Until a little over a week ago I finished my last day in retail. What a long journey that was. Seven years and eight months to be exact. Do you know what it is like to work in the retail industry? You learn a lot about different people and you learn to have a lot of patience and self control. Don’t get me wrong I love the industry. Working in retail not only gave me a passion for style, but also gave me a serious shopping addiction. I was constantly bringing home new things to add to my closet and of course no closet is ever big enough. When I moved in May I had to condense my overly full walk-in to a small, one sided closet with sliding doors. You can imagine my struggle and the mess of clothes constantly on my floor. To be honest I don’t think that I have enough room in my closet and drawers to fit all of my clothes. This is why I hate doing laundry because I physically cannot put it away. Everything fits much better when there is a basket full of laundry needing to be done. Anyways, I am hoping now that I do not work in retail I will buy much less clothes. Except its been a week and I’ve bought about seven things and my excuse was that I needed it for my new job. I’m working on getting better I promise. Oh wait, I forgot I ordered a dress and a pair of pants too, they are on their way. But that it is!
With all this being said I now graduate to the next step in my life. I am going from a store to an office and I am actually really exited. I am learning something new that I can take to many different jobs. I’ve been training on accounts receivable and it’s been good. So I want to take this time to say farewell to retail, and no one deserves this farewell more than my customers.
Farewell to the customers who come in right when we open to return five items that they don’t have a legitimate excuse to return them except for, “I changed my mind,” because they probably bought them all to get free shipping on the one item that they actually wanted. You’re a joy to start my day off with. And farewell to the customers who want the large on the bottom of the perfectly folded stack of tee shirts and rather than nicely picking up the entire stack to get to their shirt, they grabbed the large and flip the entire stack into a heaping pile. It’s my pleasure to clean up the mess you leave.
The next customer is one of my favorites. Farewell to the customers who come in with their children and think they do not have to watch them since they are inside a store. I absolutely love being a baby sitter and not getting paid extra for it. You have really showed me how to be a good mother one day. For example one of my customers was so smart. She had a stroller with a baby and an older toddler who was walking, and she wanted to try some clothes on. That was no problem, we had a handicap dressing room for reasons such as this so women in wheelchairs or who have strollers can have enough room to try clothes on. So I went to let the woman into the large dressing room so that she could bring her stroller and her toddler in. Instead she had this great idea to leave her stroller and her toddler outside the dressing room so that she could have the big room to herself. While trying on her clothes her baby was crying and the toddler was running outside and hanging over the side of the fountain in front of our store. Some of the best parenting I have seen.
Last, but not least, I want to say farewell to the customers who will try anything to get something on sale. Customers and I will run into many discrepancies while doing a transaction. For instance the jeans I had scanned were $74, but the customer for some reason seemed to think that they are on sale for $20 and told me that I am wrong. I asked them to show me where they got them from. They walked me to the table that had two levels. The top level had tee shirts across the whole thing with a large sign clearly stating “Tee Sale $20”. The jeans were on the bottom row. I explained that the sign that said “Tee Sale $20” meant that the tees were $20. The customer then told me that our sign was way too confusing and that they don’t want the jeans and they left. There are also the customers that blatantly ask if they can have a discount at the register. When I ask if they have a coupon or a promotion code they tell me no. Then I tell them then no you cannot gave a discount. Lastly of course farewell to the tag switchers. The ones who pick up brand new items and switch the tag with a clearance item as if we do not know our own inventory, “I am so sorry ma’am but SOMEONE switched the tag on this item with a tag from clearance.” Or better yet if I catch it before I scan it I just rip the tag off and tell them that it is missing a price tag and I’ll go get a new one. Usually they decide that they don’t want that item anymore.
I could really go on and on about all of these fabulous customers. In fact I think I’ll start writing a book about them since there are so many, and I wouldn’t want to leave any out. Yes, consider this a preview of that book. These were just a few things to note that I will miss from my retail days. It was great and thanks to my customers there was never a dull moment. Ill be sure to add you all in the dedications page in my upcoming book. As painful as it is to leave, I must move on and grow up. If I am to ever go back to the retail industry it will be in a corporate office position. But don’t worry I’ll keep on shopping to remember the good old days. My closet is always hungry for more!