Sunday, February 17, 2008

On Retail.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a minimum wage worker in possession of a retail job must be in want of a life.

If you have, or are currently working retail, or you only feel safe shopping chain stores, please read the stories below. They are from "the only gawker blog worth reading, Jezebel,"* and they are rife with illicit content. Just another argument to be an educated consumer.

From the "I Work Retail" category on Jezebel:

I have been lucky. Successfully avoiding clothing chains, I have worked for retail companies who not only valued my contributions, but who have allowed individually awesome people to work next to me; this includes a dude with a huge nosering like a bull, others who chose to wield weapons of razor-sharp cynicism and sarcasm instead of sex appeal, and many who really didn't give a damn and thus maybe actually liked what they did. Despite my good fortune, I still feel for people stuck in retail hell, knowing that I barely skirted it myself.

I've heard similar tales from friends: starbucks dealing more addictive substances than just coffee and chocolate, h&m s&m, and the all-too-common stories of Abercrombie driving its associates to shoplifting. And people wonder why I have NEVER purchased anything from A&F (or ANY of their stores), or American Eagle, or American Apparel, or ... noticing a trend here.

2 comments:

juliana said...

Anthropologie, is for lack of a better word, a stupid store. the offerings are all over the map (are we boho, hippie, vintage or preppy?), the prices too high and hello? they are everywhere now.

i used to shop there back in 1999 at the original store in Wayne, PA. there was a woman there who was head of the sales floor and she was a witch. she definitely did not care about black people nor the white people who were spending money there.

but since anthro became a suburban-mall staple, i've pretty much avoided this place. why? it just feels like an overpriced urban outfitters. also the clothes are often in this weird hybrid of too-dressy for day, but not dressy enough for night.

i confess i bought this rather pretty sweater there last year with some funky buttons and at a good price like $48. anyways, everytime i wear it in the daytime, i'm like "am i dressing up too much?" the one time i wore it at night, it was not dressy enough.

i found a happy medium though with this sweater---Taco Tuesdays happy hour at an upscale Mexican joint near my house. $1.50 a taco. Ole!

Cynthia D said...

i think you just wrote a post within my post