NJM #14 - Day 2 on the JOB in These Foolish Things

Whoa. Working retail sure is different now than it was back in the day.

Today was the first day on the sales floor and MAN, was it a LOT.

First, I was put with a sales stylist named Sied. Apparently, he is the #1 sales employee in the entire company! And that is saying a lot because this company is MASSIVE. He is amazing and was so very supportive of my efforts. He kept telling me what a great job I was doing even though I know I was a complete disaster.

But see, the thing is that in today’s retail environment, technology seems to have progressed light years since I was on a sales floor.

In today’s environment, you have to be strapped to a headset and a walkie-talkie to communicate with everybody on the floor. THEN you have to have an iphone that’s hooked up to a scanner so that you can do EVERYTHING with it. From clocking in, to checking on merchandise to signing people up for credit cards and loyalty points. You can even check them out from the phone if they have a credit card.

But THEN you deal with the actual customers: greeting people, helping them with product, taking them to a fitting room, picking out lewks, getting new sizes, making sure you’re watching their every move.

And the store employees are talking in your ear the whole time!

And THEN you have to know how to ring them up and tastefully package the merchandise just right with tissue paper and stickers and a beautiful bag.

I know I’ll get this eventually, but I’m still not quite familiar with all of the product this large store carries. I know I told some people the wrong thing today just because I was trying to guess in the moment. Note to self: don’t guess! Another note to self: walk the whole floor at least twice before you clock in on Wednesday.

I have tomorrow off.

I’m definitely going to need it to decompress.

Nighty-night, shoppers!
GS