We Should all Work Retail to See How Rude People Are - By Jose Rivera

Jose Rivera is an 18- year-old that works at Old Navy. He's seen many different types of customers come and go, has been yelled at as well as been told that he's a disgrace towards his race for not knowing Spanish. All he can do is take it in. So he leaves you with this: Be kind to the person helping you out.

We Should all Work Retail to See How Rude People Are

When I would go shopping, either at a clothing or grocery store, I would always put merchandise in the wrong place. Last year I graduated from Paloma Valley High School and got a job at Old Navy, which shaped my belief. Working in retail has three big issues that helped me to come up with my belief: Everyone should work in retail at least once.
The first issue that helped create my belief statement was when I would get done folding clothes on a table; customers would come and ruin the clothes. For example, a table would be ruined and I would go and fix it, which would take me close to an hour. Then I would leave to go put my supplies back, which would take no longer than 15 minutes, and as I would walk back, I’d see about six people leave from the table and it would be ruined all over again. It’s like people have no respect for hard work. So, now when I shop I make sure I leave merchandise neat and presentable.
The second issue that added to my belief was seeing clothes in the wrong section, like women’s clothing in the men’s section or men’s clothes in the babies section. For example, I would be reorganizing in the women’s featured section and there would be a piece of clothing from girls’ in the women’s section and I would have to put it back for the customers; it’s like they can’t do things for themselves. I asked myself, “Why don’t these people just put the clothing back where it belongs?” So now when I shop I leave merchandise where it belongs.
The third example that shaped my belief was my experience during the holiday season. Every day was busy except the last hour of closing, in which the employees would do a group clean up throughout the store. Then during the last half hour before closing, a family would come in and ruin the store. For example, a family came in with their kids crying and whining, a mother who appeared intoxicated with alcohol, and dad who spoke loud. All they did was look around, disorganized the store, buy about one-hundred dollars worth of clothing, and leave about a half hour after closing. The reason they left so late is because we can’t tell them to leave we, can only drop hints by asking, “are you finding everything okay?” every five minutes. Due to them leaving late, we didn’t get out till 11:00 or 11:30 at night because we had to reorganize their mess.
In summary, there were three main events that built upon each other to create my belief. Working in retail has shaped this belief by showing me what it’s like to take care of people’s laziness. I fix merchandise, put merchandise back in the right spot, and stay till 11:30 just to fix the store that people made a mess. So, I leave you with this: everyone should work in retail at least once just so they know how it feels to be the one cleaning up after others.