My Life as a Mall-ployee Eunice

Here is my reasoning: Me + slight interest in clothing + working in a clothing store = success.

Boy, was I wrong. I'm not trying to sound full of myself in any way, but I'm just gonna come out and say it: it takes a certain type of person to work in and be passionate about retail. This rare strain of human dropped out of high school at age fifteen, considered stripping but didn't have the legs and/or coordination, so instead landed a "sweet" retail "gig". That may seem harsh, but if you've worked in retail before and have a smidge of common sense, you will know exactly what I mean. Here is the first story from my time spent in a fluorescent cell in the Riccarton Mall. I realise people I have worked with in the realm of retail may read this (if they haven't already given up on their remedial English classes), so I would like to say this in advance: soz about it.

The first day of my first retail job is emblazoned in my memory banks, and I can only imagine it will be there for eternity. After breezing through the interview process with knowledge of words like "denim", "t-shirt", and " cotton", I was more than ready to start my career in the fast-paced world of retail. At this stage, I actually believed I was in for a good time; I arrived at work and was thrilled to be able to choose some clothes to have as a uniform. Free shit: distracting people from truths since the dawn of time. I was in poor-student heaven - I was getting free clothes that weren't tainted by a WINZ voucher, and I was about to start earning minimum wage dollars on a weekly basis. Life was good, until my manager (let's call her "Eunice") opened her mouth.

"From here, you're on your own," she barked.

"But I haven't any experience in the retail workforce, madam," I replied in the manner of Oliver Twist, a common Chav, or similar.

"Tough shit," was all I got in return.

Admittedly, I have tweaked this conversation slightly, but that's pretty much how it went down. Let me take a quick moment to describe Eunice: she is somewhere in the depths of her thirties, and at this time was pregnant. Now, I'm no Doctor, but I can only imagine "bitch gonna blow" is the medical term for how far along she was in her pregnancy. Looking back at my brief time spent with her, the floods of extra hormones coursing through her body may explain some of the messed up behaviour – at least, I hope it does. Her hair was jet back with bleached, slightly urine-coloured, streaks throughout, and (apparently) she was never seen in public without white (p)leather knee high boots and a matching belt. I wouldn't consider myself an expert on make-up, so fire away a letter to the editor if I'm wrong, but a woman's face should probably be a similar colour as the rest of her body, right? And further, it shouldn't be monochromatic, yes?

Eunice seemed to disagree with me on both counts, and had a face the same colour as a Hawaiian sunset (minus the colour gradient), which contrasted greatly to her mall-tanned (think slightly translucent) colouring. I never actually asked where she lived, but I have a sneaky suspicion that in the event of an emergency, she would have easily attached her abode to the back of a truck and driven to safety. It always seemed rather ironic that someone that worked in the "fashion" industry could deem it appropriate to dress and live like a hooker, but to each their own.

When the first customer walked into the store, Eunice took a physical approach to training a new employee and shoved me in his general direction. Having little-to-no balance when caught off guard, I reached for the nearest solid object to cling to for balance. The nearest solid object was that customer. After apologising to the gentleman profusely, I turned bright red and asked if I could help him with anything; he politely refused and left the store with haste.

"You passed!" Eunice exclaimed gleefully.

I was speechless, and felt as if I had just molested a stranger. For the next hour or so, I watched the door like a hawk for mall security coming to get me.

"Him! That's the guy who mercilessly fondled me!" is what I imagined the man saying, standing behind two "apt" security guards and pointing his finger firmly in my direction. That daydream ended with me being shot with tasers by the aforementioned security guards and falling awkwardly into unconsciousness.

After seeing my reaction to her first attempt at training, Eunice decided to take a different approach with me, and sat me down in front of a computer. After a few minutes of clicking around, several swear words (including a lol-inducing "c-bomb"), and some light stress sweating, I discovered that Eunice wasn't the most technically comfortable person. Offering my assistance, I found the training file in a folder on the desktop labelled "NEW TRAINING VIDEOS", but made it look like I struggled a wee bit, for her benefit.

"Watch this," she demanded, wiping the sweat from her bronzed brow.

My patience for her harsh attitude was wearing thin, but I decided to let it go. I had recently donated to Greenpeace, so it would have been very hypocritical and against my kind nature to act out against a whale - especially a pregnant one. Focusing on the task at hand, I began filling in the questionnaire that matched the training video. I won't bore you with the finer details of this Oscar-deserving film (see "how to fold a t-shirt" or "which way coat hangers should sit on a rack"), but I will mention that the Shortland Street actor to unrecognisable face ratio was pretty askew. I can only imagine the "customer service montage" that ended the video is responsible for killing hundreds of brain cells nationwide, and I demand an investigation is started immediately.

Stepping back onto the shop floor, I took a mental image that sums up the career of a retail salesperson: Eunice stood behind the counter talking to a co-worker, while simultaneously folding shirts and ignoring the customers that were milling around the store. To any fully functioning human (i.e. someone that hadn't just watched an hour-and-a-half long instructional video about how to say hello to someone), that mental image would have waved millions of red flags, warning them to leave this job right away. But in my stunned state of mind, all I could do was think to myself "what a great looking career path; I think I'll like it here".

It has been over a year since that fateful day, and I'm happy to say that the only reason I walk to the mall now is to see what Wacky Wednesday has to offer at Pak 'n Save, or to perve at the really attractive mall-ployees (I'm looking at you, Adidas). Despite there being countless hours of my life that I will never get back, I don't regret my time in retail as a whole. I met some excellent people and completed what felt like a 300-level anthropological study on Mall Rats. This is only the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to my retail-related stories, so please tune in again and let me warn you of the perils you may face if your summer job happens to be mall-based. As a final note, I will have you know that Eunice was my manager for that one day only. Moments after I took that mental image, her water broke all over a new delivery of trackpants - and I promptly called the appropriate people. If you are interested, Eunice named her calf after the airline in which it was conceived, bless.