The penny clinked across the stone floor as it rolled quickly towards the center of the Beechwood Place Mall food court. Its sound, like its speed, diminished the further it went. An old man in sweatpants heard its clarion call and chased after it. Bending over, he picked it up, a penny richer. Wondering where it came from, he looked around. I ducked my head back into the coffee shop of the Eddie Bauer anchor store.
This was what I, an angry teenager who loathed the “mall walkers,” did on Saturday and Sunday mornings to protest these senior citizens for not patronizing our coffee shop, but instead the bagel shop in the food court a hundred feet away. We were the only two places open for breakfast, and we barely got any of their business. If I had to suffer being an hourly wage guy there at the crack of dawn working for what amounted to no tips, then at least I could offload the pennies we accumulated in the tip cup in an enjoyable, perhaps somewhat cruel, way.
After a few weeks of enjoying watching thrifty seniors chasing pennies at a high-end mall, security eventually noticed and came by to give a lecture and a verbal cease and desist. Oh well.
I doubt that, with our growing “gig economy,” my children will know the joy of throwing a ball from the second floor of a department store into the sunroof of an Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer for a chance to win a bonus every time you sold a Goose Down winter jacket. Probably because remaining brick and mortar stores are getting smaller, you never see cars outside of showrooms, and, most importantly, teenagers don’t work retail like they used to.
In an increasingly online world, our progeny will not benefit from the real world (IRL) experiences that we did, working in malls. That’s a shame. My two years at Eddie Bauer taught me more about sales than my education in business did. A rejection online is not the same as being turned down by a human who scoffs at your greeting or sales pitch.
And the rejection not only makes you stronger but teaches you to learn and adapt in a way that video games or apps cannot.
I once approached a short woman in the men’s section looking at cargo pants. I asked if I could help her, and remembering my training, asked if she was looking for her husband or her son. Trying to establish rapport to plus-up the sale. She looked at me and deadpanned, “Honey, I’m shopping for me.” I was confused. She helpfully explained that, as a lesbian woman, she actually preferred our men’s clothing. Not only are the men’s clothes preferable to her, she explained, “they’re much cheaper.”
That experience is not something that would easily occur to a student at an all-male Catholic high school. Seventeen years later, I still have my Eddie Bauer travel coffee mug sitting at my desk, a reminder that never assuming is how you meet, and beat, your sales goal. And also, how you get out of coffee shop duty on the dead shift. Thanks, Eddie Bauer.
—Jim Swift (Deputy online editor of the Weekly Standard,
and a native of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Previously,
he was Eddie Bauer employee #111332.)
