Ah, Hollister. You know, the store that looks like a beach hut. The one that blasts music so loud that you can hear it from the other end of the mall. That place with a mixture of perfume and cologne that’s so strong you have to limit your oxygen intake—Just kidding! Well, kind of.

For those who don’t know, Hollister is owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. A few years ago, the owner of Abercrombie made a statement that was meant to stop bigger and less attractive people from buying their clothing because it was only supposed to be worn by “the popular people.” There was a lot of controversy surrounding this statement, so it’s safe to say that I got quite a few disapproving messages from people when I told them I worked at Hollister.

There were quite a few rumors about Hollister when I worked there. I’m not sure if they are still around today, but some of them were just that—rumors—while others turned out to be either partially or completely true. For one, people always assume that you have to be attractive to work at Hollister. Based on my personal experience, I’d say that this is partially true, but it depends on certain circumstances. When I applied there, I didn’t expect to be hired because I don’t have superstar good looks. But I ended up getting the job.

Something that seems true, and only true in Hollister and Abercrombie stores, is that they don’t hire anyone who looks like they are bigger than a size five. It’s particularly true for girls; guys can get away with looking a little bigger as long as they are muscular. It’s obvious that there is a “look” that one has to have if he or she is going to work there. Not to bash my former workplace or anything, but when you won’t hire somebody who wears a size large T-shirt yet you claim to promote diversity, something’s not right there.

It was your typical retail job—slow at some points, busy at others. You had to deal with rude customers, awkward coworkers, and the occasional strict manager. Another rumor about Hollister was that they required you to wear their clothes. That’s pretty much true. Every few months, employees received handbooks that had pictures of outfits we were allowed to wear for that season. If you didn’t want to wear Hollister clothing, that was fine, but you had to wear something that didn’t promote another company. Good luck with that. So you basically had to buy your own clothes.

Hollister employees receive a 50 percent discount on the outfits in the handbooks. That’s a pretty big discount, but in reality, it was recommended you buy at least two pairs of jeans, two tops, and a pair of shoes. Even with the 50 percent discount, my first “uniform” cost over $100. This tells you just how expensive the clothing is. If it costs me that much just to buy clothes that I’m getting at half price, I can’t imagine how people buy clothes at their regular prices. Now I understand why Hollister always has sales!

Even though the clothes were expensive, I didn’t mind paying at first because I figured I’d be making it all back in a couple weeks. But when I got my schedule, I found out I was scheduled for two shifts the following week. It wasn’t a lot, but I was happy to take what I could get. When I looked again, however, I saw that the shifts were call-ins. Call-ins are shifts where you had to—you guessed it—call in to the store to see if you had to come in to work. This was extremely inconvenient because you had to call in just an hour before the start of your scheduled shift. And most of the time, they didn’t need you to come in. I had at least one call-in shift every week I worked at Hollister, and they actually needed me to come in maybe three times.

I usually only had one or two regular shifts a week, and these were usually four hours long. I had friends who worked at Wegmans and Target, and they usually worked over 20 hours a week while I worked maybe eight hours one week and none the next. Hollister does its best to schedule all of its employees, but the truth is, they are ridiculously overstaffed.

If you can get hired, Hollister’s not a bad place to work. I actually liked most of my coworkers and managers, and the work wasn’t too grueling. The biggest issue I had with it was the lack of hours. But if you’re going to work there, just be prepared to spend more money than you make.

Oh, and don’t be surprised if strangers give you disapproving looks when they see how you’re dressed.