The Painful Truth About Retail
Dear Travelers,
I just got home from working my 24th Black Friday.
That sounds insane. It sounds impossible to me but here we are.
This week has been busy, as you would imagine, so I’m sending you a sneak peek of an article I sent to publish but hasn’t yet hit the world.
Retail has been a huge part of my life for so long. I almost can’t remember what I did before I worked every holiday known to the human race. People often wonder what it’s like to work retail so I wrote about it. It’s hard. It’s really hard. It’s also one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever been a part of.
I hope you enjoy this read and I hope that - whatever you’re celebrating this week/weekend - is as loud or as quiet as you’d like it to be.
Take it easy, would you? Until next time…
Peace,
Kit
Anyone that works all day on their feet will tell you it takes a toll.
Coming off five days in a row, after working through the weekend, I am totally fried. I didn’t notice it right away, not until I had a day off.
Waking up at 8am, late for me, I staggered out of bed. My whole body hurt. My head was in a cloud. I told the dog that I would make some coffee and we would head out for our walk; that’s what we did.
A giant cup of coffee was poured, I put on a baseball hat and sunglasses, grabbed the leash, and headed out the door. The fresh air did not snap me out of my fog. My own personal cloud sat on my head.
The last five days swam around in my head as I tried to shake it off.
Now that I was home, I needed to get in writing mode but I stared at the screen trying to make edits. No amount of food or caffeine was going to shake this.
Working a retail job is physically exhausting. Being on your feet is just one piece of the puzzle. I walk, typically about five miles a day on my salesfloor. I climb ladders countless times.
When peak season hits and I am on the register a lot, my right forearm aches from typing in my employee number and password hundreds of times a day.
Carrying armfuls of clothing, boxes of hangers, and moving tables each week adds stress on your body. It sneaks up on you. You don’t really notice it until your day off. Your body has time to rest and then you realize how banged up you are. Did my left ankle always hurt?
The commute is also brutal. Sitting in a car for two hours a day cannot be healthy. Gridlock is a special hell. I can only pack so much water and healthy snacks to ensure I don’t fall asleep. I can only get excited about so many podcasts. At the end of the day, I just want to be home.
About six years ago, I noticed very small things getting harder as I aged. Searching for a box for sunglasses while kneeling on the floor starts to get harder when you’re 40. I began to enlist the help of my 17-year-old staff with good knees.
Yes, my knees hurt. I’m wearing my shoulders as earrings. My hip hurts when I get up from sitting. Twenty years of working on a retail sales floor have added up it now affects my daily life.
I used to work out so I could keep up at my job. A retail job. I sell t-shirts and jeans; it sounds so simple. I would run circles around younger managers. I learned how to maintain a quick pace and sense of urgency and then I dug in. Forget anyone that couldn’t keep up with me. I was gone.
The hours take a toll as well. Sometimes we work until 10pm and then two days later, we are back at 6am. I used to close and then open all the time. I prided myself on long hours and hard, physical work.
Until now.
Working five days straight absolutely crushes me. It takes me a day to recover and get my brain back in my skull.
It’s a bummer, kind of. There is so much I like about my job. I like the customer interaction. I like showing people that little things don’t really matter. I told a customer she could just throw the gift receipts at her family and let them deal with it. She laughed and realized that she could. It wasn’t that serious.
But my body can’t do this much longer. It’s not healthy.
I do what I can. I wear really good shoes, like Birkenstock. I eat pretty well, I drink a ton of water, but after twenty years, there’s only so much you can do to protect your body from the wear and tear.
Many people wonder what it’s like to work retail or have a customer-facing job.
It’s physically hard. It makes you fall on your face tired. It’s also ridiculously fun. I’ve met some of the coolest people here. I’ve met celebrities, artists, immigrants, and nomads. I’ve had the honor of being many, many people’s first boss. I’ve made my best friends here. You bond with people like nowhere else on earth.
The toll is real and it’s catching up with me. The recovery process gets longer every year.
After the holidays pass and I get some rest, I forget about all the pain. I think it’s not that bad and that I can do it again. When December rolls around again, I go back to thinking that a mail-carrier job might be nice. I’d get to work alone. No staff or loud music. Maybe I could work at a library.
Working retail takes its toll on you. Everything hurts, we don’t make a lot of money, and some people look down on our occupation. However, when you plan your holiday six weeks in advance, once you get there, it’s electrifying.
Everything clicks. It is truly organized chaos and we have a blast! Retail teams are the tightest-knit groups. I’ve seen people make friendships for life right in front of me. It’s the coolest.
Retail has been my home for twenty years. I’ve had the experience of a lifetime here but yes, everything hurts. When I ring you up or grab you a pair of shoes from ten feet up on a ladder, you will never know it but I pay the price the next day. Ten hours a day on your feet is no joke.
A lot of sleep, a large coffee, and some fresh air helps make me feel like a human again. I set my alarm and get ready to be back in the building before dawn. No matter what hurts, we show up and carry on. This is what we do every day. This is retail.
Learn more about the author. Not a member of Medium yet? You can join here and support me as well as hundreds of other writers.
So well said. You love it and you are spent. I got weary and sympathetic reading it.
"I’ve made my best friends here. You bond with people like nowhere else on earth."
100% agree. There's a foxhole mentality there that might not be in other lines of work. It's been a long time since I worked retail, but I feel lucky to still be close with a few of the people I worked with.