Working retail

If I were the praying type, I’d utter a little prayer of thanks each day that I’m not one of those older folks who has to work retail. The monotony, the standing-on-your-feet all day, the lousy pay. No, even with the discount, retail has little to recommend it. That said, I think that everyone, at some point in their life, should have one or two lousy jobs on their resume: fast food, wait staff, factory, office temp, grocery bagger, and -  of course – retail.

Thus, I am delighted to find that there’s strong demand for retail workers to man/woman the cash registers, straighten out the merchandise, and keep an eye out for shoplifters for the coming holiday season.

A low unemployment rate, consumer confidence, and rosy forecasts for holiday spending – estimated to hit a staggering $1.1 Trillion this season - mean the retailers are looking to fill 700,000 jobs (and that, I think, is before numbers from Walmart and Amazon are factored in).

“There is a definite war for talent,” said Andrew Challenger, a vice president at job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “Just as we have this huge spike in consumer demand, retailers are dealing with tightest labor market in 45 years. Whether or not retailers can hire enough people this holiday season could have a real impact on their sales.” (Source: Washington Post)

Truly, I’m happy that there’s a “definite war for talent,” but, truly, just how much talent does it take to work retail? These days, you don’t even have to be numerate enough to make change. You don’t need to have the attention to detail required to go through the fine print books that credit card providers used to provide (weekly updates!) to find out if the credit card someone was using had been reported stolen or had been cancelled. (Talk about a buggy-whip item. Those books of “bad” credit card numbers are up there with rotary phones and, well, buggy whips.) Sometimes I think that the major retail talent required these days is avoiding eye contact with the customer while chatting with a fellow clerk about what you’re doing after work.

Okay. That’s a bit unfair. Many stores – Trident, my indie bookstore; Roche Bros., my grocer; CVS - have instituted what I call an “escort policy”. When you ask somewhere where something is, they don’t just point and mumble “Aisle One”. They walk you over to where the item is located. This most assuredly didn’t happen in the past, at least in my retail past.

As for talent, I guess the ability to put a smile on your face, feign interest in the purchaser, and provide escort service to the right aisle is something of a talent.

Anyway, we’re seeing supply and demand in action here:

Nationally, retailers say they plan to pay as much as 54 percent more than they did a year ago, according to a survey of 1,000 hourly employers by Snag, an Arlington-based online staffing platform for hourly work.

Yikes. That’s quite a jump, even moving from an abysmally low base. Plus:

They are increasingly offering a chance at other perks, too: $500 gift cards at Target, all-expenses-paid vacations to Miami and New York, as well as $5,000 “prize packages” at J.C. Penney. Beauty chain Ulta is giving holiday hires half-off haircuts, while Gap and Old Navy are advertising employee discounts of 50 percent, as well as backup child care and free flu shots. Williams Sonoma has declared September “national hiring month,” promising on-the-spot store interviews to anybody who wants one.

Hmmm. I’m not that interested in winning $5K worth of J.C. Penney, but a Miami vacation? I might look into working at the Target in Fenway. A nice walk each day, a trip to Miami (February) or NYC (any old time). Oh, I might not be too happy if someone else at Target won the $500 spree or the trip to Miami. Or with $12 an hour, even if that’s big money for retail. (When I last worked retail in the early 1970’s, I don’t think I even made two bucks an hour. Back then two bucks was worth two bucks, but still…Lucky me that I have the option of volunteering for free rather than having to work for $12 an hour.)

Kohl’s, which began hiring seasonal employees in July, is providing Thanksgiving Day workers with a turkey dinner and doling out gift cards for perfect attendance during the holidays. Also new this year: A designated shopping day when employees will get 35 percent off all purchases, including brands like KitchenAid and UnderArmour. (The retailer’s usual employee discount is 15 percent.)

Of course, even with a 54% raise, you still may not be able to afford discounted KitchenAid or UnderArmour.

Anyway, all these goodies almost (but not quite) make me want to work retail again. What gets in the way: in addition to the wages and the boredom and the standing on my feet all day, there’s the fact that my experience might no longer be applicable. My specialty, during my Christmas seasons at Filene’s and Jordan Marsh, was stationery. As in boxes of fancy letter paper and fountain pens. When was the last time you saw boxes of fancy letter paper, and fountain pens, in a department store?

Mostly I suppose I’d really like is to be decades younger, pounds lighter, and happy to have a job for the holiday season.

Sigh….