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

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  “I’m here for training.”

  “Just need you to sign, since you can’t clock in yet.”

  She pushed a clipboard toward me and I scribbled across it, still panting.

  I could barely talk, but I managed to ask, “Is the meeting room around here?”

  “It’s in the basement.”

  My breath suddenly caught up to me.

  “No fucking way. You’ve got to be shitting me, ” I said, throwing any concern about my first impression right out the window.

  Luckily, Security Agent Girl didn’t hold my language against me.

  She knew why I was agitated.

  “Don’t worry, ” she said smiling, “You can take the elevator in the store.”

  Thank you, Jesus!

  Sunshine from Satan’s Ass

  After you’ve had to climb eight flights of stairs at 7:45 in the morning, getting into an elevator is like being rescued by a helicopter from the roof of your car during a flood. My feet were still throbbing, my clothes wet with sweat, and my breathing still unbalanced, but at least I was in an elevator.

  The Big Fancy’s basement is the complete opposite of its sparkling, picture-perfect store.

  Windowless and industrial, it resembles the cargo hold of a plane.

  Metal pipes hold rows of clothes suspended from the ceiling and chain-link cages contain wooden shelves of everything from shirts and pants to coffeemakers and the purses I’d soon be selling. The basement’s dimly lit hallway gave me the creeps; it was a place Hannibal Lecter could call home.

  I quickly got myself to the meeting room.

  Inside I found a stuffy room with beige walls and fluorescent lighting. Six-foot-long tables had been pushed together in the shape of a square horseshoe, with its ends facing the front of the room. A giant Post-It note sat on an easel displaying the words, Welcome! We’re glad to have you! Next to it was a smaller, five-foot-long table holding stacks of colored collated paper, piles of pens, and a TV with a built-in VCR. I was the only one in the room.

  As I sat down at a corner of the horseshoe wondering if I was in the right place, I noticed a bunch of posters similar to the ones on Mount Fancy:

  Customer Service is our number-one priority!

  Never underestimate the power of a smile!

  Always show the customer the dessert tray and give her more than one choice.

  Greet every customer within 30 seconds.

  A larger poster stood out. It had a childlike drawing of a sun below the title The Sun of Success. Inside the sun was the word YOU. On the lines representing the sun’s rays were the words Customers, Merchandise, Salespeople, Managers, Buyers, Board of Directors, Money, Career, Community, Self-Fulfillment, and Family. Below that, it said:

  You are the center of the sun.

  How bright you shine affects everything.

  I gazed at The Sun of Success. It was the biggest load of corporate bullshit I’d ever seen. I may be new to The Big Fancy, but I’m not new to department-store propaganda. I had enough of it shoved down my throat at the store in Reno to know the truth behind it all.

  YOU are expendable. YOU are disposable. YOU are replaceable.

  YOU aren’t the center of anything in retail.

  Everything from that point on went to a very dark, sunless place.

  My fellow newbies were all women. Twelve of them. Various ages. I wasn’t thrilled about being the only guy. Many jokes were had at my expense. “Looks like you’re part of the Girls’ Club now! You’re outnumbered! Better hope we don’t decide to do makeovers!”

  The first part of my Big Fancy orientation was administered by Two-Tone Tammy, who bounced between her two extremes. She sweetly congratulated us on joining The Big Fancy family, and then seconds later she let out her Dragon, saying The Big Fancy had huge expectations and many people don’t cut it. Some of us might not be the right fit for The Big Fancy.

  Sicky-Sweet Tammy excitedly laid out the benefits package for health, vacations, and retirement. Then Fire-Breathing Dragon sternly went over all the things that weren’t tolerated within the company: all the harassments, all the unlawful ringing methods, all the dress code mishaps. The endless list of decrees nearly blew my brain right out of my head.

  Then we did something I absolutely hate.

  We had to stand and do stupid introductions as if we were at a singles convention.

  “Hi, my name is Hilary. I just divorced my jerk of a husband. Turned out he was a queer, so I took the bastard for everything. Now I’m working in the Kitchen Access department.”

  Oh, God. I better stay clear of her.

  “Hi, my name is Cindy. I used to be vice-president of a bank, until it collapsed. I’ll be at the MAC cosmetic counter doing makeovers. It’s a change, but I’m ready for the challenge!”

