Retail Hell

Anyone who has ever worked in retail or customer service can tell you first hand that it sucks. It sucks big time.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m being selfish for not appreciating my job in this terrible economy. It’s nearly impossible to get a job in any field, and I should kiss the ground my boss walks on for keeping me as a seasonal employee. She doesn’t have to do it, and most managers have completely cut their seasonal staff in recent months.

To protect my identity, I’m not going to reveal my place of employment, or any of my co-workers real names, but I will tell you all about it. We sell collectibles, greeting cards, stuffed animals, and basically every other type of useless chachkela one could possibly want.

Looking for a five foot birthday card? A singing monkey? An ugly glass angel statue with a purple halo? Come to my store!

The first person to train me was named Angelo*. He was a fierce, flamboyant, loud little man with a bossy attitude. He had me doing seven projects at once, all the while ringing up customers, trying to push our latest St. Patrick’s Day light-up pins and making sure to include the senior discount. Angelo took no prisoners, and made sure that we never had a spare moment to breathe.

One afternoon when Angelo and I were working alone, he was acting funny. I had been arranging the new section of unfortunate-looking porcelain figurines for an hour when I decided to go back to the office and check on him.

He was curled up in the fetal position on the floor, crying under the desk.

When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he couldn’t keep up his fierce persona every day.

“I can’t go back out there,” he cried.

“Angelo, you know I’m the only one in the store, right?”

“You are?” he sniffed. After blinking a few times, he told me that the customers just expect too much from him and should realize he’s a real person too.

I found it hard to be sympathetic towards Angelo for two reasons.

1. He was crazy.

2. He was constantly pretending to be someone he’s not, which is something I do not advocate.

However, crazy managers are not the only weird people I come across at my job. We have a regular group of customers that never seem to disappoint.

One woman, whom I’ll call Tanya*, has a habit of coming into the store and fitting as much into her arms as she possibly can. Just as she looks like she’s about to drop everything on the floor, she comes and drops it all onto the register. As I begin to ring up the items, usually expensive stuffed animals and musical candlesticks, she looks through her purse frantically and rushes out of the store, without a word.

I’m always left standing there, unsurprised, and pissed during the next half an hour I have to put away all of her merchandise.

I’ve been working at this store for two years, and Tanya has done this at least five or six times to me. I don’t think any of my co-workers have had to deal with her. It’s like she seeks me out and wants to make me miserable.

The next customer I’ll call The Chocolate Lady*. She comes in every Saturday, right around 11 a.m., and peruses our small chocolate and candy selection.

“Anything on sale, deary?” she always asks me.

“No, Chocolate Lady. Our chocolate never goes on sale,” I reply, just like I do every week.

“Alright, well next week then,” she says, and leaves the store.

I know The Chocolate Lady doesn’t have any kind of Alzheimer’s or mental disorders because I’ve had full conversations with her on days other than Saturday mornings. She’ll come in looking for a card for her granddaughter’s Bat Mitzvah, or her sister’s 50th birthday.

But every Saturday, without fail, it’s all about chocolate.

My favorite customer is one I’ll call Barry*. Barry is a middle aged man. He walks with slumped shoulders and has thinning hair on his head, but very hairy arms and legs.

How do I know of his hairy legs, you may ask?

I know of Barry’s hairy situation because of the red track shorts he wears. All. the. time.

Once I asked him if he just came from the gym, and he calmly told me that they were just his favorite thing to wear because of the nice ‘breeze’ down there.

His words, not mine.

The day before Mother’s Day a few years ago, I was handling a particularly long and heinous line all by myself. My coworkers were at lunch, so I was doing my best to ring patrons up and get them out.

I noticed Barry out of the corner of my eye, toying with the glass case of cake cutters and wedding cake toppers. I didn’t think much of it, until he appeared at my side, holding a sharp cake cutter right next to my arm.

“Wow, this is sharp,” he said, running his finger up and down the blade. “Someone could seriously hurt someone with this thing!”

At that moment, I was incredibly angry that I had never been trained in what to do if I was ever shanked with a porcelain cake cutter, but I stayed calm.

“Oh, you’re right, Barry. Actually, my sister’s wedding is coming up and I need to buy that.”

I quickly snatched the sharp cake cutter from his hand and placed it under the register.

When my coworkers returned from lunch and I told them about my near-death experience, they laughed.

Now, I’m not saying that I hate my job. Not at all. All I’m saying is that I don’t get paid nearly enough to be everyone’s therapist, psychoanalyst, mathematician (“How much does this cost, young lady?”) or marriage counselor.

Minimum wage just isn’t gonna cut it.

An eye-opening experience

As the doors of CVS Pharmacy swooshed open, I became a girl on a mission.

I needed to find false eyelashes to replace my bare right eyelid. My only experience in the past with false eyelashes was when I wore them for beauty pageants and dance recitals. Because of using them often, I became very good at applying them quickly and neatly.

Things were a little different this time, though. I had no lashes for the glue to stick to!

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It all started when I looked in the mirror and noticed that my eyebrows were starting to look rather Godzilla-like. I hadn’t had them waxed in at least three weeks, and thanks to my Cuban genes, they grow super fast. My first eyebrow wax was at age 10! If I don’t keep them maintained I begin to look a little like Frida Kahlo, which is not exactly an attractive look for a young college student.

