Workin' for the Man! Part 3:The Mallrat Years

Welcome back for part three of my Workin’ for the Man! Series: The Mallrat years. This part of the story cannot be told in one post. I worked four different jobs at the mall, and there is no way I can fit all of them here. So I guess you could say that this is part 3A.

After 3 separate stints over two years of working in the exciting and fast paced world of the Fast Food Industry, I wanted to do something completely different. I wanted to find the kind of job that wouldn’t leave my hands with a pickle and onion smell. A job that didn’t require an apron and non slip shoes sounded really nice. Maybe a job that had a food court nearby, so I could look back on my past, and see how much better I had it. What kind of job has all those elements? A job at the Mall of course!

I remember being a kid and going to the mall, and thinking how cool it would be to work there. I could be one of those guys at Foot Locker that dressed up like referees, or even work at Zumiez, which at the time I thought was the Mecca of all mall jobs.

Even though I had a good idea of where I wanted to work, I still went into every place that looked half way appealing. After getting about 27 applications, I headed home so I could start the process of filling them all out. Do you have any idea how long it takes to fill out that many applications? Trust me, it is very time consuming.

After about a week I had all the applications filled out. I dressed up in my Sunday best, and headed back out to the mall to turn them in. This is when the frustration set in. It seemed as if every place I went too, they gave me the same story about how they don’t need anyone right now, but they will be sure to file away my application for future consideration. Translation: We aren’t hiring, leave us alone, and your application is going in the trash.

But there was one store that was willing to take a chance on someone with no mall experience. It was a little store that was started in Seattle in the year 1920, and it went by the name of its founder. Eddie Bauer. And even though I took a pay cut to work there, it was at least a foot in the door of the mall world. After all, everyone knows that once you are in, you are pre qualified for any other job in the mall. You have “experience.”

I started work there in September of 1996, and was hired on as a seasonal employee. I soon found out that at a retail place, they are very big on you wearing their clothing. I remember once I had on a button up shirt, and they made me change out of it since it was a shirt that they were selling down at The Gap. I didn’t have time to run home, so I had to buy one. But it was because of working in this store I gained a love of clothing.

Before starting at Eddie Bauer, I was strictly a t shirt and shorts kind of guy. The only button up shirt I owned was my dress shirt. But the nice 30 percent discount I received help change all that. For the first time in my life I had access to high quality threads at reasonable prices. My closet went from weasel teenage boy to classy young adult in about 2 months. I was never one to think that clothes made the man, but this job changed that.

One problem that I ran into more than once while working at Eddie Bauer was the fact that I was now working with adults, and not kids. While at Burger King, the oldest person working there was 25. Crude language, juvenile practical jokes, and other nonsense were the norm. But it was way different there. First off, other than the guy that was hired with me (more about him later) I don’t think anyone was younger than 30. Most of them were in their late 30’s, early 40’s. Things like throwing hot pickle slices on someone’s neck, or letting a big gasser rip when you walk up front by the cashiers weren’t as funny to this crowd. On more than one occasion, my Manager pulled me aside to tell me that I needed to grow up. It is funny how when you are 19, you think that you are mature, but in someone else’s eyes, you are nothing but a kid.

I really loved working at Eddie Bauer. I worked with some great people, and some others that were not so great. All of the mangers were awesome to work for. One of them, Carol, was a lot of fun. Her husband Matt was the sportscaster over at KEPR at the time, and I liked talking sports with him when he would come in on occasion. The guy who ran the stock room, Louis, was really big into the band Phish, and was always playing their cd’s in the back room. And then there was Steve Landoni, who was hired at the same time I was.

Now, if you have ever read Amy’s blog, you might have seen the blog that she did about connections. It was about how all of these people that she knows, and how they are connected to other peoples she knows too. Steve fits into this nicely.

Not to rehash her entire blog entry, but I knew Amy from high school when she was dating my friend Shane. She always thought for some reason that she was older than I was, until at a football game I was able to convince her that I was in fact as old as she was. After Lisa moved into town, she and Amy were roommates for a while, and now Amy and her husband Jason are in our ward. Now that you have a little background on the matter, I will continue.

Like I said, Steve was hired at the same time as me. At first I pegged him as a serious guy, and I thought he was going to be a bore to work with. But that all changed in a matter of days. In fact, I think that Steve was my first sign that just because you were older, (well, keep in mind that he was 23 or 24, and to me that seemed old at the time) that didn’t mean you had to become a boring person. He was the one who taught me how to joke around at work, but make it look as though you were working. (Ha! It was a lesson that I still dwell upon to this day!) Whenever I came to work and he would be there too, I knew it was going to be a fun day.