  Now she’s pushing lipsticks? Damn, that’s sad.

  “Hi, my name is Barbara. My husband is a prominent lawyer in La Crescenta. I’m in Women’s Tailored Clothing, just here for fun, something to do, I don’t really need the money!”

  Okay, that’s just disgusting. Someone should examine her head.

  When my turn rolled around, I said, “Hi, My name is Freeman. I just moved here and I’ve been assigned to the purse department.”

  They all stared at me like they were waiting for more, like I was supposed to name off all the people I’d slept with or present a PowerPoint show of my life. Fuck that. I shot them my famous shit-pleasing retail smile, a smile that makes me look like I give a shit when I actually don’t. It’s my number-one viable retail asset.

  But Two-Tone shot me back with what looked like her own shit-pleasing smile and then made us play ridiculous word-association games on the chalkboard with words like Team Player, Courtesy, Follow-Through, and Service.

  “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘service’?” Tammy asked. I so wanted to yell out “blow job, ” but I held back. The woman named Hilary with the queer ex-husband was nearby, and she might have stabbed me with her ballpoint pen.

  Later, we were herded down the dreary corridor to another room called Register Training. Inside were rows of registers. Waiting to take over the reins from Tammy and teach the money handling side was Brandi, The Big Fancy’s Store Operations Manager. Brandi was an annoying woman in her mid-forties who bore a frightening resemblance to TV’s Marcia Brady. Only this Marcia Brady did a baby-talk routine, as if her audience was composed of preschoolers.

  “GOOD MORNING, NEWBIES! How are we all this morning?” chanted Baby-Talk Brandi, “I see bright new shiny faces! Are we happy to be here? I know I’m happy to be here and meet all of you! LET’S ALL HAVE A ROUND OF CLAPPING!”

  She cannot be fucking serious. Where am I? Sesame Street?

  Twelve women and one man stared at her.

  “COME ON EVERYBODY!!” shouted Baby-Talk, “GET THE BLOOD FLOWING! CLAP! WE HAVE A LOT TO LEARN IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME AND I NEED YOU PUMPED UP!! IT’S SUPER-FANTASTIC TIME! WOOHOOOO!”

  The twelve women and one man clapped. I wanted to super-fucking kill myself.

  Like a chipmunk on speed, Brandi chattered uncontrollably about handling money, fraud, credit, pricing, ticketing, and new accounts. “Did everyone get that okay?” she asked to vacant stares, “Do you understand? Great. Perfect. Super-fantastic. Moving on. Onward and upward, class!” And just like that, we were at the registers.

  The Big Fancy’s sophisticated computerized registers were supposed to be simple, but to some, operating them ended up being more complicated than learning Chinese. I caught on easily because they were similar to the ones I’d worked with before, but the Lawyer’s Wife had major problems. Her register beeped in error so many times I thought it might explode.

  “SUPER-FANTASTIC!” Brandi screamed in my ear after I figured out how to do a Charge Send properly.

  Finally we were released for lunch. I wanted to get a salad at this French Café place, but then I saw half my fellow Female Ne
wbies standing in line. I went to Carl’s Jr. instead.

  Man food. No Female Newbies there.

  The afternoon was off to a lobotomizing start as Tammy began showing us Big Fancy movies that threatened to knock me out. We endured the history of The Big Fancy with some old dude yapping on and on about how lucky we were to have been hired at a Fortune 500 company devoted to customer service. Didn’t hear half of what he said; the man food had sent me into a food coma.

  We were forced to watch something on inventory and the importance of accuracy, and then some nonsense about returning everything for the customer, and finally a canonizing masterpiece delving into the seedy world of stealing employees and what happens to them when they get caught.

  I slept with my eyes open.

  That is, until Baby-Talk Brandi scared the shit out of me by yelling, “TIME TO WAKEY-UPPY, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME SUPER-FUN RIGHT NOW! AND GET THIS PARTY BACK TO LIFE!”

  The super-fun was having us draw slips of paper out of a fishbowl with scenarios printed on them about subjects like opening new accounts, multiple selling, approaching customers, and handling returns. We were to take turns role-playing in front of the class.

  Did I mention I loathe role-playing games?

  My slip of paper had me playing the part of a woman wanting to buy lipstick.

