Plain and simple, it sucked. Big time. You can now skip the rest of the post if you want…
I never wrote about my job because I’d rather not get dooced, but since I’m no longer working there, it’s time to talk about this hell hole. I won’t mention the company name, but I will say that I worked in the airport and I exchanged goods. 99% of the time those goods were currency. If you don’t know what I did after that just email me and I’ll tell you. I went into this job thinking it wouldn’t be like the last retail job I had a Best Buy. Man was I wrong. Constant pressure from the higher ups to upsell and rob people of more of their money. Even though I made target almost every month (the only month I didn’t was when I went to Canada to test the new RTS system,) and when I did was around 120% of the target, I still was constantly told I could do more.
They wanted me to go out in front of the booth and talk to random people walking by, trying to get them to purchase… goods. Even though I worked in the international terminal, not every damn flight is going to a foreign country. After living with my dad (who travels about 40 weeks out of the year) for most of my adult life, I’ve come to realize that people who travel on a regular basis generally don’t like talking to other people in the airport. They want to get on the plane and get to their destination ASAP without any distractions. Why would I want to bother these people? They obviously don’t want what I’m selling, I’m not going to waste my time. If they really needed it, they would come up and talk to me. We weren’t selling t-shirts or movies, we can’t talk someone into buying foreign currency if they’re traveling to Hawaii or Los Angeles. REDONKULOUS.
So I never did it. I can’t do it. I hate trying to talk people into wasting more of their money when they could just exchange in the country of destination and save 5-10% of their money. I would be honest if people ever asked where they could get more money. If I was a true con-man I could have made 160% of the target. But I can’t do that. I’m an honest person I guess. All of those years of listening to lessons in Sunday School about being honest in your dealings with fellow man must have really paid off.
Another thing that keeps me from being the model retail employee? I am VERY shy in person. I may come off as a goofy happy go lucky guy on the internet, but I am very reserved in person. Heather says that you could light my hair on fire and my response would be, “Um… Is it getting hot in here?” Obviously, small talk and I don’t get along. Tim and I used to joke about making t-shirts with responses on it while going to BYU.
“Hi there!” Hey.
Whats your name?” George.
“Where are you from?” Dallas, TX.
“Are you single?” Yes.
“Can you say the closing prayer?” Uh, I guess.
“Do you want to hike up to the Y later?!?!?!” No.
You get the picture.
Eventually, I started dreading even going in to work days before I was scheduled. If a job gave me that much anxiety, I obviously had to get out. A few weeks ago the person who hired me got fired (who is my friends mom) and I decided it was time to go. I quit my job.
No more drama. For now, anyway. I haven’t even gotten into the last job interview I had…
16 responses so far ↓
Jessica // Feb 21, 2008 at 12:38 pm
My husband won’t do the money exchange thing at an airport or any of those places that rip you off. Good for you quitting your job. Things will only get better. Quitting my job was a tough decision, but there was so much relief once I made it.
stephanie // Feb 21, 2008 at 12:50 pm
good for you george. as you know, i got laid off before i could quit, but i knew being that miserable wasn’t healthy. sure, the cool adult thing to do is to go out for some beers and say something along the lines of “my job sucks” but when it’s *really* causing you that much anxiety outside of work…time to go. especially a job like this, that’s just crazy.
also as a designer that was part of a marketing team, i know what you mean about lying to people. i wouldn’t do it either. i know obviously most marketing is full of talking up a product and little white lies, but they wanted to market things with taglines that were totally false, just because they were jealous a competitor could do something we couldn’t. that’s great, but i’m not going to be the one at a tradeshow with my thumb up my ass when a potential customer comes along like “so how can i do that?” and the real answers are some variant of “uh, you can’t” “it’s a hack from another program” or “we can’t show you, too many bugs still, it actually took our entire office six months to make this demo”
ugh /RANT. seriously, i’m happy for you.
stinkerbelle // Feb 21, 2008 at 1:40 pm
good for you! retail jobs pretty much suck. the retail jobs that make you sell more double suck.
you did the right thing for sure.
jtmonkey // Feb 21, 2008 at 1:47 pm
hey at least now you can play your “how to play guitar the awesomest” DVD and practice smoke on the water all day!
Kiala // Feb 21, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I worked for this french soap company L’Occitane for about a month. It was HORRIBLE. They wanted me to put freaking lotion on everyone and give them hand massages while I explained to them what the Lavender Harvest was. Then I was supposed to give them a tour of the store. The store was the size of a newspaper stand.
So one day when they told me we were going to have to schedule a “talk” about my “attitude” I said, “I don’t want to have a talk.”
And then I walked out.
Retail is like Hell’s Hell.
Brandy(from Canada) // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:13 pm
The only good thing about that job was your trip to Toronto! Viva la Vex!
Any job that causes anxiety is a job to leave, especially if you are able to! When I lived at home I quit a few jobs that were just soul sucking.
Cassie // Feb 21, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Yay!! Congrats on quitting your job. Also congrats on not whoring yourself out for the people up top.
lostinutah // Feb 21, 2008 at 9:24 pm
George! Can I quit my job? I’m sure if you say yes, my husband won’t object…
Miss Wisabus // Feb 21, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Sounds like you made the best move. I wish I could drop this final required course that I need to graduate. My hair is falling out and I’m having panic attacks.
Kate // Feb 22, 2008 at 5:39 am
Good for you!
allie // Feb 22, 2008 at 6:31 am
life is too damn short for a job you hate. good on you for not letting it kill your soul.
Jacqueline // Feb 22, 2008 at 7:02 pm
That’s funny…all this time when you said you worked at the airport, I imagined you as one of those guys that drives those carts around hauling stuff and/or people…don’t know why I thought that. Anyway, I want to quit my job too…but it’s not cause it sucks…it is actually wonderful, and I love it…it’s more about those above me lacking communication skills and some other junk I won’t go into…Good for you that you got out of a stressful situation!
Sally // Feb 23, 2008 at 4:59 am
Good move George! Now you can pursue that job as an underwear model, go on, I know you want it.
Bratfink // Feb 23, 2008 at 3:36 pm
My sister once said to me the same thing allie said. “Life is too short to work at a job you hate.”
Best freaken advice I ever got.
.
Nonlinear FC // Feb 25, 2008 at 11:58 am
Just going to reiterate what Bratfink and others have said… It gets a little harder the older you are (only in that if you have family/mortgage, you can’t just walk off the job.)
But, really, everyone should memorize Bratfink/allie’s advice. Even if it takes some time and planning to move on, if you hate getting up in the morning, you’re shaving time off of your lifeclock.
Jeev // Feb 26, 2008 at 12:51 am
Dude, I was just about to get some Canadian currency too!! You quit on me. :) I appreciate the fact that you “kept it real” by telling me not to exchange money there even when you were working there. You have too much integrity to be working there my man.
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