random thoughts – Day 1,836 – (Thursday) – random retail memories

Sometimes random memories explode into consciousness without warning. Recently, it was one involving a job I had while in college. It was a minimum wage gig at Child World, which was a toy department store that disappeared when Toy "R" Us won the toy store war.

I was a cashier at Child World (aka "Wild World" because we like nicknames), and like my high school cashier job at DeMoulas, we also go to straighten the sales floor. 

It's probably obvious that straightening a toy store sales floor is more fun than a grocery store. At DeMoulas, we had to stack the cans and jars two high and two rows deep and face the labels to the front. The dreaded baby food wall had a million tiny glass jars and it didn't take much for one or more of them to launch themselves onto the floor and smash to smithereens. At Child World, there were balls to toss, light sabers and bats to fight with, and all kinds of everything fun to goof around with while putting things back where they belonged.

When working night shifts at Child World, I was eventually assigned the closing task of going upstairs to the office to set up the cash drawers for the next day. The task itself was okay, but it meant I wasn't downstairs playing with the toys, and the office working conditions were not the greatest. The manager would also be in the office, seated in a chair to my left.

While he prepared the deposit of the day's cash and I set up the register drawers for the next day, he would edge his chair over closer to mine. Soon, his leg (and sometimes his hand) would be touching my leg and I would shift my chair away from his. And he would move his again. Eventually, I’d run out of space and would end up wedged between the office wall and his chair. The entire time the cat and mouse game was happening, there was also a whole lot of praying for the assistant manager to get upstairs to the office. 

I was a 19-year-old college student, living at home, raised to not question authority. It was many years before I cultivated the courage to say “knock that shit off.” I don’t remember there being an employee handbook with a section on what to do when the creepy store manager who is twice your age tries to get handsy, so my solution was to find a new job, which was probably the solution for most females of the time. I found safety a few doors down the concrete sidewalk at a shoe store. My time at the job with the creepy boss may not have lasted long, but the icky memory still lingers.