The Other Store

That's where I'm working this week! They're short on staff this week and my manager asked me if I wouldn't mind working there. It would be a nice (very nice) change of pace, so I said I would. The reason they're short on staff:

1) The store manager is helping with the opening of another store somewhere else
2) They have one associate who only works on weekends (we have one of those too)
3) Another associate is on vacation in Brazil for this week

So, if you have six or seven employees, and half of them are gone... who do you have running your store? The one associate I met today only works two days this week. I see their shipper/receiver more than anyone else. It's a small store, so we only have two/three people in the store at one time. Yet, there's three entrances: the main one, one in the middle, and one in the back. The one in the middle and in the back are connected to the store next door, the Kids store.

It has been quite an experience. The women there like to shop and they don't mind much that they're paying full-price for their items. And they don't mind buying more than one item either. Back at my store, ladies are always looking for a sale and don't like buying too much. Our store is busier, but PW (Pasadena Woman's) sells. It's also a much smaller store. I can stand in the middle of the store and still pretty much see the entire store. Whereas, in my store, I can't do that. If I stand in the middle, my manager will yell at me and tell me to get back up front. I'm usually in Missy because that's where the coverage needs to be. The manager hangs in the "cashwrap" so they can ring while they're "watching" petites.

Today, my first store manager came in to shop. She was the store manager when I started working there. Now she's the general store manager in Century City. She's a tall lady, so she shops at the Pasadena store. It was so much fun working for her. Whenever something she liked arrived in our store, she would do an item conversion to see if the store in Pasadena or South Coast plaza received it or not. She came in today to do a bit of shopping. Also, today, I have another embarrassing story to share about the workplace.

I was wearing new shoes I bought at Ross yesterday because my sandals were getting worn out and dirty. Since today was my short shift, I decided to try them out. Turns out, they have no grip on them, and it's easy to slip on hardwood floors. Now, if you've never been to our stores, there is carpeting, but it's surrounded by hardwood floors. Well, I was taking a shirt down to fold when I turned around and my right ankle turned a little bit. It was enough to plop me down on my bottom. Thankfully I didn't fall forward and hit the display table in front of me. Again, thankfully there was no one in the store besides Abby, the other associate. She was by the cashwrap, so she didn't see me go down. She just heard me land and say "ow!" At first she thought I dropped something. I imagine it looked something like, one second I'm standing and the next I wasn't there anymore. My shoe came off and scattered a couple inches. Other than being a little embarrassed (hey, I laughed it off), nothing much was hurt. At least I didn't land on anything sharp (matt!)