Camera Store - The Hell of Retail

Commitment, Good Vs Bad Jobs

So right now I'm sitting at my OTHER job, the tech support / multimedia consultant one. (This was true during the time a good fraction of this blog was written. Not much action here in the library).

The thing is, I'm not supposed to be here today. But the person who WAS supposed to be here is about to fail a class, and needs to study hard for a final tomorrow, so I get this phonecall, on a Sunday, asking if I can come in. And I did.

Thanks to my working-much-less-now arrangement with my boss, and after a week of pure REST around the Thanksgiving holiday, I have actually had enough free time lately that I decided that I would be ok spending Sunday afternoon working at the library.

This is WAY more commitment than I feel towards my camera store job. If, when I turn my cell phone on after lunch (I was having lunch at a restaurant with a bunch of people, so the phone gets turned off, as basic manners dictate), I get a message from the camera store saying "So and so is not coming in today, we need someone right away"... I'm quite sure I would not go. I'd probably pretend I did not get the message until it was too late or something. (But if I actually answered a phone call, and my boss was asking me in real-time, I would have a much harder time saying no. Again, I'm such a wimp. I buckle like a belt).

With the library job, though, I'm willing to drive a half hour (and another half hour to get back) to fill in for someone at the last minute, to make sure things run smoothly. It might be even more of a hassle for the camera store to find someone ELSE to come in (other than me) than it would be for the library, but for some reason I CARE about the library much more than I care about the store.

Why is that? I was thinking that to myself as I drove over here. The best answer I came up with was, I feel a stronger, more meaningful connection to my boss and coworkers at the library. I really see us as a team trying to do something, and I think I individually let down each member of the team if I mess up, or even if I fail to help when I could to prevent the consequences of someone else messing up. I think it's important to have someone on call to answer questions and fix problems. Most importantly, I feel like part of a big organization, and I share my values with this organization (values of how important it is to have the library be well-run and helpful).

At the camera store, I definitely feel like I have a deal with the company, exchanging my time for money. I am me, they are someone else, and they can't pay me to CARE, they can only pay me to BE there and DO stuff and PRETEND to share their interests for a few previously-agreed-upon hours per day. If they are at some point understaffed, then I may choose to not care, or I may choose I want to get paid for just a few more hours of pretending I care.

I wonder why I feel so connected to the library, and so alienated from the camera-shop company. Both places require expertise that not many people would be as qualified to give as me. Neither job is very exciting.

Could it be simply because the store job is so much more work? It's many more hours a week, hours spend almost entirely on my feet, hours where, if I'm not interacting with customers, I'm doing paperwork or cleaning/arranging stuff. The library job is a few hours a week, and I spend almost all that time doing homework or writing blog entries or drooling over pictures taken by people I know with their Digital Rebels.

I guess the key difference is that, in the store job, I have to ACT. I have to act like I'm loving my job, I have to act like I'm HAPPY to show someone how to do something simple that they could have figured out themselves, like I'm happy to be a cash register monkey. I have to wear my shirt tucked in, I can't eat or drink in sight of customers... Basically, I have a "professional" (read: artificial, non-human, robot/machine-like) relationship with the customers. In the library, I can dress however I want, eat/drink (within reason)... and, much more importantly, I can talk to library patrons genuinely, without having to act. Maybe it makes a difference that they're students just like me, while most store customers are in their 30s-70s. Maybe it's because it seems to me like optimizing the resources of a research institution is more important than selling to the consumerist affluent more than they need, and even more than they think they want. Maybe it's because I genuinely enjoy working at the library, because it's so easy and relaxing. But really, it's because I can be myself.

