This has no point.

Remaining in retail isn't a long term goal of mine. It never was and it's even clearer to me now that I am a retail associate it's precisely where I don't want to be. Sure, I love I clothing and fashion and trends, but customers? Customers ruin my day everyday. They are both the bane of my existence and the payer of my salary. A necessary evil. They come in five minutes before we close the store to mess up the piles of shirts we've carefully folded. They want to return items without receipts. They want us to call another store and search for a sale item that's been off the shelves for weeks. They want us to spend 20 minutes looking for a lost SKU for the most atrocious clothing item known to fashion. They are annoying. They are endemic to a retail environment.

Last year working at Bloomingdale's was fun, but it was slow. My fellow associates and I were stationary, leaning against counters for most of the day, listlessly waiting for customers to abate our boredom but silently berating the first customer who interrupted our superficial conversations. My fellow fashion accessory workers and I, we had fun, despite most of us hating our jobs. What else were we going to do?

Things run differently at Urban Outfitters. We don't have any down time to bond with our co-workers. We're only allowed conversations in passing. Everyone has a station, a position, a task. There's always cleaning, there's always tidying, there's always restocking. I used to hate it. And I still really don't like the tasks I'm assigned, but I'm finally fond of the people I work with. Though I'm disappointed I am a college graduate and working a menial retail job, I'm beginning to make the best of it. And thinking more about it, work is the only thing making me sane these days. It's an escape from my head, from my worries, from my troubles. I guess you could classify it as preventative medicine. The best laughs I've had lately have been at work. In fact tonight I laughed myself to delirium, to tears almost! I may not be connecting with these people outside of work, but I'm going to take what I can get. It is what it is. Laughing my head off at work is better than not laughing at all.


It's weird to experience such highs and such lows. Yesterday I had a really bad day. I was rock bottom. I'm lucky to have some good friends who validate my feelings and assure me things are going to get better, it's just tough when they're 3,000 miles away. It's tough when you live paycheck to paycheck and eating is no longer an option. Maybe today's sudden love for my co-workers was spurred by my manager giving me a coupon for a free burrito, making two meals a possibility for today. I guess it's not important. Today I ride the high, hope it follows me to tomorrow.