heartbreak in the homeland

 

Everyone knows Hollister is “in” for today’s fashions. Eighty percent of my clothes are Hollister, the name or the seagull logo, everywhere I go. Unemployed and desperate, the prospect of working at my favorite retail outlet was a dream come true. After being instructed how to correctly fold merchandise by foreign overnight stock-workers, and made to conform under the whip of self-involved supervisors, I can honestly say it turned out to be more of a nightmare than I could have imagined. I didn’t know I’d end up deliberately avoiding the mall, which is uncharacteristic for any teenage girl.

            I was “involuntarily terminated” from the job I had held for the past two years. The grocery store was all I knew and work had been part of my everyday routine, so being unemployed drove me to the depths of insanity. I succumbed to every job opportunity I encountered. Within exactly one week, I became the newest Impact Member of the Hollister Company chain, more than ecstatic to walk through those doors as more than just an avid, trendy teenage shopper.

            This was the ultimate job, at first. Our uniforms were simply Hollister attire, and the job was straight-forward: folding clothes, taking inventory, stocking shelves and staying late into the less respectable hours of the night. I thought, “I make Hollister happen!!” That quickly diminished after my eyes were nearly poked out by the same potted palm tree in between Bettys & Dudes for the thirty-seventh time in one night. I used to love the dimmed lighting and loud pop music until it became my own personal monster.

            The interviewer was attractive and friendly, exuberating great enthusiasm to enter that atmosphere. My first day, every supervisor informed me that I couldn’t have my nose ring, couldn’t wear flats, to go buy flip-flops, and that I was folding everything wrong. I tried staying positive and starting conversations with co-workers, because at least we got paid to inhale the incredible scent of “Jake” (the cologne sprayed every fifteen minutes) all night, with half-hour breaks to indulge at the Food Court of the mall.To my dismay, it kept getting worse with every shift. I was lonely, frustrated and several dollars poorer due to the distance induced gas bills. I sat alone in my car, eating Cheezits and drinking bottled water, since the only money I made went to the gas to get there, and I said to myself “That’s it. Free tester bottles of “August” (the discontinued but coveted line of perfume) and twenty percent off aren’t worth staying ‘til quarter-to-one, getting yelled at in Spanish by Julia and the other over-nighters!”

            I have to say, Benny was right…again. I was leaving his house about an hour before my orientation, and this kid, one of my good friends, says to me, “Hollister. Ha. It won’t last.” I tried to fight it, but beyond the glamour, there’s an edgy, disconsolate side to this store that I will never forget. My attitude has definitely changed from before to after having worked there, and like in Mark Twain’s tale about the river: Sometimes when something you love becomes your job, it no longer holds the same appeal it once had.