My life as a retail employee is crazy! Although I complain 98% of the time I love my job and I love the people I work with. Everyone complains about their first job, but I couldn't say anything better about my first job. There are days when I just want to walk out, throw things at customers or just yell through the intercom my lungs out. Then I have customer who are the sweetest people ever, who already know me by my name, who asked how my day is. What makes my day is when they tell me to have a nice day, or when they compliment my smile and say "muy amable." which means "So kind." Although I get told almost every day that "I have attitude" but I'm human and there are days that I just can't stand there and not speak up. This job has also showed me to be humble, to meet all sorts of people and how to deal with them, specially if I'm considering a career that you have to deal with people all the time. It makes me realize that I have to work hard to not be there all my life, although I get paid good, get good hours and gets me through it's not something I want to do all my life.

one for the wife the other for the other one.

I was in jewelry and a man came up to the counter and asked for my help with some rings. It more than gladly showed him the rings he wanted to see, and as I was telling him the prices he didn't looked scared or asked to see "cheaper ones." After a long time of considering his options, he choose the one he would like. Then he asked if I had the same ring, I told him yes, I thought it was weird but I didn't ask any question or anything. As I was charging him, he told me to put them in separate bags, and I did. He then told me that he wanted the same right because one of them was for his wife, in my mind I was like "oh, probably the other one is for the mom." Nope, I was wrong. The other right was for his girlfriend! As he was saying all this, he sounded proud and no shame at all, I just had my face in surprise but didn't say a world. "Have a good day sir." and he left.

Fashion

Today I was helping my supervisor in misses clean out the racks (take out anything that didn't belong and all that) a man walked towards and said "mija, do you think this will match a red skit." He was holding a beige glittery shirt, I noticed something peculiar about him, he had his nails done and talked in a different way. "Come let me show you the skirt, and directed me into the juniors department." the skirt was a cotton one, red with white birds around it, something you could probably find in the kids department as well. I told him "yes, that goes well." Which I totally did not agree with but you know "customer is always right." I tried to hide from him after that because I had tons of work to do and he wanted me to shop with him, which any day I would be up for but not today since we were expecting a very important visit. He kept on saying "this is fashion, right." "Omg, this is so fashion." He ended up taking a lime green shirt, with rhinestones on the shoulder. After he finally left, and made a line at the register another customer who had been observing the whole time said, "that's the gay guy with the worst fashion sense i've ever seen." He said he was going to be in pageants, and was very stressed because he needed the perfect outfit.

the mysterious coke

That Black Friday night I had taken a can coke to drink it in case I felt tired and sleep. I totally forgot about it since I had wrapped it around my jacked and put it in my locker. When I was leaving I was so excited to clock out that I pulled my jacked and the coke fell to the floor causing it to explode. I just stared at it, contemplating on how it was twirling around, splashing the locker room; of course, laughing my head off. After the show was over I panicked on how I was going to clean it, thankfully the custodian was there. I asked the girl that was at the service desk if she could please call her and to not tell anyone who had done it. They told me that after I left one of the older ladies walked into the locker room and yelled over the radio (she already has a very loud voice as it is), "WHO THREW COKE IN HERE?!" No one rated out, and quite a few people knew about it. Until this day they're still wondering who's responsible of the accident. I left my mark in the locker room since we have a white poster and now you can clearly see some brown, coke stains.

The little girl

There's at rumor in the store that a little girl haunts it. Thankfully I haven't seen anything, but I've heard things, sometimes when I'm outside the fitting room and we've already closed I can clearly hear the fitting room doors slam, a hard slamming not the wind. At first I didn't pay much attention but after hearing those stories I kinda got scared. There's been people who claim that they've seen a figure and they've heard her, but of course people can lie. One time I was in the stockroom, on the 2nd floor, by myself and I was pretty scared but I didn't hear or see anything; plus, the upstairs stockroom is pretty scary so even without an encounter I was already scared.

Although I've been working at my job for a little over a year, I didn't experience Black Friday last year. I was kinda excited and nervous about this new, crazy experience. We were opening at 6 p.m Thursday evening and would be open 36 hours straight. My shift was from 7p.m-3a.m and was in the Misses Juniors Men department. I ended up being in Juniors, and just kept folding the front tables since they were getting destroyed because we had sweaters for $10 or less. The lines were crazy long, they would overlap at the back of the store. Since jewelry was having its own sales, there were instructions to only charge customers who purchase fine jewelry there. A man was arguing on how he just had one item and didn't want to make the crazy line, but there was nothing we could do although the lines were going by super fast. At around 1 a.m the lines started to get down, and there were less people, by 3 a.m when I was getting out it was kinda empty that even the cashiers were folding. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but what really disappointed me was that I didn't even have a chance to go shopping.

