A while back, a contest was held in the employee lounge, asking "What is your most embarrasing Target moment?" Most of the respondents shared tales of their pants ripping at inopportune moments and spilled liquids gone awry.
All I could come up with was "When I clicked 'Submit' at the application kiosk"
Sandwiched neatly between the #1 discount retail chain (WalMart) and #3 (Kmart), the Target experience is a unique one. WalMart "associates" are well-known to be particularly zombified, acutely projecting the chain's overall aesthetic of generic, effective, and devoid of humanity. Kmart "associates" may display a broader range of personality and energy levels, but the general spirit of defeatedness from working for a once-monolith retail juggernaut whose glory days have long since faded into the sunset permeates through nonetheless. Somehow, I can't peruse a Kmart without becoming overwhelmed by the overall spirit of a captain determined to go down with his ship as the last of the lifeboats deploy. (I actually had to submit a bogus application online just to find out what they refer to their rank-and-file workers as, and was thoroughly disappointed at the abscence of creativity there. It kinda gave me that same sense of looming mortality).
But the Target "team member" remains unwaveringly cheery and optimistic, delighted at the chain's admirably comparable success without the stigma of Walmart's lowest-common-denominator ethic or the aforementioned death pall of Kmart. At least, that's what "guests" seem to expect at Target. In an informal poll conducted by this writer, people who have never worked there unanimously view Target as "significantly cleaner, more upscale, higher quality, yet more expensive".
There is no little if any absolute truths to these presumptions.
Our stores are just as filthy as any other retailer. If one were to complain to a manager that the restroom at Walmart was in substandard condition, the response would be more akin to "Well, what do you expect? It is Walmart, after all." As opposed to Target, where spotless and adequately furnished commodes are asssumed to be the standard. An objective analysis will reveal that a Target restroom is just as riddled with stray urine, toilet paper fragments, empty paper towel dispensers, etc. as the Wally World in Paris, Tennessee (sidenote: I LOVE Tennessee, it is a beautiful state populated with exceptionally wonderful people, but the Walmarts are scuzzy as fuck).
While the classiness of one big-boxer to another is entirely subjective, the assertion that Target's merchandise is any better is ridiculous. The majority of it all comes from the same overseas sweatshops regardless of it's destination, and store brand goods generally differ only in which South Sea subsidiary they originate from. I'm largely certain a double-blind study would confirm this. And that Target's "higher quality" goods are higher priced, well, the difference is marginal at best. True, Walmart sells some of their goods at uncompetitively low price points at the expense of the extortion of their venders. Those fanstastic deals, though, are generally found at the endcaps, prominently displayed to reinforce the "value" of shopping there. The stuff to be found further down the aisles, though, tends to generally run on par with any other big box store, give or take a couple percent.
So, maybe working at Target somehow conveys a slightly more elevated amount of perceived prestige than the others. This I assert is due exclusively to their brilliant marketing personnel. Target knows damn well the power of media impression in a market where all other factors are generally equal. More on that later, when I'm not about to get kicked out of the library that I have to go to to get online because, as a single-member household, I don't make enough to afford internet at home.
Anyway, if the 39.5 hours a week spent in the Third Circle of Retail Hell doesn't completely suck the life out of me, my intention for this blog is to post the true fruits of my labour; true accounts of ridiculous customer experiences, some in words, but most presented in my preferred medium, cartoons! Yes, the sole thing which keeps me from utilizing my military traning to kill with my bare hands is periodically ducking out and scrawling these absurd encounters with society at their absolute worst in picture form.
The sample at the top of this post is obviously not one of these, but it gives the reader a sense of the tone to come. I have a stack of entries already from the scant 8 months of my employ. I just haven't gotten around to scanning them yet. Hopefully, this blog will give me some motivation on that front.
Gotta go for now. They just did the 5 minute announcement over the intercom. Unlike some people, I respect that these guys just want to get home at this point in the day.
Peace out, bitches!
Team Member X
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