I read the story today of a Wal-Mart employee being trampled to death by a crowd breaking through the doors of his store in order to have first crack at the early morning day after Thanksgiving sale items with more than a little interest. Setting aside the “I should be shocked but I’m not” reaction to such a mob mentality, a quiet voice in the back of my head recalled how not all that many years ago I was one of those store workers spending Thanksgiving half celebrating the day with family and half staring at the clock, counting the hours until it would be time to crawl out of bed the next day not to go bargain hunting but rather serve my eight hour sentence as purveyor of the hunted.
Retail workers aren’t quite as looked down on by society as child molesters or those who utters racial epithets. But it’s close. To work in retail means one is immediately classified as a subpar subservient, a brainless talentless ambitionless shiftless lesser than less mess whose sole reason for existence is to provide maximum assistance while offering oneself up to be the whipping boy for all that ails those being looked at by the name tag rather than wearing one.
The pay in retail is almost invariably dismal. The hours are from whenever to whatever with slim consideration given to such non-essentials as family or having a life period. The number of hours worked per week for the dismal pay perpetually reside underneath the sword of Damocles personally hung by someone from corporate headquarters and bearing the label ‘attention store management — keep labor expenses as low as possible or else.’ Said management is pitted against each other in a bizarre game of snakes and ladders with willingness to pick up and move across the country at a moment’s notice mandatory should one wish to advance. Yeah, retail.
I loved it.
The pay and hours, no. The opportunity for interaction with the public, sometimes. There would usually be enough fun customers to offset the boors. The opportunity for interaction with co-workers in an environment where everyone didn’t retreat behind their cubicle walls but actually worked together, yes. Being in an environment where people actually worked together and had something about which they could swap stories… there’s a lot to be said for that. Had retail paid a living wage I would have happily stayed there forever. Ah well.
Then again, after what happened today I’m reminded why I don’t miss it all that much.
It is my firm belief that everyone, everyone should be required as part of their education to spend at least a year working in a retail store, restaurant, or both. Perhaps then they would understand what it’s really like. Maybe not, but it would have made me feel better when I did my turn at an office supply store. I don’t miss that place one bit.