  Hilary, with the gay ex, played my Cosmetics salesperson. The look she gave me when I asked her if she had anything in Candy Apple Red made me want to ask Tammy if I could take out a restraining order.

  Suddenly the meeting room door flew open, and a woman stuck her head in and shrieked at a pitch that made Brandi’s cheers sound tame: “WOOO-HOO! WHAAAASSSUP, BURBANK NEWBIES??!?!!”

  I nearly jumped clean out of my chair.

  The owner of this shrieking voice was Suzy Davis-Johnson, the store manager. I call her Suzy Satan because she rules The Big Fancy Underworld like a Disney witch on Ecstasy. “NEWWWBIES! NEW, NEW, NEW, NEWBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!” Suzy Davis-Johnson sang out, making my ears beg me to cover them. American Idol rejects have nothing on her.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Suzy Satan had orange and blond stripy highlighted hair cut into a pageboy, and thick black rectangular glasses.

  “MY NAME IS SUZY DAVIS-JOHNSON!” she screamed, “I’M YOUR STORE MANAGER! THE CAPTAIN OF THIS FABULOUS SHIP! I WANT TO WELCOME YOU TO OUR MAGICAL STORE. THE BIG FANCY IS THE GREATEST PLACE TO WORK EVER!!”

  Satan fired off a laundry list of expectations: No cell-phone conversations in the store. No chewing gum on the sales floor. No standing around. No frowning. No. No. No.

  With tears in her eyes, she told us what customer service means to her and how it can change the world. “If we love our customers, they love us, and they keep coming back.”

  A confusing lecture about sales requirements came next. If we didn’t sell more in commissions than our hourly rate, we ended up doing something they called Misfire. Apparently it was the equivalent of committing murder at The Big Fancy, and if we did it three times in a row, we were viewed as “Ineffective Sales Associates” and considered “not a right fit.” Termination was initiated. Suzy Satan announced all of this with a smile that had to be hiding something wicked.

  Positioning herself in front of the Sun of Success poster and framing it with her arms, à la Vanna White, she gushed:“The Sun of Success is our most prized and cherished philosophy. Each one of you has the ability to be a beautiful, radiating sun at this store, full of tremendous warmth and light. When you excel at what you do, you grow brighter, and all of those around you shine even more. The rays of your bright shining sun affect everything!”

  Somebody get me a paper bag! The Gay Guy is going to barf.

  Brandi passed out sheets with suns drawn on them so we could fill in our own Sun of Success to present to the class.

  I cringed. In sci-fi movies people are killed by the sun. Could this day get any worse?

  Before we could start, Tammy announced we were out of time and we’d have to sadly forgo that part of orientation.

  I was so happy I almost yelled, “SUPER-FANTASTIC!”

  Suzy Davis-Johnson continued, “I hereby welcome all of you to our close-knit family. We are highly dedicated individuals and are motivated to win! ROCK ON! Now that you have completed training, I have a fabulous tool I want to give each one of you. IT’S THE OFFICIAL EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK!”

  Oh. My. God. NO! Not a fucking handbook. Studying and tests go with that word. I don’t want to study. I need to go home and write. What have I gotten myself into?

  “IS EVERYONE READY TO GET THEIR EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK?” she yelled.

  A half-assed “Yessss,” answered back. Satan’s face went sour.

  “NOW, THAT’S NO GOOD!!!” she cried, “REMEMBER, YOU ARE ALL SUNS!!! BRIGHT, BRILLIANT, RADIANT SUNS! YOU ARE THE LUCKY ONES, BEATING OUT HUNDREDS OF OTHER APPLICANTS TO WORK IN THIS STORE! I WANNA HEAR HOW EXCITED YOU ALL ARE TO BE WORKING HERE!!!”

  “YEeeAAaaH!” responded all the women and one man, sounding like a broken accordion.

  “What do you think, Tammy?” Suzy Davis-Johnson asked, deflated.

  “I think they’re ready, Suzy,” she said, looking haggard from the day’s training events.

  Baby-Talk Brandi walked up to the front with a large box. I held my breath. If she took out anything bigger than an old TV Guide, I was going to bawl.

  To my surprise she pulled out a stack of glossy 4" × 6" cards and gave them to Satan, who went around the room handing one to each of us and shaking our hands as if we had just graduated. “Congratulations, here is your official employee handbook, shine on!” she said.

