Saturday, December 03, 2005

Retail Hell.

Now, I like my job. I know it's hard to believe. I know most people would lead you to believe that retail will suck your soul out through your fingertips. And it probably will. But I lurve clothes and I lurve working with a bunch of women and I lurve making someone's entire day when I find that sale shoe in size 7.5 in some store in Hawaii.
I even lurve the holidays.
To a certain extent, that is.
See, when holiday time begins, people are cheerful. They are happy. They are shopping! for! that special someone! Hoorah, and do you have this in an extra small? Associates are excited because pretty cashmere is rolling in every day, and the tangy scent of markdowns is in the air.
However. It is now almost the second week of December. And people are starting to get a wee bit edgy.
If you've shopped anytime in the past, oh, ten years or so, you know that retailers have different bags at Christmas. Ours this years are candy-apple red and gorgeous. They're stacked everywhere in the backroom. The backroom is the domain of the lovely and talented France, my great friend, (the blog about our trip to Ulta is forthcoming, I swear!) and probably my favorite coworker. Girlfriend can haul through stock like nobody's business, and juggles three jobs while still having gorgeous hair. It's just not fair.
France is fairly easygoing, but she's a neatfreak, and you know, none of the rest of us are.
So. Picture it. We've received 40 cases of shipment, 20 boxes of bags and boxes, and four massive boxes containing visual stuff. We had a huge sale over the weekend, and we've been placing sweaters on the floor directly from the boxes, totally screwing up poor France's system. I flip out. "France will be here at two, and this place is a disaster! Also, a fire hazard! But France, she will have our heads!" So Erica and I start stacking up all the boxes, take the trash out, pick up all the random pieces of plastic and stack up the purses. I am generally please with the effect.
Whoops.
France came dancing in at one thirty, all tra-la-la, and having been there since seven, I'm like, "what's your deal?"
"I'm just in a GREAT mood!" she trills at me.
"Glad someone is," I mutter.
So I am cleaning. And I am backstocking. And I am merchandising. And I am assisting clients. Because lo, I am keyholder extraordinaire. And as I bring sweaters into the back, France gestures wildly, "What the hell is this?"
Me: "Uh, what?"
"This mess!"
I kind of laughed, not sure what she was talking about, and made some comment about how she should have seen the place earlier.
"Who did this with the bags?" she grits, and I wildly say that I stacked them there because the door was blocked and then finally I realize that she is talking about the piles of holiday bags gaily tossed over the left side of her work desk.
"Oh, I didn't do that!" I say, anxious to escape her wrath.
Grumbling under her breath. Then, louder, "You'd better tell them I'm mad! Mad, I say!"
And then I think she started foaming at the mouth but I was too busy hightailing it out of there to notice.
A while later I came back and she was listening to a mix tape.
"Aw, are you listening to 'Jackie's Mix 1'?" I asked, sing-songy.
"Yes," she snapped, You wanna make something of it? hiding in that one word.
"Sorr-ee. What's wrong with you?"
"I am seriously PISSED," she spluttered, right before she started speaking in tongues. In ancient Aramaic, I believe she was saying something about disrespect, but since I didn't watch Passion of the Christ I'm not really fit for interpreting.
See what I'm saying? Edgy.
Eventually one of the managers cleaned up the travesty of the holiday bags and France had some tea and I think all was right with the world, but I'm totally not talking to her until the last client walks out with the last holiday bag. Or January 12. Or when I think it's safe.
And France? I maintain my innocence. Please love me again! Otherwise, my future trips to Ulta will be super boring.

*some incidents may be slightly exaggerated for comedic effect.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

France is very demanding.
So true.
But also brutally honest.
I like my honesty brutal.

She just needs to take a "chill pill" and stop working herself to death. Although she'll deny she's a workaholic.

Anyway...that's my 2 cents.

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