Retail Peon

I was living in a fool’s paradise. I thought I could be the “cool” sales associate to whom customers could choose to go when they just want to buy their socks and underwear, and not hear a sales pitch. But my manager has other ideas; ​her​ managers have other ideas; the powers-that-be that sit on the clouds up at ​Macy’s​ Corporate ​certainly​ have other ideas. They hand down quotas for the underlings to fill, which in turn trickle down to us. Ridiculous quotas that don’t have a basis in reality, which is that we have a very small store that is often not crowded at all. We have a core demographic that is not really interested in Calvin Klein, Betsey Johnson, and Perry Ellis. The average person in the men’s department spends about $50 — mostly on the store brand polo shirts, socks and plain work pants. We serve the moms and dads of Marin County — not the tastemakers the training videos seem to think flock to our suburban store. Instead of innovation and edginess, we carry chinos in every color of khaki or beige a man could want, and in styles such as “slim fit,” “relaxed,” “relaxed slim flat front,” and “pleated relaxed.” Marin is fond of its earth tones and generous sizing in clothing, wooden decks, dinner entrées, and sports utility vehicles.

But that doesn’t stop the team managers from roaming around the place in small gangs, luring us into placation with the offer of candy — only to lecture us that our department is last in the region in terms of recruiting folks into the Macy credit card fold. What they don’t explain is how am I, a mere entry-level sales associate, supposed to generate $1500 worth of sales ​per day​ in an empty store, and another $200 or so from a presale that no one is interested in? A “presale,” for those of you lucky enough not to work in retail, is when the store dangles a 25% discount in front of a customer if they pick out the clothes that they want ​now​, pay for them ​now​, but then watch as a store functionary whisks the clothes away to the dark, musty basement, where we keep the clothing hostage for two weeks. The purpose of this practice has never been adequately explained by management (and I suspect that they don’t understand it, either).

When I go into the back room to look for hangers or receipt paper, I see these textile prisoners. They are kept in a giant wire cage, hanging from rack after rack, stretching up to the ceiling and fluttering with the customer’s information printed out on receipt paper. Sometimes that crucial piece of paper goes missing, or the bag is misplaced. Then the excitement really percolates as a gaggle of frantic associates scour the store for the lost merchandise, while the customer stands out in front, tapping his foot and grumbling about how he needs to pick up his kids from lacrosse practice. In my experience, a man buying khaki pants to wear to the office does not want to come back in two weeks to pick up those pants and socks. His wife made him come to the store because his socks don’t contain his toes anymore, and his belly now spills forth over the size 34 pants he bought ten years ago. It’s a delicate matter when a man insists that he has been “a size 34 since college!” then refuses the contradictory evidence a tape measure presents. I saw more than one gentleman hoist his rotund midsection to rest ​above​ the waistband, proudly displaying how well the pants fit to all who were in the vicinity. It’s best to simply smile politely in these instances.

Another Macy’s psychological test consists of a sales associate offering a customer the following “deal”: If you donate $25 to one of any number of charities that well-meaning but detached Marin do-gooders are touting this season, you will receive a $10 gift card, in the mail, some time in the spring of next year. What kind of deal is ​that​? Nobody wants to bother with a lousy ten-dollar gift card several months from now. Besides, it will probably get lost in the shuffle of the thousand other pieces of junk mail Macy’s is constantly sending out to every household in the United States.

I always feel so dirty dangling the charity in front of peoples’ faces, only to force them to come up with a reason why they don’t want to save the animals or the destitute women and children. But I see my coworkers relishing the experience, pouring on the sob story like a generous helping of maudlin, saccharine pancake syrup.

Which brings me to the new system of electronic coupons. Anyone who has opened a Macy’s store credit card, or, as management insists on calling them, “magic cards,” is very familiar with the postal inundation of bright red cards that promise 25% off this purchase, or $10 off that purchase. Most people come in with seven or so cards, and make the poor bastard behind the counter ring methodically check each card with each purchase, to see which combination wrings the most dollars out of the bottom line. As of three weeks ago, the coupons have gone digital, so that a person can hover over a screen at the register and pick which electronic counterpart to the cardboard coupons seems the most valuable. Trying to explain this to a little old battleaxe who has been shopping at Macy’s for the past 60 years is, if you ask me, always very trying, and best left to someone else. Old habits die hard, and for many of these women, coming into the store with a handful of cardboard coupons is like sitting at a card table in Monte Carlo with a straight flush. It must feel like a coup of some kind, like they’re somehow getting one over on a multi-billion dollar corporation. I would say it was pathetic, but that would be unkind and facile. For many of us, joy can be hard to come by, and we all search for it in the ways we know how.

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