there was no pressure from the store to make sales because we weren’t on commission, I had a way of talking men into buying loads of clothes. I had mastered the art of sales-associating in Men’s Sportswearland. Because of my stellar retail skills, my manager deemed me her assistant — with no pay raise. My pay raise consisted of all the extra hours I’d be working. Umm, say that again? Extra hours?

  And just like that, my honeymoon with Calvin Klein was over.

  Every day was a twelve-hour day with mountains of paperwork. I directed merchandise floor moves, set up all the sales, handled tedious transfers, counted merch until my head hurt, stayed late, and came in early. The store began to feel like an unforgiving, chaotic, and demanding dungeon, with customers yelling and complaining, markdowns always needing to be done, phones ringing, registers breaking, and my manager freaking out every five minutes.

  I became a slave to retail. My love for writing and watching films took a back seat to the store. The pay sucked and my credit card was maxed, but it didn’t matter at the time because I still lived at
home, and most of my hard-earned money was spent on partying and new outfits for partying. As days slipped into years, my life became an endless, monotonous cycle of reporting to the store, hanging clothes, moving clothes, picking up clothes, ringing clothes up, and shopping for clothes. I was barely putting pen to paper. My movie muse was dead. The store had me by the balls.

  That is, until I went to see Fatal Attraction.

  Remember it? Glenn Close plays the jilted lover of Michael Douglas, and she stalks the shit out of him, going so far as to boil his kid’s pet rabbit and then pretend to drown in a bathtub. For me Fatal Attraction was pure cinematic genius. Audience participation at its best. There’s nothing like hundreds of people freaking out and wetting their pants in front of a theater screen. I wanted to write something just like it. My imagination reeled. And just like that, I went back to movie-watching binges, reading scripts, and writing out my ideas.

  The Retail Slave I’d become was suddenly wide awake.

  Time to revive my Million-Dollar Screenplay dream.

  I decided to abandon the slimy retail riverbank and float downstream to a place I was sure had sandy white beaches, picturesque blue skies, lazy palm trees, and half-naked men serving bottomless margaritas. The day I left Reno it was pouring rain and cold, but my head was filled with California sunshine and visions of becoming a Hollywood hotshot — a rich and famous screenwriter with a private office on the Universal lot next to Steven.

  But there’s a fine line between heaven and hell, and little did I know I was about to sell my soul to another store.

  A really Big Fancy store.

  ACT 1

  The Big Fancy Underworld

  The devil made me do it.

  Hell in a Handbag

  Leo DiCaprio opens the envelope and says, “And the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay goes to . . . Freeman Hall — Love in a Fitting Room.” Applause thunders across the Kodak Theatre. As I reach center stage and the Oscar is handed to me, Leo gives me a friendly guy-to-guy hug. The dude is total actor candy. My speech kicks ass. I thank director Ron Howard for not getting angry when I slipped my script into his shopping bag. I also give a shout-out to God, my mom, my sister, my acupuncturist, my fifth-grade teacher, my beta fish, Sid Vicious . . .