  On the front of the card there was a photo of an old black book that said EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK in gold lettering. On the back it read:

  Welcome! Congratulations on joining our team! Our number-one goal is to give excellent customer service above and beyond the norm. Remember, you are the center of the sun. Store rules: Use your best judgment with everything. There are no more rules. Have fun!

  I stared at the Employee Handbook, relieved that it wasn’t the size of Gray’s Anatomy, but I was confused by the message.

  This did not make sense.

  Have fun? Are they fucking kidding? No rules? Where are Satan’s expectations about not chewing gum, not misfiring, and not using cell phones? What about everything Tammy said that isn’t tolerated? What about Brandi’s threats regarding what would happen to us if we didn’t carefully inspect every credit card and hundred-dollar bill? What about the fucking eight flights of stairs we have to climb every day? What about? What about? What about?

  The Big Fancy’s Employee Handbook was as bogus as one of the computerized personal checks Brandi told us to watch out for.

  When I looked around the room, I saw the blank faces of my Female Newbies.

  Not a peep. Not even a frown.

  Today the mice were going to be quiet and take their drugs.

  This included me.

  I wanted the hell out.

  Finally we were excused, and everyone quickly rushed the door. Before I could even get close to it, Suzy Davis-Satan lurched toward me and started yammering inches from my face: “I’ve heard SOOO MANY GREAT THINGS ABOUT YOU! We finally have a DUDE working in handbags! RIGHT-ON! HIGH FIVE! ROCK AND ROLL! I expect GREAT things from you! This is SOOO EXCITING! I’m totally excited! You must be excited? Are you excited?”

  What a crazy-ass freak. Who is this woman? What have I done getting a job at this place?

  Moments later, I stood at the top of Mount Fancy looking down the eight flight of stairs.

  Now I have to go down them? How the hell will I do this every day? I am so screwed.

  I felt like I had been shot into the center of the sun naked.

  Completely fried. Char-broiled. Burnt to a crisp.

  All the Noxzema and aloevera gel in the world would not be able to save me.

  But in moments of great duress, the human mind can find ways to protect its body from the mos
t severe conditions.

  My cheap dress shoes came off.

  And I didn’t care who saw me.

  The P-Word

  Climbing Mount Fancy was not the only obstacle I faced at The Big Fancy in my early days as a newbie sales associate. I had to learn not to say the p-word.

  Purse.

  I know many of you women out there still refer to the piece of backbreaking luggage you drag around all day as your purse, but at The Big Fancy and in the fashion world, saying the word purse is akin to calling a day spa a beauty parlor.

  When I arrived in the handbag department on my first morning an hour before the store opened, I was like an Ohio farm boy stepping off a bus into New York City for the first time.

  I was in over my head.

  There had to be millions of different sizes, shapes, and colors of purses. They looked like lumps of wild, exotic, sleeping animals and if any of them woke up, I was sure they were going to eat me alive.

  How the hell am I going to sell these things? I don’t know shit about purses.

  The place suddenly felt like Bikram Yoga class. I thought it was leftover heat from my stairwell workout coupled with my purse nerves and the fact that I was wearing a suit, but I found out later the AC didn’t kick on until 10:00 a.m. Suzy Satan didn’t think air-conditioning before the store opens was cost effective.

  I so wanted to take off my sport coat, but the dress-code requirement called for all men to wear a dress shirt, tie, slacks, and sport coat. “Everyone must be the epitome of fashion professionalism,” said Two-Tone Tammy during training.

  Nothing about that in the Employee Handbook!

  Since I had no budget for a closet full of suits when I started at The Big Fancy, I pulled together a suit look with a black sport coat and black slacks.

  I did not feel like the epitome of fashion.

  I felt like the epitome of Discount Store.

  Because that’s where it all came from, including a pair of new dress shoes for Mount Fancy, with thick hiking-boot soles.

  The only fashion fun we Retail Slave men got to have was with our ties. I took full advantage of this, and I own quite the collection. Picasso, Monopoly, the Tasmanian Devil, hundred-dollar bills, sun-flowers, Homer Simpson, pizza, billiard balls. You name it. If it’s weird and on a tie, I’m wearing it around my neck.