Well, one day Amy came into the store. I said hi to her, and started to talk to her. At the same time Steve walked out, and was surprised that I knew his sister. She then in turn was surprised that I knew her brother.

On the other side of the employee spectrum, there was one of the most boring and rigid people that I have ever had to work with. Her name escapes me at the moment. Let’s just call her Ming Won. Ming Won was, or liked to think of herself as, the model Eddie Bauer employee. Once I asked her why the company didn’t donate slightly used clothing that was returned to the store instead of destroying it. She launched into this speech, that I have no doubt been rehearsed, in case some day she was approached about the subject, about how if Eddie Bauer was going to donate things, they would be new and of the highest quality. Because E.B. would not stoop so low as to donate used clothing. She really was a piece of work.

There was one time when we were closing up, and I had folded a pile of turtleneck long sleeve shirts. We were getting ready to head out the door, when she decided that she needed to do a walk through to make sure that everything was up to Eddie’s standards. She saw my pile of folded shirts, and called me over. She then went on to tell me that the folding job I did was below par, and that if Mr. Bauer were alive, he would fire me on the spot for such shoddy work. She then proceeded to knock the stack onto the ground, and had me redo them. When I finished, she still wasn’t satisfied. At that point, she didn’t think that I could do them the E.B. way, so she did them herself. And you know what? It didn’t look any different from mine.

Another thing Ming Won loved to do was talk about her car. It was not just a Ford Ranger; it was an Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Ranger. She loved to tell me that when you are a valued employee, you have the privilege of purchasing such high quality items such as her truck at a discount. Once I needed a ride home, and she offered to drive me. I remember thinking at the time that I would rather be having my old Hubby’s manager, wine cup and all, driving me home instead of this nut job. It was 10 of the most awkward minutes of my life. After the talk about her beloved truck died down, she started to tell me the proper procedure to shampoo your hair, and how the only way your hair gets clean is if you wash it twice. And while shampooing, you should only use a dime size of shampoo, and no more. I would have never thought that someone would have such a pitiful life that they would think shampoo talk was the way to pass the time.

By the time January rolled around, E.B. had to decide which seasonal employees were to stay on, and which ones had to go. I really wanted to stay on. Not just so I could keep my discount, but also because I really enjoyed working there. But alas, it was not to be. I was notified that I had until the end of the month to work there. I was sad, but I understood. I started to look for another job right away, and before too long, had another one lined up at The Gap.

Before I left, I had one more run in with Ming Won. It was my last night, and I was closing. When it came to my lunch break, I decided that I was going to take a little longer than my allotted 30 minutes. I was going to go on a farewell tour to the other stores I had made friends at. I ended up taking almost an hour off, and when I walked back in, Ming Won’s face was red. In fact, it was burning red; I didn’t think that it was possible for an Asian person’s face to turn that shade of red. As calmly as she could, she asked me to come to the back room.

When I got back there, she had a disciplinary form all filled out awaiting my signature. I had a strong feeling that she had it written out ever since the turtleneck episode, waiting for the right time to spring it on me. She went into this monologue about how disrespectful I was to the company, and how no one, not even the store manager, was entitled to almost an hour break. And while a part of me knew that I should respect her, and just sign the paper, and apologize, I just couldn’t do it. It was my last day after all, and I wasn’t going to sign anything. So instead, I laughed at her. Ming Won was not expecting this kind of reaction. I told her that there was no way she could get me to sign the paper. And when she wouldn’t let up about it, I decided to sign it. I wrote these letters in the signature line: D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K.

The anger inside her short round body exploded in my direction. She started to write up another sheet, but I just walked out of the back. I had another job lined up, and there was nothing this two bit assistant manager could do to derail it. And how do I know this? Because when I was in my interview for The Gap, they had asked me how on earth I could work in the same place as Ming Won. They weren’t fond of her either.

So that was the end of my E.B. career. Later on the next week I went into the store to talk to the store manager. She told me that everything was OK, and that she took everything Ming Won told her with a grain of salt. She thanked me for being a good employee, and told me that she wished she could have kept me on. And with that job behind me, I was ready for a new challenge, and a new discount. In fact, an even better discount than I had with Eddie Bauer.

That wraps up part 3A. Be on the lookout later this week for part 3B, “The Gap and the Problem with the Killer Discount.” Thanks for reading, and have a good day.