expos blog

         

 

For something to be meaningful to you it has to affect you in some way that is different from anything else. A place that is meaningful to me is my job. My job is Van Heusen and it is located in the Wrentham Outlets near the food court. I have worked there for almost 2 years and I have seen it all. I have worked the most hectic shifts, the worst hours and worked with the worst people. I am going to start off by saying I don’t hate my job. I like it and I am very grateful to have it in the hard economy today. In fact I have 2 jobs I work at Van Heusen all year round and I would at the Comcast Center during the summer. Like I said I don’t hate my job at VH (Van Heusen) but I see everything differently than most people.

In the business aspect of VH it is a well-known company around the world. We specialize with dress shirts, suits and formal wear. It’s a Dutch company and most of the customers are Indian, European, and Asian. Working there at the outlets there are a lot of benefits. For example I get 50% of anything I can wear to work in the store like ties, shirts, pants, and suits. Everything else I get 40% off. I also get 40% off Bass, Izod, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger which is amazing because I can get shoes at Bass, casual wear at Izod and Tommy, and I can get $100 cologne for $60 at Calvin.

                Walking into my job you open two glass doors and you see endless amounts of clothes on the walls around you. In front of you there are two tables one with men’s clothes and the other with women’s clothes. If you walk straight down the middle of the tables the registers will be right in front of you. To the left and right of the registers are the fitting rooms. Behind the registers are the belts and behind that is the dress shirt section. There are multiple tables with cubbies with all the dress shirts. Then it you look up there is a wall that is the back wall of the store and that wall holds more dress shirts. To the left of that wall is the door to the back room.

                The minute you open the door there are boxes stacked to the ceiling and it is a really tight area to walk in. The reason why there are so many boxes is because when we get shipment me can never processes all of them so they get left until we have time or staff to finish them. When you walk in you have to take a right then you will notice the lundias. Lundias are the name for the racks that hold the extra clothes that can’t go out.  There are about five of these and they are on tracks to move them. Finally you reach the office and bathroom. There is nothing special about the office it’s just filled with computers and lockers. But the bathroom is a disaster. The sink is old and disgusting and there are so many boxes that there is hardly any walking room.

                When walking in I see customers. There are about 30 in there at a time during a normal business day. Also I see my other friends working and saying hey to me. When the customers are shopping they are in various locations in the store. When they are in the front part they are shopping for the next season. Right now they would be shopping for summer. In the back they are either shopping for clearance items, dress shirts, or winter clothing.  

                Working there sometimes can be a blessing or a curse. My favorite shifts to work are opening shift. Why? Because I wake up early and get out early in the day so I can still make plans to meet my friends. Working closing shifts I get out usually at 11. So as you can see I can make no plans. One shift I worked was black Friday which is the worst shift because I worked for 12am until 10am which is terrible because I just wanted to sleep. Customers are very ignorant sometimes. Usually a lot of them have kids and they love to cry and run around in my store I don’t know why but the parents ignore them and allow them to do whatever they want. Also customers love to throw clothes around the store, literally throw clothes.   

                I can proudly say I have seen it all in retail at the outlets. We have stickers on the window that says no food or drinks, no pets, and no smoking and I have seen all of that. People have dropped bags of food and drinks and left the store. I have seen people who are not even blind bring a dog into the store and put up a fight when we tell them to leave. Last one guy started to some an e-cigarette. It is an electronic cigarette that creates vapors not smoke but it gives of the sensations someone is smoking. People use e-cigarettes to quick smoking. And this guy was a foreigner so he doesn’t know anything about common sense so when I asked him to leave he looked at me like I had three heads. My mom works across the alley at another retail store and she actually had a Asian customer go number 2 in the corner of the store.

                Retail is a crazy job. And I like telling my story to people about how bad it is working at my store and to never come and visit. This job has made me think a lot about society and how people function differently than us. Like I said I don’t hate my job. I just see it differently than other people.