There's a co-worker who's a little dark skin, and looks very Hispanic but she doesn't speak Spanish so a lot of the time she has trouble communicating with national customers. She had 2 customers a mom and the son, the lady was speaking in Spanish and she would respond in English, thankfully the son knew English and was being the translator. The lady said, "I don't know how you can have the cactus on your forehead but not know how to speak Spanish." My co-worker turned to the son and told him, "can you let her know that I may not speak Spanish but I do understand it." The lady gave a surprise look and didn't say a word after. We're so easy to judge, and although we do live in the valley there are people who don't speak Spanish and we shouldn't be mean or rude about it.

#anotherkohlscashproblem

I was helping back up at the registers, there were 2 other cashiers (only being my friend Steph) I was about to leave when I heard her starting to argue with a lady because her Kohl's cash wouldn't go through, I walked to her register and asked her what was wrong, the lady immediately said, "I'm trying to purchase something but she's saying my Kohl's cash isn't going through." I checked in the computer to see what was the problem and it told me she had return some items the same day she got her cash at the Mission store. She snapped and started arguing how that was a lie, and even handed me her credit card to check her transactions. I explained to her that there was no way the computer could be lying, and maybe she forgot she returned the items. The lady kept raising her voice so I had to call my manager to control the situation. I explained to him, he checked again, and told the lady the same thing I had told her. She then said she wasn't going to take anything because she was indignated on the way we were treating her. 10 minutes later the woman returned, and said she would take her items, but clearly specified how it would be the last time she would be shopping at our location. "Last time, you hear me? Last time ever!" Since my friend Steph was only speaking English, so the woman assumed she didn't know Spanish, she kept repeating "this is a stupid store, with stupid workers, and stupid management." Sorry, but if you don't want to loose your coupons next time you shouldn't return stuff. 💁🏽

It was another day in the sales floor, when I got one of those exciting calls from my LP to head to his office. This time, unlike the other times he already had the criminal in there, so there was no action. It was a girl who to me, looked like 17/18 years told with her mom, the mom looked worried and scared and keep repeating to my LP "she's never done this, I can't believe it." The girl had taken off crystals from the necklaces, There were a total of 7 crystals which were 7 necklaces. Out of curiosity LP asked her, "why are you taking it? why didn't you take the whole thing already?" she responded, "I wanted to make necklaces to make money." Turns out the 17/18 year old looking girl was actually 14, and she was illegally here, that's why the mom was so scared. People have so much problems, and in some point in my life I had the same problem as that girl, but never did I think of stealing things. I knew there would be struggles but some day I would be able to successful without having to do anything illegal. It sadden me so much the decisions some people made out of desperation, and there were kids out there, probably younger who do worse things just to receive a few dollars.

the flying toy

I'm good friends with my co-worker Stephanie so every experience she come through at work she immediately tells me, of course. She was being cashier for the day, and a woman came to her register to ask for a price, and of course, she told her. The lady immediately snapped at her telling her that wasn't the price it showed on the sign, "Hold on here, let me show you the sign." It was a toy, and the sign didn't match the price, Stephanie politely tried to explain that wasn't accurate but the lady just started yelling. "If the sign matched the item, I'd more than glad give it to you for that price, but it doesn't sorry ma'am." "This is outrageous, i'm never shopping here again... blah, blah, blah." As the lady was walking out she grabbed the toy and directly threw it at Stephanie, luckily she saw it coming and ducked, causing it to hit another customer. "I'm sorry ma'am, do you want me to call my manager?" she asked the customer. "No that's fine, I'm okay." It's crazy how some people get, and even more that they won't even care to hurt another person, and of course not understand what is being told to them.

#kohlscashproblems

Kohl cash is promotion we have going on almost alllllll the time, for every $50 you spend you get $10 to spend later on at the store (before taxes and after coupons) They do have an expiration date, we used to take them before no matter the date but not anymore. These 2 woman walked towards the service desk, "How can I help you?" I asked. They spoke Spanish and they told they were give Kohls cash, and it had just expired 3 days ago and if there's something I could do. I told me that Kohls cash could still go through 10 days after the expiration date, which I don't think they understood well. One of the lady's said she would like to return the items and re-purchase them in order to receive a new Kohls cash. I said that would be fine but she had to keep in mind that she sale prices were most likely different, plus, we didn't have the 30% she used going on so couldn't use it. She changed her mind, and the other lady suggested "well give her this one and tell her to just give you a new one." I told her that wasn't the way it worked, it was the computer who activated it and I had no control over it. After a very long, and time-taking conversation with them they finally left, but they moved to the side for Lady 1 to explain to Lady 2, the whole process; they literally took more than half an hour to discuss that.

