A Word Concerning My Former Job

I thought that, now that I have a little time on my hands, it would be appropriate to write something regarding the job from which I recently resigned in order to take the opportunity in South Korea. My last day of work was February 1, just before we left for Washington. Also, at this time, I would like to direct our readers to a previous post. All told, I've spent about five and-a-half years working for this particular retailer, in the Loss Prevention department.

For those of you who don't know, in retail, "Loss Prevention" refers to the division of a company concerned with preventing monetary loss. Loss is usually associated with theft as well as non-theft related errors and mistakes. In other words, LP associates catch shoplifters and dishonest employees, and do a whole lot of audits. As with any job, there were always "ups and downs" associated with working LP for a large retail chain.

On the negative side, I found that retail fostered a generally stressful environment and often required people to strive toward unreasonable goals. Because the goal of a publicly owned company is to increase profits while reducing expenditures, managers were often expected to achieve loftly goals while simultaneously being stripped of the tools necessary to achieve them (like being given adequate payroll, for example). Naturally, this is not a reasonable situation to put people in, and tends to foster stress, frustration, anger, and frequently, burnout. I also noted that employees are generally paid as little as possible, and I observed more than one scenario in which disingenuous tactics were used to avoid paying someone more. As a very general example of the tendancy to pay people the bare minimum, over the course of six years I observed that the starting rate of pay for a cashier, which was always low, did not fluxuate. Cashiers working there today are typically disgruntled, frustrated people; but more significantly, the caliber of person who is willing to accept a job at that pay rate has, not surprisingly, decreased.

On the positive side, I had the opportunity to work with some really amazing people through the course of my time in reatail. Significantly, the first person I met at the company was Katie (she gave me my application!). I have made lasting friendships there as well. I worked with a lot of excellent managers and employees, and learned a lot about managing stress and prioritizing tasks. In the beginning I was going to school off and on, and my last year and-a-half I was in school full-time. Retail offers a remarkably flexible schedule to students, and really worked well for me as the result. And of course I must add, my paychecks ultimately helped me to pay for college.

I certainly do not regret my time in retail LP, but I'm glad it's over. I realized a long time ago that the aspect of the job that made it "fun" in the beginning was catching shoplifiters. When I caught shoplifters, the job was a blast. When my responsibilities increased and I didn't spend as much time catching shoplifters, the job ranged from boring to stressful. To the dismay of many people working in Loss Prevention, LP is definitely not law enforcement; it's an aspect of running a business, and it is therefore not surprizing that the business side of the job often eclipses the more entertaining aspects.

In summary, my plan was always to work my LP job in order to finance and faciliate my education. Though the achievement of that goal was more prolonged than I had originally planned, it is now complete and I am (happily) moving on to the next phase of my life.