I get bored easily, I jump from job to job, and I am always looking for a new opportunity. My brother and sister both work at buckles and seem to love it. They wear clothing that is a little bit too pricey and they spend most of their paycheck where they work. They love their job, and therefore I thought that I would love my job as much as they did.
So, I gave my two weeks notice to Hollister, and said goodbye to all my co-workers. As soon as I was about to leave my manager said to me, “You’ll be back.” I smiled and said, “We’ll see.”
You see I am a confident person, I am polite, I am a good employee, and an all around sweet girl, but I had no clue what I was about to get myself into. A couple of weeks prior to giving my two weeks notice at Hollister I got hired at The Buckle, the only catch was, if I was going to work for their company, I couldn’t work at another clothing store, it was a conflict of interests, so what did I do? I quit Hollister. During the interview my interviewer asked me about my sense of style, if fashion was at all important to me, and what I liked about fashion. No where in my interview did she ask me of my work experience, my personal life, or what I was like as an overall person, she was basically concerned as to whether I could make small talk, and how good I looked in the clothes. My interviewer and assistant manager, lets call her “May”, said they would give me a call. That same day I received a phone call from the manager “Lisa”, who told me they would love to give me a second interview. I was completely surprised, because after the first short interview with this snotty assistant manager, i was sure i had bombed it.
So i went for the second interview with Lisa, who was a much sweeter girl, and I felt completely at ease. I just knew i would get the job. She told me to give her a call when i had finished working at Hollister, and as soon I quit I gave Lisa a call. The first day they asked me to go in, I filled out all the paperwork, my availability, and my w-4. That took about an hour, and Lisa told me to come back in for the training section on Sunday, so when Sunday rolled around, I was pretty excited. I learned that Buckle works on commission, and my base pay would be a certain amount(way below minimum wage), and depending on how many sales I made throughout the day I would make well over minimum wage, that is if I could sell, or it wasn’t completely dead.
So I decided to give it a shot. The first day of training was all about videos, they show you how to layer their clothing to give it that “Buckle” style, and other videos about shrink, and selling their clothes. It took about 7 hours, and I had to keep pausing to write in my answers, so I’m pretty sure it took longer than it should have. After my eyes had nearly fallen out of my head, they told me to go ahead and clock out and come in the next day to try on their jeans. They wanted me to learn about their denim some more, because after all Buckle is known to be “denim specialists”.
The next day was a blur, I tried on so many jeans it’s not even funny. They claim to be able to fit every type of girl/guy, and I’m pretty sure they could, if you range from a size 23-36. Everytime I came out of the dressing room, they asked me what kind of jeans I was wearing, how they fit, and what was the difference between this jean and the 12th jean I had tried on, mind you I was on jean 40 by that time. I had specifically told them that I had never shopped buckle, maybe once or twice, but they put so much pressure on you to learn the denim in one day, its absolutely impossible.
About a week later I had my first shift, I walked into the store and Lisa was there, she spoke to me in a professional manner, and when I made a mistake she never talked down to me, she helped me so that I could better my performance, they were impressed by how I walked up to people on my first day and sold 85 dollars per hour. My goal was 100 per hour, so I did fall a little bit short, but Lisa coached me and assured me I could reach that goal. I felt confident that I could improve and that I in fact would reach that goal.
My second shift came about 3 days later, and Lisa was just leaving, she told me May would be closing for the night and that if I had any questions, she would help me out. Okay, first of all, May is a pretty obnoxious person, she’s the kind that screams how bad she has to pee, when no body really cares to know. She talks too fast, and pretty much feels superior just because she pays way too much for her clothes. I on the other hand, barely started working at this establishment, and own one burn out tee, and a pair of BK E’s,(which by the way is their lowest priced jean coming out to a whopping 76.00 dollars). I believe that if it wasn’t for this particular person working there I would still be there.
I could tell after I walked up to my first “guest” that her and another employee were watching me, so naturally I was a little bit nervous, but I stuck to my guns, and helped him out. After I was done talking to him, I saw the two girls laughing and staring at me behind the counter. I brushed it off, and helped out another guest, I must have said something similar to what I had said to the past guest, and suddenly I see the two girls hovering around me, not really dong much of anything, just trying to hear my interaction with the guest, and this time they laugh hysterically and loudly, may I add.
Another incident was when I was helping a guest, and she was eaves dropping, yet again, and I happened to say, ” Do you need any help”, she turned to me once I had finished and said to me,”What possessed you to say that?” and I just looked at her dumb-founded, not really knowing what to say, she then said to me, “That’s more of a Hollister thing to say, don’t you think?
Just these all around nasty comments, and stares, and snickers is enough to make a girl go crazy, so I walked out of the store, and never looked back, afterwards I went back to Hollister and got my job back, my old manager at Hollister said, “I told you, you’d be back.” I smiled and said,”It’s good to be back.”
