I have been wanting to write this for a while. I have known exactly what I wanted to say, but I didn't want to get in trouble or something. Not that anything I am about to say WOULD get me in trouble. Because unlike most people (or at least, most people that I have met...) I LOVED my retail job. I loved it so much that I'm currently trying to figure out a way to get transferred so that I can work my retail job on the SIDE of (hopefully.....) having a full time job as well.
So I'll just start in on it. I started working at Madewell in September (2015, of course) when they opened their first Oklahoma location at Penn Square in Oklahoma City. I have worked at Jamba Juice, I have worked for the federal government, I have worked for an NGO, and I have worked in the world of local politics. But never have I ever (yeah, take a drink, go ahead) worked in the wonderful world of retail.
During Panhellenic recruitment, I met Miles Kelly. Miles is easily the most beautiful and well dressed man I have met, I'll admit it. Anyone who meets him through me is always like "OMG I LOVED HIS STYLE!!!" and asks how I know him. He's a GA at OU and works at J Crew. Now it makes sense, right? How the kid manages to dress so sharp. With Madewell being a J Crew sister company, Miles knew one was opening in Penn Square and next thing I knew, I was interviewing over the phone with my soon-to-be manager, Marissa. I'll name drop, because I literally love all of these people.
September started with training. Chelsea was my...training manager? I guess? I almost feel like that makes her sound as if she's a pledge trainer. But I was not a Madewell pledge and she was definitely much nicer than any pledge trainer I've ever met. It was a lot of confusing paper work, with a number of questions and a lot of training videos. Let's be real for a second though; I lived in leggings and t-shirts for the three years of my college career. It was time to get clothes that I could actually, oh, I don't know, be a functioning adult in??? I was super pumped to be joining a company who had jeans that are ACTUALLY as great as they advertise, not to mention the tops and the SHOES. Goodness. Oh, and the bags too. Over my few months there, I quickly acquired a Madewell wardrobe; I began to gain confidence not only in how I styled myself whenever I prepared to go to work, but gained confidence in how I dressed every single day. I loved going to work, despite the drive to Penn Square being a bit long. I started to get to know a little bit about each of my managers. Marissa loves timing--all tasks have a set time for when they should be done. Kendra would have every single thing in the store organized in a rainbow kind of way, because she loves color, if she could. Casey owned every single courier and flannel that the store got in stock, and then the ones online too. Chelsea never left anything to question--that is, in the way that every time she explained something, there was no room for error or for misunderstanding. There was more to each of them, but let me tell you right now how hard it was to get to know my managers in the middle of holiday season.
I obviously met a few coworkers here and there too and even became close to a few of them. From Darshell to Michelle to Abney to Murphy. I was getting to know them better because our schedules would overlap. The holidays are everything in retail, that's something else I learned. Every kind of customer comes into the store--my favorites were always the men, as they were often scrambling to find a gift for a wife/fiance/girlfriend or even more difficult--their daughters. Black Friday is not nearly as bad as the media makes it out to be; there are the early shoppers, and then the late shoppers. The late shoppers are few and far between. They come in spurts, because most of them either pulled an all nighter like they were college kids again or because (like most of you...) they don't have the patience for Black Friday shopping.
I loved it though. I quickly became more comfortable putting outfits together, recommending what kind of jeans people would like (AND GETTING IT RIGHT ON THE FIRST TRY!!!!), and even at the cash register. The cash register for me, was the worst. I was panicky, wanted to get things done quickly, just bag it up and let the customer go so that my clumsiness or fumbling with their fresh new threads would not bug them. But I mastered it. There is definitely a graceful way to go about it.
Did I mention this was my first retail job?
So, Tuesday was my last day at my job. By now, two of my friends and sisters had been hired on--only adding to the fun of being at Madewell, and we had even had a sort of employee-bonding event to go bowling in OKC. Let me tell you something, I FULLY recommend doing this with your fellow employees if you can. It's so cool to get to see a bit of your coworkers outside of the workspace. I loved it. I cannot rave enough about how much I enjoyed my job.
Literally, I can't stop. So I'm going to keep going. I typically took the opening shifts so that I could get back to Norman for class. The opening shifts were early and it meant leaving Norman no later than 7 AM, but it was worth it. I am a chatty Cathy. You all know this. I felt like I got to spend a large amount of time before we actually opened the store in the morning just getting to know the manager that I was opening with. I got to talk politics, college, classes, sports, clothes, traveling. You name it, I probably talked about it. And that's actually great. Do you know how awesome it is to be able to connect with someone on ANY level over conversation? It's great.
Which brings me to my next point. The CUSTOMERS.
I love customers. In every way, shape, and form. Honestly, my favorite feeling is when you help someone--it could be a mom with an outdated wardrobe, a teenager looking for something to wear to a Christmas party, a college kid trying to find something snappy-casual to wear to a concert--find something that they not only love, but that you can literally FEEL their confidence radiating off of them simply because they have on the perfect top, the perfect jeans, the perfect dress. All of it. I just love helping people, I guess. And of course, once again, I'm a chatty Cathy. I'm just going to give you all three separate cases here that I had happen to me all in one week.
