A Little More Than Nail Polish

            Our old manager, Rachel, and her four kids came into the store last week which reminded me to tell you guys about why she was fired. It was super awkward talking to her because we don’t think she knows how much we know about why she was fired.

            None of us are perfect. Sometimes when we are really bored at work we paint our nails and when we forget to bring nail polish, we use the nail polish in the store. :/ I know it’s bad!! Please don’t judge me. So that is an example of internal theft. But Rachel took it a little further and decided to “borrow” clothes for her daughters to wear. And then she decided to “borrow” the new store vacuum. And then she decided to “borrow” money from the registers and the deposits. So as you can see, it got a little more serious than small fraction of a nail polish bottle. This was going on for months and we had no idea. When she told us she ordered the vacuum but it was back ordered we took her word for it because she was our manager and we trusted her.

            Even though Rachel has her many boy toys, she was the coolest manager I’d ever had.I felt like she actually cared about us. We could talk to her about anything and she would listen. When I worked with her I didn’t feel like I was working with my manager, I felt like I was just working with one of the girls because she didn’t make us feel inferior to her. This sounds cheesy but when Rachel was our manager, Tween Girlz felt like a family. Yes, I knew she wasn’t the best manager, but I didn’t think she was actually stealing from the store.

            The way Rachel was fired was unfortunate. The district manager came in to tell Autumn that Rachel was going to be fired and to offer her the manager position, so Autumn knew before it happened. Autumn can’t keep a secret so she told Alex, Alex told Kara, Kara told Carly, and so on. Everyone knew within two days but Rachel wasn’t actually fired until three weeks later, the day before Christmas Eve. You can imagine how awkward working with Rachel was. But I felt more betrayed than anything.  I was angry and hurt that she would steal from the store because I used to feel like I could trust her.  Now I don’t really know if she cared about any of us at all.

Down Time Adventures

            During the week, our store is usually pretty dead because girls are in school and their moms are at work. So we need to find things to past the time when we have no shipment to process and no customers to help. Doing homework and talking on the phone are usually the defaults but my one coworker Alex and I like to find other things to do. We work together a lot and usually close together on week nights and we’ve had nights when literally no one comes into the store. One night when we were sitting on the cash wrap, staring at the piercing kiosk right across our store, I said “I’m thinking about getting my cartilage pierced sometime.” Alex replied “okay I’ll do it with you, right now.” So we walked over there and picked out a pair to share; we decided to get it in the middle of our left ears. I did mine first while she stood at the entrance of the store and cheered me on.

            When it was Alex’s turn, one of our regulars walked up to us, about to head into the store – my favorite family. :) The older daughter (about 9 years old) was just talking about how she wanted to get her ears pierced but was scared it would hurt too much. Her dad asked us to convince her to do it because he knew she wanted to. She was still hesitant after Alex finished so we told her we would hold her hand and give her a Tween Girlz employee t shirt (left over from Black Friday). She did it! So at the end of the day, three ears were pierced and we had a new little coworker. Now every time they come into the store she runs up to the counter to show us her new earrings. It is nights like those and girls like her that make me realize I have the best job in the world.

The Babysitting Service

Tween Girlz is not just a store. It is a part time babysitting service as well. Moms often wander in with their kids, lead them to the toy bin with an overabundance of bouncy balls, whoopee cushions, and jars of goo, and slip out of the store, thinking we don’t notice that they have left their kids unattended. When we ask the little youngsters if we can help them find anything, they tell us they are supposed to wait in the store until their moms are finished shopping. The moms usually return in half an hour or so and pretend to browse the store for a few minutes, then leave with their kids. It’s not really annoying unless the kids decide to trash the store, which happens the majority of the time.

One night when I was working with two hours until closing time and a girl who looked about nine or ten years old walked in, grabbed a book, and sat down on the floor and started reading. We asked her if she needed help finding anything and she just shook her head. She sat there for half an hour, an hour, two hours, and it was time to close. We told her we were closing and asked if she needed to call someone to come get her. She shook her head and walked out of the store. When we walked out after closing 20 minutes later, she was nowhere to be found.

Tween Girlz also serves as an official babysitting service for one customer in particular. A mom and her two daughters are regulars in our store, and just recently became regular babysitting employers. Three employees at Tween Girlz have babysat the two girls and according to them, the girls are hell raisers. Every week, we get a call from the mom, asking if any of us can babysit. This is the part where we all cringe and run away. Thankfully, babysitting the customer's children isn’t in our job requirement, but some people think it is…

Tears

            About a month ago a man came in and said he was shopping for his daughter. I thought he was just like any other dad coming in, but as we started talking I realized he was like no other customer we have ever had before. As Megan and I were helping him pick out an outfit, he told us his daughter (seven or eight years old I think) had just died of a brain tumor a few days ago and he was shopping for the outfit they would put her in for her wake. Megan and I were speechless. We had no idea what to say to this man. Here was this man doing, what I imagine, one of the hardest things someone would ever have to do in their life. We gave him our condolences and tried to assist him as much as we could but I could barely keep it together in the ten minutes we were talking him. Thankfully his wife came in to help him pick out the outfit. They ended up choosing two outfits, a blue one and a pink one, because they couldn’t decide.

About a week later I walk into Tween Girlz for my shift and I see him at the counter. I braced myself and walked up to him and Autumn at the register. She was just finishing up the return for the pink outfit he brought back. He looked over at me and said “we decided to go with the blue.” At that moment I couldn’t hold back my tears. I looked at Autumn and she was tearing up too. I felt so bad that I couldn’t even keep it together for two minutes in front of this guy who was probably dealing with so many random, blubbering strangers already. The last thing he needed was another pity party from the girls at Tween Girlz. But all he did was thank us for our help and as he was leaving he said “she really loved your clothes.” His eyes started to water and I had to look away.

After he left the store I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I tried putting myself in his position but I knew it was impossible to know what he was feeling. When thinking about planning funerals and wakes the main issues that come to mind are the guest lists and the flowers and who is going to say what at the ceremony. You never really think of the small things like going shopping for an outfit you think she would like. And it’s those little things that are the hardest of all I think.