Men & Retail

I was just thinking about the jobs I had in my teenage years. I worked at a pizza place when I was 15, and I sort of quit when I noticed they had no soap anywhere in the restaurant. I worked at a Ghirardelli Chocolate, which was dangerous for a someone with my appetite for chocolate. I worked at a publishing company turned dot-com (and then turned publishing company again), essentially sending out spam but I was called the “newsletter editor”…and the last teenage job I had was at JCPenney when I was 19.

Working retail is a pain in the butt, and I only worked at JCPenney for the 2000 holiday season. For some reason, I LOVED working there. I don’t like malls, I don’t like shopping, and I don’t like department stores…but nevertheless I enjoyed the few months that I worked there.

There were a lot of old women who would come in. One old woman used to come in regularly — I swear she was there more often than I was. She looked identical to this:

That’s Lady Elaine from Mister Rogers.

Sometimes there would be loud and rambunctious groups of women who would seriously spend the day at the mall. I’d see them buying stuff around 10 AM, and then around the end of my shift at 6, I’d see them coming back to JCPenney, arms full of bags, ready to buy more merchandise.

The male customers coming in were the absolute FUNNIEST, though. Sometimes there would be these giant burly brute-like men who would come in and buy something. And when I’d tell them the total they would say in a soft voice, “I’d like to put this on my Penney’s card, please.”

Sometimes they would be in returning things that were obviously for their wives. Nothing embarrasses a man more than having to return a bra or a pocketbook or a pair of pantyhose. But it was amusing to the cashiers! Wonder how the poor guy got suckered into doing that!

The best was when men paid with a check. Women are fast with checks. They would usually have the checkbook IN their wallet, and scribble down all the information faster than I could blink. But men would awkwardly take out a single crumbled up check from their wallet. I always assumed their wife gave them that one check, because that’s how it always worked in my house when my dad was given a check by my mom.

It would take them a long time to fill out all the fields in the check. Slowly, carefuly, but sloppily. They would sheepishly try to flatten out the crumpled check and hand it to me.

Working at JCPenney was a good experience. I don’t think I could ever do retail again, but those 2 months provided me with much amusement. ;-)

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