Retail Therapy

Do you value comfortable shoes above all else?

Do you celebrate holidays months before their arrival?

Does the thought of Christmas impart on you a sense of dread and impending doom?

Do strangers’ cellphone conversations (on speaker phone...always) settle deep inside you with an intense loathing?

Has the sentiment of “Have a nice weekend” lost all meaning to you?

Have you developed a tic at the phrase, “Oh, it’s not scanning so it must be free”?

If so, then you must be a hardened retail worker like myself.

When people ask me about my current job, the words “mind-numbing” and “soul-deadening” often come to mind. I spend several seconds of my day wishing that I could apparate back to the comfort of my home. How I fantasize of fulfilling my dream of being a work-from-home writer and a stay-at-home cat mom. Ah, but I dream.

I have had several jobs since I became another burnt out casualty of the Education system. No doubt, since I sense you are forming the question right now in your mind, why no--I have no desire to ever go back to teaching. I can suffer through the oversharing and neediness and long hours as need be, because I know the alternative is the loss of my mental health and quite possibly also my hair. I joke, but this is true.

Since my former life, I have worked mostly customer-service oriented jobs--as a local library assistant, as a barista, as a sales associate. Always customer service. And apparently, I have a knack for it, despite it not being my favorite thing; I’ve learned the art of smoothing over difficult situations with disgruntled patrons and winning them over by remembering them and seeking out to view them as fellow humans. Sometimes, there is no pleasing them. Sometimes, they become friends who share in creative endeavors with me, and we follow one another on social media. I cherish customers from every job I’ve had in the last nine years. There are some I cherish, because they are warm and lovely and funny. There are some I cherish because I know one day they will make excellent villains in future stories.

But there are a few tasks at my present job that I relish. I soak in the joy of creating something beautiful that in turn brings joy to the customer. For instance, when a customer brings me a gift, in mourning that the store does not offer gift wrapping services, they marvel at the ability to take tissue paper and fluff it attractively into a gift bag. This is actually not difficult at all. You simply lay tissue paper sheets across one another so that the tissue points are staggered, and then pinch the center of the sheets, pull upwards, shake, and turn upside down. Voila! You have a beautiful bouquet of tissue for your gift bag. Repeat as much as needed in order to fill across the bag’s opening.

Making balloon bouquets is equally satisfying. You begin with a Mylar balloon. (Some customers prefer using all Mylar balloons for their bouquets. This is more expensive, but who am I to judge?) After selecting your Mylar balloon, you choose latex ones that will match. I show customers our choices--our store has every color you could imagine. Metallics, as well as pastels and pearlies. Some are printed with “Happy birthday” or “It’s a boy/girl.” I take pride in matching colored ribbon to the balloons, pulling them together and staggering the heights. I usually make the Mylar balloon the focal point, with the latex ones surrounding it at various levels. After tying together to your weight of choice, I conclude by snipping the ribbons to the same length and curling the ends.

Similarly, seasonal displays are enjoyable and scratch my creativity itch. There is something thrilling and delightful about opening boxes of new product for which you have spent nothing. Though like Sisyphus rolling that rock up the hill for eternity in Hades, as soon as I create one display, it is torn down the next day and assembled elsewhere in the store.

When I am feeling particularly misanthropic, I seek solace in the card stacks. Scanning, sorting, organizing, matching missing envelopes from the store’s eternal stash. This is a therapeutic activity that is a balm for all annoyances. It renews my energy and makes the hours seem as seconds. Every once in a while, a customer will pass by needing assistance for finding a sympathy card for a pet or a new home card for a friend, and I am happy to oblige.

While I generally do not enjoy helping customers pick out gifts for their friends and loved ones--people I have never met, who I know nothing about--sometimes I stumble upon the perfect gift that thrills the customer I am helping. This warms my soul and makes me glad that I was there to be a part of the gift in a small way.