The first: Marsha
Marsha was a gem. She came in and I remember asking her if I could help her find anything. She was asking about how long we had been in Oklahoma--she was from New York. I, of course, asked her why on earth she was here when...well, NEW YORK CITY for crying out loud. Turns out she was writing a script for a new movie that she says will be called Kissed. Some of it is meant to be based out of Oklahoma. She started asking me about what it was like to grow up here, and so forth. I told her it was all right but that I was a transplant--I was born in Virginia, I just have been here since I was four years old, but I'm moving to DC soon anyway. She was intrigued, started to ask me more questions, until we began to laugh at how backward the state seems to be (mainly our legislature, she joked) and how different it is than living on the coast. About an hour went by with Marsha still chatting it up with me. Soon, she was wishing me the best of luck in DC, talking about how I must leave Oklahoma to "find the government", and giving me her contact information--she thought I was funny!!!!! People like Marsha are the reason I am the way I am. Aka, she encourages my humor. Marsha made my entire day that day. She was older, but quirky and one of those people who can just think on their feet. She invited me out for drinks before I leave for DC! Nonetheless, I will keep you updated; I'm leaving soon and do not think that her schedule will work with mine.
The second: Amy
I'll call her Amy because for some reason, her name escapes me. She was young. A twenty-something. When I asked her if she was shopping for any special occasion, she responded with, "Well, yeah, sort of. I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow morning and...",
I said, "...and you need something that you can basically wear for 15 hours of traveling that is slouchy and comfortable, but acceptable to wear in public and that you won't be freezing in."
Yes, exactly what she was looking for. My favorite shoppers are the ones who are shopping to travel, because I obviously love traveling. I helped Amy here and there with a few of our solid mix-and-match pieces. We chatted for a bit until she was ready to check out. It was the early morning on a week day, maybe a little after 10 AM, when Amy came in so I was able to stay with her while she tried things on and tell her what I recommended, and so forth. As she's paying, I asked if she was maybe a college student or a teacher--Madewell and J Crew offer a 15% discount! She says yes, she's a teacher, but she does not have an ID. Instead, she logs onto the portal for her school. As I'm ringing her up, she cannot stop expressing out grateful she is for a store like ours to be offering a 15% discount to teachers. Once again, the conversation turned to our convoluted legislature and she mentioned that she was actually a photographer on the side--photography was something she was talented with and something that she could depend on for steady money. She was going to Europe to do a shoot! But her first love was early childhood education and her pre schoolers--of which she was now averaging 30+ in a class for. She said, "Rachele, do you know how hard it is to even use the restroom during the day because you cannot leave a room of 4-5 year olds alone, but you cannot ask another teacher to watch over them because then that teacher now has 60 kids to look after on her own? It's hard." I said hey, why don't you just move out of Oklahoma and teach? Smaller classes, definitely better pay (aren't we ranked at like, 51 for teacher pay now....?), and probably a chance to use the restroom during the day. She said "Because I love what I do and these are the kids who need someone like that. Right here, in Oklahoma, because they are being robbed blind for the chance to gain a decent education." Wow. She was tearing up when she left; I said Amy, are you all right? She said, "Yes, I just have not been given the chance to talk to anyone about how I feel as a teacher nor have I ever been inside of a store that has offered a discount like that. Thank you." Safe to say, I would not have been surprised if she had just hugged me and broken down in the store. But she didn't! I hope she nailed that trip to Europe too.
The third: Donna
We'll call her Donna because I don't remember her name either. She was also older, looking for some staple pieces like the crewnecks that we carry. Donna dragged her husband along. Naturally, he did not seem too terribly thrilled to be shopping with his wife. As he (we can call him Don...) told me, him and his wife were from Dallas. Once again, I said, what in the world are y'all doing HERE? He said, "Well, the Beach Boys have a concert tomorrow and we're going! But we had to stop at Winstar (insert his eye roll here) on the way up. I don't gamble, but my wife definitely loves to gamble. Now, we're just waiting for the show tomorrow. We've been up here before, when my nephew graduated from OU." I said, oh, I just graduated from there! My favorite place in the world. Of course, the basic question about my major and what my plans are for post-grad started to happen. I told him my major, I'm moving to DC, so forth. Him and his wife were so intrigued that International Security Studies were even a thing! I helped her find an outfit for the concert the following evening and continued my conversation with him about the security of our nation (I'm a total geek about this stuff, okay?) and the different organizations that ISS (my major) could possibly introduce me into. By the end of checking them out, they both hugged me and wished me luck on "all of my future endeavors". I told them I was jealous they got to see the Beach Boys (hellooooo, you're talking to a girl who only listened to Elvis and the Beach Boys for a solid year as a kid...) but enjoyed them while they were in the store. Do you know how nice it is to have a pair of strangers pep-talking your future? It's wonderful.
The customers, my managers, my coworkers. All of these people brought me something to the table that I could not have bargained for before. But more importantly, I realized it was the company that really had me caught up in my feels. By feels, I mean that I cried when I got to my car after leaving the store that I had pretty much called my second home (only second to the Bizz, aka the library at OU) for nine months. After hugging Darshell, Marissa, and Casey and realizing that goodbye is real. These are people that will carry on completely normal lives while I carry on with mine yet they do not realize the impact they've had on me. It is the same with the customers who have come in and chatted with me about college, traveling, and so forth just as it is the same with the company as a whole. I will pep talk Madewell for the rest of my life because this has been one of the best part time jobs I have EVER held.
So there you have it, kids. Go find yourself an awesome company, a store full of do-gooders, and have at it. I encourage you all to go into retail. Even if it's briefly or just to line your pockets a little thicker than they are from your full time job. I also had some pretty awesome outfits for my senior pics that mostly came from Madewell, so I'll include those (PHOTO CREDS TO MY GIRL LAURA POLANCO!) below too. In the mean time, I'll be here being nostalgic and missing my part-time retail job that included some full-time friends.
When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.
-Willie Nelson
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