I walked through the entrance of Tween Girlz. I shopped in this store when I was younger and decided it wouldn’t be a bad place to work. When I walked in I recognized the bright and sparkly clothing and the Jonas Brothers music playing. I hadn’t been in this store since I was 12 years old.
It was my first day of work. The first thing I saw was three girls gathered around talking at the cash rap. Two of them were sitting on the counter behind the registers and one was facing away from the entrance and leaning against the opposite counter. When they saw me they waved and told me to put my bag and coat in one of the closed off dressing rooms, not in one of the lockers.
After I clocked in, they introduced themselves as Megan, Alex, and Autumn. There were a few customers browsing the store and my three new coworkers carried on with their conversation.
“Yea, they are like little bumps and they are everywhere, I don’t know if it’s herpes though, I mean it could be, but I hope it’s not.”
“Yea it could be anything, I wouldn’t worry too much.”
This was the first conversation I had heard while working at Tween Girlz and was, what I thought at the time, going to be one of the more explicit conversations I was going to hear. I very was wrong.
Working at Tween Girlz has been nothing like I had pictured it. I expected the girls I was going to work with to all be friendly towards each other, with minimal gossip and minimal drama like my previous job. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the girls I work with and they are all genuinely good people. But I was not prepared for the baggage that came along with working there. From adultery to breakups to stealing to pregnancy scares to fights to back stabbing and everything in between, it all happens. Who knew a place plastered with pink and sparkles where young girls run around and play with jars of colorful goo could be so dark? I didn’t.
*The name of the store and my employees’ names have been changed.
