I bet you had no idea...

So, I have finally joined the blogging world in hopes of retaining what little sanity I have left.  I have been thinking about doing this for a long time and decided that today is a great day to start.  I had planned on posting my adventures in the retail world, and the daily struggles of the working class in America.  In addition to this, I am also going to be recording daily life in case I need to go for the kool-aid early.  Read on dear friends.... you probably won't blame me.  ;)

     I work for an upscale womens specialty boutique, I have to be very careful what I say as I have been informed that what ever I post on the internet can be looked at any time by corporate "Big Brother".  While I am not too worried about this, Lord knows I need my $9 an hour!  I have been asked to sign a release form giving permission to my employers to look at my face book page anytime they want.  Civil rights?  What civil rights?  You mean the ones stating that you have the right to privacy and free speech?  Nope, not in wage working America.  Needless to say, I have not signed it and was told that not signing it means I would not have a job.  Thank the corporate gods for pilling so much work on us and our managers that no one has remembered to push this issue.  I just won't do it, I can't sign it.  What I do on my own time is my business.

    Actually, this company that I work for is not a "bad" company to work for overall.  It's just that those of us who work retail for whatever reason are subject to more than just crabby customers and busy holiday seasons.  We are subject to pressures from corporate, our own managers, visual managers, customer service managers, credit card companies, and of course competitive co-workers, and customers.  It is a never ending cycle of hurry up and get it done and do it right and smile and don't ask questions and work as fast as you can at all times and have your make up and hair always done, never sit down, and be degraded by well off women who see you not as a human being, but as her personal servant for the time she is on the store.

  My position in the store is process shipment, tag shipment, stock and replenish shipment. It is also my job to "recover the floor", move the floor in accordance with what ever corporate wants us to do which has resulted in working until 3:30am.  Since I am still relatively new here, I am told that 3:30 is not as late as it has been.  Oh good.  It is also my job to do inventory, to learn ridiculously nit-picky and exacting standards for stocking, back stocking and displays.  It is also my job, though not in my job description to clean bathrooms, sweep floors, pick up customers garbage, chewed gum, empty drink containers and mop up after spills.  I also get to go around the store after customers and put everything back the way it is standardized, even when I get there at 6am to create the "perfect display".  Now mind you, all items are available in plain sight under the display, but no, people insist on taking apart the display to get what they want, and in most cases drop it somewhere else in the store.

  Well, you might say, that is your job.  Some of this is my job.  But cleaning up after someone elses kid who pulls down a display is NOT my job.  It is the job of the parent to watch and dare I say PARENT their child. It is not my job to scrub human fecal matter off of toilet seats, to scrub puke up off the floor when a mother drags her child out for that all important shopping trip when the child is ill, it is not my job to be exposed to bodily fluids in a dressing room because someone decided to use our merchandise as a sanitary napkin.  BUT GUESS WHAT???  We still get to do this.  Oh, did I mention it was a big deal to not make minimum wage?

   I am also expected to, work as fast as possible, "with a sense of urgency", at all times to make sure that the company only pays for the bare minimum amount of hours possible to increase overall profit.  In fact, the only full time benefited positions available in this and most other companies is management, which we are all scrambling towards because none of us can make it without two or more jobs.  We also have on call shifts that are determined by how much we sell.  If its not enough, you don't work.  So then you try to fit in hours at your other job/jobs and get a write up or warning if you are not available if and when they decide you are needed.  Here is the best part, I am so grateful to even have a job and it took me so long even to find this one that I am willing, more than willing to put up with all of this, and do it while being "friendly, approachable, knowledgeable, helpful, and accomodating."

  I can not afford to make waves, get in trouble, or to point out when a person has worked over 12 hours without a break.  I need this job so bad right now, as do most of my co-workers, that I put up with what ever I have to just to chase that carrot of hope...that if I keep working really hard I just might make management and get full time with benefits.

   Here is the other weird thing.  I actually really like helping customers for the most part.  I like being able to help someone feel better about their body, to find the perfect gift, and to make someones day by being friendly and decent with them.  I really like that.  As we all know, everything has a price.  Nothing is free in this world and we all pay for what we are, what we do and how we live.  I would just like to point out here that sometimes the debt to income ratio is way out of balance.

    Corporate America knows this, they train their management to use specific language, to use specific terms to keep us all working hard, keep our heads down and just move forward in the hopes that we too, someday might be treated as human beings of value.

     So for now, that is exactly what I am going to do.  I will submit to "bag checks", credit checks, clean up after others and hopefully get to help a few people during the day.  I will submit to being "less than" in order to get ahead.  I will do this for the sake of paying my rent and feeding my family.  I will do this because this is what the working class people of this Country do.  We give.  We are available to the upper class by being unavailable to our own children.  We clean up your messes, so that you don't have to be bothered.  We take your orders, we cook your food, we clean your clothes, we take your measurements, we wait on you hand and foot in dressing rooms to be sure that you have exactly what you need.  We make on average between $7.75 and $10 and hour.  Most of us have no insurance, no job security and are not allowed to join unions.  We stand on concrete floors all day, we are not allowed to sit down on the job, we are not allowed to use the phone, but we are here.

   For many of us this kind of life is our only option, because of illness, divorce, unfavorable turns of luck,  abuse, neglect....all these things add up to the positions we are in.  Again, I am so happy and grateful to even have a job, I feel almost guilty for writing the reality of what my job is.  Again, I gladly submit myself to all this and more for the off chance of getting ahead.  But truth is truth and I am going to say what it is.  Even if no one else does.

   The next time you depend on someone else for your meal, your clothes, your hotel rooms, think about them not in terms of your servants, but as human beings.  I bet you had no idea......