When I was sixteen, I set out to find my first ever job. I knew I would be soon getting my license, and that gas for the car would quickly become my responsibility. I went online and applied to a local store Sears. It was one of the few that was not attached to any major mall, and it was a total of seven minutes (as I found out after getting and holding the job for a while) from my parents house. I waited for two weeks and never heard back, regardless of calling.
My mom and I went out shopping to Sears. I figured I would ask while I was there about my application. I had only applied for a simple cashier job, I figured it would not be very hard to get. As soon as I asked, the store manager came out, saw my ripped jeans and casual tee shirt and offered to interview me on the spot, regardless of how unprofessional I was dressed.
After acing the first interview, another manager came in and I aced that one as well. As soon as I was told that they would be hiring me for electronic sales however, I was confused. I knew nothing about that. I'd be trained, they reassured me.
Turned out after I was computer and sale trained, the next step of the training was my boss, who I fondly called "bossman", telling me to sit on the floor and assemble a home theater system to a TV with no help from my coworkers. I almost cried. I sat there, dumbfounded by the diagram in the instruction, until one coworker whispered to me to ask him for help. I didn't want to disobey my boss, but I was so confused! (Sorry if you're reading this bossman, I know you never found out I cheated!) Of course, I asked, and he helped.
My first ever boyfriend and I broke up soon after I was hired there, and a woman I called my Sears mom saw me break down and made sure I was able to go home. She actually stood up to the manager on duty who was a bit of a hard one to crack, and for that I was forever grateful. It didn't take me long after that to realize she was an amazing woman who would always have my back. She was sixty, but acted twenty.
After a few months there, and multiple encounters with sketchy people (my store was in a not so nice area), I was getting the hang of things. Someone got hired that eventually became like a security guard to me, as he was tougher looking. All I had to do was look even the slightest bit worried and he would just simply stand near me and watch to make sure I would be ok. Whatever creep was there would very quickly back right off. My then seventeen year old self couldn't ever thank him enough.
My sales numbers soon became some of the better ones in the store. I then met someone who I now call one of my closest friends. He came from the DR, and sold in the appliance department, right next to mine. His name is Arlis. We quickly became best friends, and now we consider the other to be family. Even though he and I are currently miles away doing our own things, we make sure to continue to text and keep the other in our thoughts.
I keep in touch still with many of the people that I met in that store, as everyone there made it fun and the perfect job to have at the time.
I had a running joke, as the youngest there, that I was "adorable" and that is why I should be allowed to get away with doing things I wasn't supposed to be (texting, etc).
I left Sears only to come back a few months later, in need of money. When the new general manager asked me to give him a reason as to why he should hire me back aside from my really good sale numbers, I remember glancing at the HR manager who already knew me. He rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what I was going to say.
"Because, I'm adorable" I replied.
This response took the manager off guard, until he cracked up laughing and told me I am rehired. Shortly after I was promoted to the appliance department.
Soon after my rehire this GM left, and we received a new one, whom to this day is one of the best managers I know. He was very protective of his employees, and I remember a particular day that I was having a rough time personally, he noticed I had been absent from the sales floor for a while. He went into the women's bathroom to convince me to come out and helped me feel better. The whole time I was just waiting for some poor lady to walk in and ask why there was a male in the bathroom.
And then there was one of the assistant store managers, who to this day is one of the biggest characters I know. He is full of business ideas, and we always joked that he would someday make a margarita truck, like an ice cream truck... but for adults. Instead he is now running a workout studio that dims the lights and plays club like music with strobe-like lights to get you up and moving. It's pretty incredible to see. I was lucky enough to have the grand tour when it opened.
Flash forward to the present, and the reason I am writing this article. The Sears store of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a place where I share so many of my fondest memories, so many I cannot even fit half of them into this piece, has announced they will be closing their doors in March of 2017. It is bittersweet, thinking no one will be walking outside to lock up the equipment anymore. No one will be shutting off the TV's nightly. No one to pitch protection agreements on hardware. No one to fix the clothing racks. Sears is going dark, the place I worked for three years and had so many good times in. So here is my heartfelt goodbye to the first place of work that I endured. Thank you, for all the good times and bad, and all the people I met along the way. I wouldn't trade anything I learned or anyone I met there for the world.
