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My first job was retail, and I worked it for about four years total, including during college and after service in the Navy. At the time I had skills that tran
by cobrausn 13y ago
My first job was retail, and I worked it for about four years total, including during college and after service in the Navy. At the time I had skills that translated into being valuable enough to not work in retail that didn't involve a lot of risk (police, security, etc), so it seemed about the best option.
I don't think I quite experienced anything like this, but sometimes it was close. If I felt like a replaceable cog, it's because I was, and I was a replaceable cog in a machine already operating on razor thin margins, which means I had to be a good cog. The funny thing was that due to my Navy experience, I didn't perceive it as all that bad, though the pay was pretty miserable even at two dollars above minimum wage.
I'll say this - working retail was very motivating. I knew I didn't want to do that forever. But I don't know what the 'solution' is as applied to everybody, but I know the solution for me was to finish college and make myself valuable.
- pnathan 13y agoMy impression is that retail has gotten worse over the last 20 years.
- cobrausn 13y agoMy last retail job was a decade ago, but yeah, I'm getting the same impression. I think it is because the margins are getting even smaller thanks to a variety of factors (the prevalence of online shopping being the biggest influence, IMHO).
- VLM 13y agoSocioeconomic separation of the consumer class from the servant class. As discussed in the article, humans shop there and buy $25 socks for their $300 shoes, but a thirty-something part time minimum wage no benefits homeless dude is not part of that class.
- krstck 13y agoIt definitely has, and I think the slide has accelerated within the last 5-10 years.
- maxerickson 13y agoI'd like to see harder numbers on the hourly value the store gets from the employees. As a for instance, Dick's Sporting Goods has a per employee operating income of about $15,000. That isn't an amazingly solid number, but it's enough to say they have quite a bit of cash moving around after they pay wages.