Every once in a while I’ll miss the carefree days of my retail career, when I first started working at the Faneuil Hall Structure (before it became Express Men or whatever it is these days), and the thrill of earning my own paycheck while doing something I loved was novel and inspiring. By the time the holiday season rolled around, I had made a name for myself in my home store, and the crew we had working then was a good group. I genuinely liked them all, to a person, and they accepted and liked me in return. It took a retail job to finally feel like I belonged somewhere, and that sort of realization cannot and should not be undervalued. It changed my life. But this post will not be going that deep – holidays bring back enough of those memories. No, this post is just a light-hearted memory of what it was like to work in retail during these hectic shopping weeks.
It started on black Friday – and the first time I worked it I stood by the entrance door eagerly awaiting the crush of people. One of the first customers through the door was Nancy Kerrigan. Starstruck (this was only one year after the whole Tonya Harding ordeal), I asked her if she needed help looking for anything. She gave me major stink-eye and attitude, causing me to wonder whether I was Team Tonya after all. I left her alone after that.
There was no mad rush then, not at the start of the day. It came in waves, slowly building until a line snaked through the store and we were just frantically ringing sales instead of trying to sell anything on the floor. For break time, I would go downstairs and into Quincy Market and the long double row of food vendors that was crowded even in non-holiday times. The crush now was even more maddening, but my Structure name badge, indicating that I was working, seemed to give me extra berth. Or maybe it was the annoyed-to-the-point-of-breaking countenance I wore as soon as I exited the sales floor. Whatever the case, I navigated my way through the sea of tourists, picked up a bread bowl of clam chowder, and somehow found a seat in the center atrium section.
The decorations blinked and sparkled, hanging above us and lending light to the darkened reaches of the room. I sat there, alone in a sea of people, perfectly content and happy to be taking it all in from a distance, and this was a change from my usually-anxious appearance. I watched as parents herded their children ahead of them, and husbands wearily followed their wives or vice versa. I listened to their worries and their laughter and their insignificant stories – the stuff we say to those who mean the most to us but who have already heard all the important things. In the maelstrom of this holiday madness, I sat happily dipping into my bread bowl and witnessing the scene around me. It was finally ok. They didn’t bother or annoy me with their holiday sweaters, they didn’t agitate or irk with their petty disagreements – it was all all right because I belonged somewhere, even if it was on the sixth floor of the Limited Building shelling out ties and khakis, and three pairs of socks for ten dollars. That’s the thing about feeling like you belonged somewhere: suddenly you belonged everywhere.
