Welcome to the World of Minimum Wage Retail, Babe.

Orion: Beer from Okinawa (155/365)
Working nights in retail makes me wanna drink a beer. Here’s to not becoming an alcoholic!

I had my first real-ish kinda day working in retail at one of the last booksellers left in the state of Hawaii. I’ll leave it at that since I’ve yet to really peruse their Internet policy. I think I’m allowed to write whatever, but, yeah.

Last night was 2 hours on the cash register, or “cash wrap” and then 2 hours at customer info. I liked both enough, but customer info is more my speed. I like helping people. I hate being on the registers in a sense, because my customer interaction is so limited. Also, the horror scenarios of old exes, psycho women who got mad at me as a result of said exes, or parents of exes may have to be rung up by yours truly. ((Oh the humanity))!! The price we pay for choosing unwisely in life, ay? Of course, all experiences are good since lessons are always learned, but I digress.

I personally can’t make myself feel any stress at this job. Mainly, because I can only do what I can, and if something gets heated, the managers will surely get called to the scene. Ah. The pleasure of no longer being the last-line of defense. I feel so much more stress mentoring the Chem students since, even though I disclaim I am just a student, I don’t want to throw off their studies if I make any mistakes. Also, working in IT as the systems admin, and db admin, I was the official last word on a bunch of stuff. That kind of pressure deserves the salary I left behind.

But, welcome to the world of minimum wage retail, baby! No stress. I love customer service. Interacting with people is fun. Every customer I assisted in-store and on the phone was nice to me last night. In all honesty, they were nicer to me than some of my coworkers. I couldn’t help but beam all night along as I tried to help people find the Business profiles section, travel, amplified Bible, the book Lean In, and a new Psychology hardcover (tradecloth) novel, but I forget by whom. I’m sure there will be other nights where that is not the case, but yeah. I can’t say I love this job. And, it ain’t Tower Records– that’s for sure. Man. It’s SO CORPORATE by comparison.

Last night, a woman told me I was beautiful ( a couple of times) at cash wrap as I did a return for her. A young man asked me to speak to his father on his personal cell about amplified bibles, and some other customers asked me random, polite questions. It was a neat night. I do like customer service. I like helping people.

I work tonight, tomorrow, Saturday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, then have Mon and Tue off. I kinda hate working 5 days a week, but I need the money. One less day would be nice. Not sure if I’ll ask for it or not, however.

All in all, I like it enough. It’s gonna help pay the bills. I’m thankful to have this part time job, and hope to get some great experiences out of it.

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