I called up my hair salon, Today’s Trends, only to learn that my favorite eyebrow specialist, Laurie, was on vacation for the week.

“Sorry dear,” the receptionist told me. “I could fit you in with one of the other girls if you’d like?”

No! This was unacceptable. The only person I allowed to touch my eyebrows was Laurie. She knew the exact arch I liked, and knew not to pluck too many hairs from the end of the brow.

“That’s okay. I’ll just figure something else out,” I said, dejected, to the receptionist.

I went back to the mirror and stared a little more.

‘Maybe I could just do a little plucking?’ I thought to myself.

Plucking didn’t work.

I remembered my mom telling me about a salon that opened down the street from my house. She said our neighbor went to get a haircut, and it was a nice, clean place.

I got into my car and drove down to the salon. The sketchy shopping center should have been my first clue that things weren’t about to go well.

I walked in, and a little bell rang on top of the door.

“Well, hello darling!” the receptionist said in a deep southern drawl. “You need a cut or some color today, pretty thing?”

She seemed overexcited. The salon was empty, and each station was carefully arranged, as if they hadn’t had any business all day.

“Um no, I’m actually here for a brow wax. Do you guys have a specialist?”

She laughed.

“An eyebrow specialist!? No, honey. But we have Diana, and she does fabulous wax jobs! She’ll wax anything, from your hairline to your cooter.”

‘Did this woman just say cooter?’ I thought to myself.

“Well…great. I just need my eyebrows done, then,” I said, a little scared by how overzealous the receptionist was acting.

I sat in the waiting area for about ten minutes when Diana finally stepped out of the back and up front to meet me.

She wore a pink half-shirt and light jeans. Her bleached-blonde hair was waist-length, and her breasts were propped up right under her clavicle. She wore heavy black eyeliner and neon green eye shadow.

Diana looked like a Barbie doll on crack.

“Hi, dear,” she said to me. “Why don’t you come on back and make yourself comfortable?” she motioned to me.

I walked into the waxing room and Diana shut the door behind us.

“Up on the table, honey! I’m sure you’ve done this before,” she urged.

I lifted myself onto the waxing table, laid down and shut my eyes. I felt Dianna spread the hot wax across my left eyebrow. It felt a little hotter than usual, but I made myself feel better by telling myself that different salons keep their wax at different temperatures.

She put the waxing strip on my brow and began smoothing it down. Without counting to three or warning me, she violently ripped the hairs from my eyebrow. It hurt, but I was used to the pain. Remember, I had been doing this for years.

‘So far, so good,’ I thought.

Diana moved onto my right eye.

She must have put too much wax onto the wooden stick, because a quarter-sized amount of it fell directly onto my eyelashes. I didn’t feel it at first, but when Diana gasped, I gasped.

“Oh, no! Hmm…well. I can fix this honey, don’t you worry a bit!”

I reached up and felt the hot wax on my eyelashes. I couldn’t open my eye.

Diana put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball, and rubbed it on my eye.
Instead of the wax coming off, the alcohol went directly into my eye.

“Oh my fucking God!” I shouted, my eye stinging and burning from the hot wax at the same time.

“Did I get it in your eye? Oh my…I’m so sorry! I’m just gonna have to try to get it off.”

Before I could say anything, Diana placed the waxing strip down onto my eyelid and pulled.

The ripping sound it made I’ll never forget.

I reached up to my eye, and instead of feeling mascara-lengthened lashes, I felt nothing. I shot up off the table and ran to the first mirror I could find.

And then I screamed.

Being self conscious is something that all teenagers deal with, but not many have to worry about their eyelashes being waxed off at a sketchy salon!

Diana was apologizing profusely, but I didn’t hear a word. I walked out of the waxing room and to the front of the salon.

“I am NOT paying for this,” I told the receptionist, and I ran out the door.

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I pulled haphazardly into a parking space at CVS, and jumped out of my car and into the store. The doors opened quickly, and I turned to the left, where the cosmetics were kept.

I found the aisle of hair dyes and cotton balls, mirrors and false eyelashes. I picked up the first box I found – Ardell #301: Accent Lashes.

Three boxes seemed like enough, so I carried them in my arms to the front counter. The check out girl looked at what I was buying, and then at my flushed face. She didn’t say anything, but could tell that I was really embarrassed by the fact that I was lacking a set of eyelashes!

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I sat in front of my lighted mirror at home and put on the false lashes every day before school. Because I had no lashes to glue them onto, I had to use the very bottom of my eyelid. I looked like I had a lazy eye, and to make matters worse, Diana never ended up waxing my right eyebrow.

I looked real cute.

This experience taught me that sometimes shit happens, and there is nothing you can do about it. There are worse things in the world than missing eyelashes, but to a teenager it’s the end of the world. It was so naïve of me to think that I had it so bad, when really, I was just being dramatic. Of course not having eyelashes was no picnic, but there are people in the world without arms and legs, for goodness sake! I wouldn’t say that I was being selfish, I just didn’t realize at the time that maybe I should focus less on my little problems and look at the big picture.

I feel like if this incident were to happen to me today, I would handle it differently. I’d look on the bright side: saving money on mascara until my lashes grew back was a slight perk.