Dark coyote

2 men walked into the store and they needed help in mens, they were going to be groomsmen for a wedding and the bride wanted a specific suit, with a specific color "dark coyote." One of my co-workers name Steph was helping them, going crazy because they couldn't find "dark coyote," she called my manager, he wasn't so much help. She called another co-worker, wasn't so much help either. The men were freaking out because the bride was very specific with her wants, desperately they called the groom and he told them to get the closest thing. Already frustrated and about to throw in the towel, my friend Steph had the brightest to use the "PC" (the phone-looking device we use to practically control the whole store) she scared the shirts and sure enough a "dark coyote" was found, which all along was that brown color in the beginning. Stephanie had save the day, and helped the bride from having a very big fit.

I was in Customer Service, which a long line (probably longer than the one in the register) so I called my co-worked to back me up. "Next customer in line." I said, and a lady came in she said she wanted to even exchange an item. In order to even exchange you need to items that have the same retail price, the sale price doesn't matter. She brought me a shirt whose retail value was $40 and her original item was $19.96, I told her that wouldn't work but I would gladly return her item; problem was that she didn't have a receipt, and payed cash therefore I couldn't do a card lookup. Once you return an item which no receipt, the price of the item would loose value, she was only getting $9 back and she said she would rather keep it. We thought that was the end of it, but of course that would be a crazy idea in the retail work. 2 minutes later a man came in, which my co-worked helped. He immediately snapped at her "my wife just came and you told her she would only be getting $9 which is nothing what she paid for. Then you told her to go get something which the price was $19.99, and you guys said that was unacceptable." Denise (my co-worker) answered in the most polite way possible, "Sir, she doesn't have a receipt so the item looses value, that's what the computer marks and there's nothing I can do about. As for the item, I told her to get something with the same price marked, not the sale price." Now in a more angry voice "well you go look for something around the store for that price. I'll be here waiting! it's absurd how my wife spent 30 minutes looking for something." At this point I was upset for the way her was treating my friend, she's the kindest person ever and didn't deserve to be treated this way, when she wasn't even supposed to be there. She was helping me out. I told the man, "Sorry sir, but we can't go look for an item for you." At this point we called for our manager, because the thing was getting out of had, there were about 15 people in line, and this man kept screaming louder. Our manager of course, told him the same things we were telling him, and still wouldn't understand, so we had to call our head manager. With him, the man was calm and my manager told him all the same things we had already repeated about 10 times. While this was going on I was helping a woman who was panicking with the man's scream, she was freaking out because she couldn't find her receipt I tried to comfort her "it's okay ma'am, take your time." As soon as I finished with that customer another lady came and she said "It's crazy how much you guys have to go through as a retail employee. It's not you guys' fault people aren't responsible enough. They think that because they're white they can get away with anything. I'm glad you guys didn't make an exception with him, and hopefully this will teach him to be more responsible with his things." I couldn't agree with her more, but I didn't say anything and just nodded. The man left, with his item, which could've and should've been done since the beginning instead of causing a scene. No one ever comes and visit me at the service desk, but when that was going on I turned to the side and was surrounded with about 7 co-workers, they were all new and there faces were full of fear, if only they knew this was just the beginning.

70 and 7 aren't so different after all.

Today I was doing my own thing; folding pants, clearing out the fitting room when my Loss Prevention officer calls me through the radio to head to his office. I love getting those calls because I know there's going to be action! I go into his office and he shows me the camera "you see this man?" It was an old man, about mid 70's in my mind I was like "what could that poor old man be doing?" He said, "he grabbed about 7 chocolates and I'm afraid he's going to take them." They weren't just any type of chocolates, they were Godiva chocolate bars which round to $3 each. We kept following him for about 30 minutes, in a moment he hid the chocolate under some pants, to meet with his wife, then he went back for it. You have to wait until the suspect walks out of the store in order to consider it a crime. Finally, his wife paid and he walked out. My LP rushed outside, while I stayed in the camera room. He was calling the man to stop, but the man was running around some bushes, it was hilarious. My LP directed the man to the office, and he said, "I will give you a chance to put in the table everything you took without paying." He took out 8 chocolate bars, and a belt (we hadn't seen the belt). The man was more scared about what his wife would think that actually getting the cops involved. Turns out it wasn't the first man had shoplifted, he said he tends to take candy from Wal-Mart because he's diabetic. His wife wasn't aware of all this going on. The police wasn't involved but it is necessary to do paperwork for the crime, and only that is the "criminal" can no longer step foot in any Kohls. After the man left my LP said, "I feel bad, because I can imagine my dad doing the same. Old people are just like kids, sometimes they don't even know what they're doing."