Make friends, especially at the food court.

Working at the mall and not spending an abundance of money is a difficult thing to do. Everyday you’re passing cute clothes, working with cute clothes, and seeing all of the sales happening on these cute clothes.

Also, you have to survive on food court food. It is only possible to sustain yourself on the dollar menu items for so long. All of the good food, grilled subs and Chinese, is going to put a dint in your pocket if you eat there often. Until recently my store didn’t have a mini fridge and microwave, so I was forced to eat in the food court.

It is beneficial to make friends with the people who work in the food court. You never know who is going to offer up a free drink or sandwich on a stressful day. The best place to have friends is definitely Starbucks. In the middle of an 8 hour shift the best thing you can get to cheer yourself up is a tasty, highly caffeinated beverage. I would easily spend over $20 each week getting drinks.

Eventually I started spending my breaks talking to the employees, because they turned out to be some really fun people. They love ranting about their bad customer experiences, which provides quality entertainment during a break. After a while they started refusing to let my pay for drinks. Now, since I’m boring and get the same drink every time, they usually have my drink ready before I can even make it to the register.

 

Is there anything I can help you find today?

It’s hard to resist the allure of the mall. Whether you like shopping there or not you’ll end up there somehow. It’s too convenient to have all the diversity of shopping practically gift wrapped for you to glide through seamlessly, or at least that’s the goal. I’ve been working retail for 3 years now, surviving the blood, sweat, and tears that are the holidays.

Everyone has had a bad retail experience. For some it is trying to find that perfect top while dealing with the less than helpful sales associate. For those on the other side it’s trying to convey that we don’t have your top anymore and as far as we’re concerned it doesn’t exist. Move on.

As a shopping addict and mall employee I would like to find a happy medium between shopper and employee where we can understand each other’s difficulties and make the experience much less stressful for all involved, especially the men.

I’m going to post tips each week on things shoppers do to make sales associates hate their lives and things mall employees can do to make them hate their lives less while they are at work.