NJM #25 - Black Friday in These Foolish Things

I made it through. It wasn’t all that brutal from a customer standpoint, but one of the managers was an absolute DICK to me on the freaking walkie-talkie!

She kept giving me shit about everything and calling me out by name (everyone can hear - it’s how we all communicate with each other without having to yell across the store, ha!).

The thing is, all of the employees get assigned a “station” in the store every hour and you’re supposed to work your assigned stations, yet there are times when a customer needs for you to take them to another part of the store or you just see that there are people over in another part of the store who haven’t been helped, so you go over and help them, right? At least that’s how I’ve been doing it since I started working there a week ago and it was totally fine and legit before.

Well, I guess that was WRONG because I got in trouble by the Dick Manager several times for leaving my station to go help customers and to help put stock back on the shelves.

So I learned to keep myself in Station #1, which is the front of the store by the mall entrance, and my job today ended up being the equivalent of a Walmart greeter, saying hello to everyone who entered and telling them about the Black Friday deals.

Meh. It was fine, but it wasn’t as exciting as moving around and showing different ideas to people. But I understand for today that we really needed someone to just stand by the door and do that. And so I did.

But then it was the constant, CONSTANT harping on us to get people to sign up for the credit card…constant harping about telling people about the sales, cooonnnnstant harping about ENERGYYYYY!! And keeping it up! Keep going team! Go get those saaaaallleesss!

GET OUT OF MY EAR, BITCH!!

I wish I could tell you something more exciting, but I think it was just too busy and Black Friday-ish to be an exciting experience.

Oh yeah, we had a potluck. The absolute best dish of the day was the Thai shrimp glass noodle dish that one woman brought. It was amazing. Someone else made weird cookies that were chocolate chip with an oreo on the inside. I didn’t try those. The store manager got a bunch of sandwiches from a sandwich place and there were other things like donuts and cute tiny fruit skewers put together to look like little Grinches and dozens of other random snacks.

I’m glad I didn’t make a big fuss because it wasn’t like we all sat down and had a meal together. It was more like we’d each have a little bit of time on our breaks to sit down and grab a bite here and there.

And Dick Manager and I had our break at the same time and it was like she was a different person in the break room. Like, I actually liked her when she wasn’t in Dick Manager mode.

If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s that I’m glad that working on a retail sales floor is NOT my career choice. That’s no dig to people who actually DO it as a career. It’s just that it is freaking intense.

And now I get to do it all over again tomorrow. And again on Sunday. And Monday.
GS