REFLECTIONS ON RETAIL HELL FOR LABOR DAY (BELATED)

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn breathing the air of freedom after his exile to Vermont in 1976,  thankful that he had a good day job without having to work at Kmart.

Earlier this summer I shopped at Horrocks Market and was checked out by a young woman. She was part of a crop of new hires, kids that had just graduated and working at Horrocks for their summer job before college. She was friendly and outgoing, eager and engaged with her job. Later on the drive home, I thought about my years in retail hell.

For some reason I thought of  a chapter in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel The Gulag Archipelago whose title was First Cell, First Love. Yes, the first job in retail as a cashier. It's all new and a bit exciting. All the people you get to meet and you get paid for it. What a grown-up! I thought fondly of such sweetness and innocence and remembered I was once like that. 

My thoughts darkened and shifted to another Solzhenitsyn work: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Memories of the later years: day to day dreariness; the indifferent and often mean-spirited managers who did what they did because they could; the bizarre variety of human nature from person to person and the quiet anxiety of not knowing what they would be like. Crappy work, crappy pay, never two days off in a row, working holidays. But, I remind myself, unlike Soviet prisoners, I was there by choice. No one put a gun to my head. Yet still, for those who stay in retail, moving from company to company is akin to the Solzhenitsyn book only titled The Retail Archipelago. Nothing really changes, just some differences in uniform, weird company specific rules, maybe a slight change of customer demographic.  

I shifted to some humor for relief: Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman which contains this gem: You don't have to be autistic to work here, but it helps. Gawd, ain't that the truth. This woman doesn't suffer.

I can only offer this for those beginning or contemplating working in retail: consider this a learning experience and a temporary one. In the end, if you have a whit of attention, you will realize that this is not what you want to do for a living.