(On a couple occasions, customers came into the camera store that I did not necessarily have to be all professional with, and it definitely made those experiences more enjoyable. Once was when a guy I knew from my Sophomore-year dorm came in, looking for a camera for his wife (!!!) to take pictures of jewlery she designs. I answered his questions the same way as if a friend or acquaintance asked me, outside of work, about cameras. But after he picked one (Fuji S7000), I did go into "sell the warranty and the extras" mode. SO I guess I don't act that different when I TALK about cameras, just when trying to sell other things, when I stop giving genuine advice and start acting like a big walking talking pop-up window. The other occasion I felt I did not have to be all professional was when someone of my nationality came in, looking to get a camera. A young guy about my age. We talked about cameras, he went with the Nikon 3200, and as soon as I started asking if he wanted this or that, he waved his hand and said "Just relax, man". He could see right away when I stopped being myself. And he told me in as nice a way as possible that I should not try to sell him anything else, that it was not worth trying. So, as I was ringing up his camera, I asked "You sure you don't want a bigger memory card or a bag or anything?", he said "No, man. Relax". (We do say "relax" a lot where I come from. Or maybe "Just chill" would be a better translation. It doesn't mean "You're getting way too worked up about something", it means "I think you're about to worry about something just a tad more than you need to". We pride ourselves in being very laid back). In any case, what these occasions show is that I like talking about cameras because I can be myself, and I hate selling because I have to be "the company", which I am NOT).

Another reason why I feel much more commitment to the library job is that my boss is a genuinely nice and friendly guy, who makes sure he lays out what's expected of us, who is supportive and super-patient when we don't know what to do. My boss at the camera store is nice but in a less genuine, more phony way. You can't ever really trust that she likes you. She will say quite harsh things if you ask something unreaosnable, but she'll say them in a friendly tone, which is when it strikes you that you can't ever know just how happy or unhappy she is with you. When you ask her how to do something, or where something is, she answers in hints or questions, making it a lot of work a lot of the time. And if you're ringing up a sale, or doing something else in the cash register, and you forget what to press for this or that function, she will just come in and press buttons very fast, rather than saying "First you go into the "Point of Sales" menu - see here? - by pressing 16, then you choose this option by pressing 7, which is the option will the functions related to doing that kind of thing". The ten seconds it would take her to do this would make a world of difference. The customer may appreciate saving the 10 seconds, but I would appreciate their having a "He's learning" mentality than a "He doesn't know what he's doing" mentality.

Any other reasons why my boss at the camera store is not as good a boss? I guess things are just more laid back in the library. We always have people when we need people, and in the rare occasions we don't, it's not a HUGE deal; Some people are not able to print their papers, but no one loses money (well, the library loses those 10 cents a page it would have gotten if people had managed to get their things printed, but no one really cares about that too much). We have a lot more resources for anything we need to do. All the resources we have here for patrons, I can just go ahead and use if I want (with less hassle than a non-employee would have to go through), as long as I ask first. Heck, I borrowed a camcorder for 5 days. I've printed for free on one or two occasions (no, not more). I've taken our external hard drive home overnight. I guess since our goal is not just making money, and since the university makes sure we have everything that we need, we don't have to be all paranoid all the time... unlike at the store, where everything is kept under lock and key, frequently inventoried, tracked on 3 different systems, hooked up to alarms, and so on.

I guess having been a library patron, I see the importance of having all these complicated things run well. Never having been a business-owner, it's not as obvious to me that it's important for every little mechanism at the camera store to function properly and well.

My professor spent some time the other day talking about how important it is for us to find a job that makes us happy - or at least a job that doesn't make us miserable. And the differences might not be as simple as we think (like how well it pays). They will have to do with the work environment, the kinds of relationships you have with people, the kind of interactions you have, the kind of product you're making or service you're providing. Granted, we will be lucky if we have ONE job to choose from, but I guess it's important to go into it knowing what to expect, and not being surprised if this or that becomes a huge source of unhappiness. Having had some great jobs and some awful jobs (and at least one that was great and awful at the same time... maybe I'll talk about it later), it has become very important for me to find the differences, so I know what to look for now that the time has come for me to find a REAL job, for me to start a career.

OK. Enough rambling for now. Back to studying for finals.

(PS: The above entry has three Clerks references. Did you spot them?)

posted by Remus