When my daughter grew up and finished her studies a university she and her fiance opened a clothing shop.
After all the years of job-hunting, I finally got a job working as a cashier in their clothes shop.
I had only worked in an office environment before, but now was in a shop, I'd always liked the interaction with clients, and now as cashier I interacted with customers, so I liked that.
At first the hours were long and hard, I had to get used to standing and walking up and down all the time, but that didn't take long. At that time I was still a smoker and used to sit on the steps outside the shop for a smoke-break, always ready to stub the cigarette out and go inside when a customer arrived.
The staff were mixed, 2 blacks, 2 whites and the Boss, my daughter, she might have been the youngest, but there was no mistaking her as the Boss. She would walk in and say 'you must
clean the rails and then tidy them today' and we did it. We were well trained and each one knew their tasks and did them. So there was no friction between us.
There were rush periods, Friday afternoons when the shop was so crowded there were queues for the fitting rooms. No one seemed to mind though. Then as if by magic the shop would clear of customers around 4.30pm. Time for a quick smoke break and then start tidying up, all the clothes had to be zipped or buttoned up, all facing the front of the shop,
and in the correct categories. I avoided the baskets with folded items when ever I could.
What you didn't do Friday afternoon would have to be done early saturday morning, just before the Saturday crowd came in.
You never knew which customer would come in next. Some would ask for something we didn't stock, but then still spend time looking at what we did have. Some came came in spoiling for a fight, and the challenge would be to see them go out with a smile on their faces.
One of the worst problems was people who wanted to try on clothes which were too small for them. We missed one customer, she left the dress in the changing room, broken, and rushed out of the door super fast. She didn't come back for months and then denied it and all we could do was check what she wanted to try on and take out what was too small for her.
Customers would sometimes change at the bottom of the shop, it wasn't too bad, there were some fairly high racks there for partial coverage.
Theft was always a problem in the shop, until we got discs to put on the clothes. The discs made a whining shriek if carried through an archway at the entrance to the shop.
My daughter and her fiance got married and my son-in-law opened his own shop, this one
being one of 'the little treasure' shops and I worked there for a while as well. They still have a shop, although I haven't worked there for years.
This being South Africa, four of the blacks that I have worked with fell victim to AIDS and passed away and you never forget them.
Working in the shops gave me something interesting to do and at the same time gave me my
confidence back
Images - Pixabay