A Day In the Life of a Retail Worker

Hello lovelies,

You know something that has always bothered me a little? People always assume that working in retail is easy, and thus have completely no sympathy when you tell them you're only earning peanuts. I recall a conversation I once had with a girl from my university about pay rates when I was still working my last job, which went something along the lines of:

X: "I work at the University gym - it's awesome, I get paid $40 an hour to exercise."
Me: "Damn, I only get $13 an hour, I feel ripped off now."
X: "Oh, but you work retail, so you aren't busy doing things for all the hours you work, whereas I am."

Woah, did you just say I'm not busy all day, because I work in retail? I feel it's a common misconception, mainly born of the fact that customers only see what retail workers do while they're in front of them - they don't see the hours of back-breaking behind the scenes work that goes on to make it look like we don't have much to do. To illustrate my point, here is the natural progression of a typical day in my position:

8:30 -8:45 AM: Arrive at work, take note of position, break times, and go over plan of attack for the day.

9AM: Store Opens. Am in Menswear today, and have three racks of stock to find places for.

9AM - 10AM: Shift racks, climb ladders, carry precarious piles of clothing around Menswear department, merchandise the wall near the walk-way, arrange everything neatly.

10 - 10:30AM: Try and tidy the messy underwear racks at the front of the store, but keep being called to the registers because there are lots of customers to serve.

10:30AM: Crap, time for my 10 minute break.

10:45 AM: Crap, time to cover Fitting Room's 10 min. break. Spend this time hanging copious quantities of mens pyjama pants - Fitting Room has 11 boxes of them to unpack today.

11AM: Head back to Menswear, and have 3 boxes of clothes, plus a box of belts to unpack, price, security tag, hang and find places for.

11-11:30AM: Break my neck, and get half a box of stock finished - crap, now Registers needs someone to cover their 45 minute lunch. I take one of my stock boxes with me.

11:30AM: Registers is quiet - luckily. I get my first box of stock finished.

12:15PM: Time for my lunch - still have 2 boxes of stock to unpack, plus those belts, plus tidying my department.

1PM: Get back from my lunch, grab another box of stock and head off to cover Fitting Room's 45 minute lunch.

1:45PM: Phew, almost managed to finish another box of stock up at the fitting rooms - only one and a bit, plus belts to go! Running out of room to put the stock I've finished, so I decide to find places for some of it.

1:45 - 2:20PM: More ladders, stock shuffling, carrying piles of clothes heavier than me, merchandising, rearranging and one box of stock has made it to the shelf.

2:20PM: Finish off the last of the second box of stock.

2:30PM: Run up to Registers to cover their afternoon break.

2:50PM: Dammit, too many customers. No time for stock at the Registers this time.

2:50-3:15PM: Unpack third box of stock, finally find a place for those belts. Alright, nearly there with the stock!

3:15PM: Argh, afternoon break time!

3:25-3:45: Price, security tag, hang third box of stock.

3:45PM: Scamper up to Fitting Rooms to cover their afternoon break.

4:00 - 4:30PM: Back to my stock! More rearranging, tripping, cursing and finally that second box of stock has made it's way onto the shelves.

4:30 -4:45PM: Luckily, the third box was extras of things already on the shelves, so it was just a matter of finding/transporting them to their places.

4:45PM: Noooo, while I was dealing with all the stock, and covering people's breaks my pile of returns has grown huge!

4:45 -5:15PM: Run around like a headless chicken, desperately trying to get the returns back to where they belong. Then Registers calls me, because they have a whole new pile of returns. Cue more running around like a headless chicken.

5:15PM: Finally starting on the proper tidying up - now I have 15 minutes to make sure everything is off the floor, in it's rightful place, hung the right way, not falling off it's hangers, zippers zipped, buttons buttoned and so on. (Needless to say, I'm never going to get this all done, so I settle for tidying along the walkway, and making sure everything is off the floor).

5:25PM: Argh! People walking around trying things on as they go, and just dropping them on the floor if they don't want them. What did I spend the last ten minutes doing?

5:30PM: Stores closes. I empty my coat hangers, take my rubbish out, and make sure everything is off the floor AGAIN.

5:45: Home time!

And you know, in between getting all that done I sit around and scratch my butt. But this isn't the only reason that retail workers are underappreciated - we are talked down to, belittled, blamed, accused and verbally abused on pretty much a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. We are stuck in between a rock (Management) and a hard place (Our Customers). Nearly every day I work on the registers I end up being faced with a choice between disappointing a customer, or making management decide to fire me for not following store policy. Retail workers are expected to be bright, happy, energetic and polite, no matter how exhausted or stressed out they are - and no matter how rude people are to us. I'm not kidding when I say I've been spat at by disgruntled customers.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my job! I love to work with clothes, and especially to merchandise. I like to play little games with myself about how much faster I can get jobs done. I'm crazy about the people I work with. And, on good days, I love my customers. Working in retail is wonderfully social, and if you get lovely people then you end up having a myriad of interesting conversations in the one day. I like to listen to people, and hear their stories. I just also think that us register jockeys deserve a little respect - you know, just the decent kind of behaviour you'd show any other human being not working in retail.

Retail workers are people too.

Until next time, xo.