Though I am now quite happily living the dream in my job as a Youth Director at the Salvation Army I haven't always had it this good. We moved here for Jenny's job but I came into this city unemployed and desperate. My current job is the fifth I have worked this year. I bounced from temp, to seasonal, to sales, and finally retail before leaving for my current job. My retail job was probably the one I enjoyed the most, though each was it's own special kind of adventure. Today I'm in the mood to write about the adventure of working on retail.
I worked at CVS in downtown Portland. CVS is a great company to work for and I was blessed with a fun manager and a laid back team. The only real difficulty the job presented was in the customers. Maybe it was our location, or maybe every CVS is like this, but for some reason our store seemed to attract a very certain type of customer. It's a difficult type of person to describe without describing how they act. You know the kind of person who takes something off the shelf and then tries to return it because they "lost the receipt." It's the type of people who looks at the tabloid covers as if it's news. One week a tabloid ran a cover story claiming all sorts of new and bizarre sexual revelations about Bill Clinton. "Oh Billy," one customer remarked, "what have you gotten yourself into now?"
My biggest customer pet peeve (aside from the gentleman whose t-shirt literally had porn printed on it) were the ladies who view a bra as an extension, or even replacement, of their purse or wallet. I could easily identify these women through the iPhone peeking through the top of their shirt. A woman would come to the counter, plop down a couple sodas and reach down the front of her shirt and begin the inevitable search. You would think a bra would only allow storage for a few items, maybe a phone in one cup and a small wallet in the other, but these women seemed to store everything from chapstick to coin purses in there. The worst part of this search would be the way that, inevitably, the longer the search took the further down the woman would have to pull the front of her shirt. Also frustrating is the fact that as a cashier there's not a whole lot of options while waiting for customers to find their money. You either look at the customers, look down at the counter, or you try to find some spot on the ceiling that might hold your interest. But part of good customer service is maintaining eye contact and staring off into space can be considered very rude. It's a very awkward situation to be stuck in.
The worst time was a particularly warm summer day when a large woman with a peach fuzzed upper lip dropped a couple of beers on the counter in front of me. "Umm, could I see your ID?" I asked, praying that her phone was the only thing stored under her shirt. My hopes were dashed as she plunged up to her forearm into her chest searching for ID. About thirty seconds of uncomfortable fumbling later she produced a state ID that did in fact confirm she was old enough to drink. I handed the ID back to her and once again her hand leaped into the abyss. Another long wait and she produced an EBT card. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, you can't use food stamps for alcohol purchases." I informed her. "Oh, right" she said and hesitated for a moment before using her other arm to search. Apparently one side was devoted to cards and the other to cash because a moment later she produced a damp $20 bill. She handed it to me. "This bill is wet," I thought. "She pulled this bill out of her boobs and it is wet and in my hand and I feel unbelievably uncomfortable right now." She looked in my eyes with a smug defiance as if daring me to show any discomfort on my face. I jabbed a finger at my register and waited the endless half second for it to open and the shoved the bill in as if it might bite me. I gave the woman her change, which was dry just the way I like it.
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