Read Reid's Blog

June 29, 2004

Sleeping in was nice.  After having a healthy brunch of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I headed down Manchester to run some errands.  I drove to Old Navy, but found out they closed that location.  That was annoying, since it’s so far out of the way.  I then headed to the Post Office to mail off some CDs I sold on half.com, and then to Walgreens to pick up some stuff.  Brett Crandall works there, so that was interesting.  I hung out with Andrea later that day – we went to the Old Navy at Ladue Crossing and I got a black polo shirt for work.  We also walked Taxi and made some brownies.  Mrs. Ginsburg showed me how to operate the lawnmower, since I’ll be mowing their lawn on Thursday.  Fun stuff.

I had my first day of work at Express, from 7 to close!  Work was actually a lot of fun, but I guess it’s also because it was my first day and everything was new.  The store was basically a zoo, with tons of people looking at boxes full of clothes, because we’re having a giant sale.  I checked in with Ryan, who told me how the store was doing today (lots of money!) and gave me a general idea of what I’d be doing.  I was in the front zone of the men’s side, helping tidy up, and helping customers and greeting them.  It wasn’t very hard at all – the customers who wanted help, well, I helped them, and then ones who were pretty independent, I just said hello and left them alone.  When not interacting with shoppers, I straightened clothes, folded them, and helped the cashier, Eddie, by checking some prices and returning clothes from the register that people decided they didn’t want.  I seemed to be right in the thick of everything, considering some of the interesting requests and conversations I had tonight.  One man really wanted the pants on the manequin displayed in the front window, so Holly, one of the comanagers, and I, stripped him and gave him the pants.  Apparently that’s nothing new for the store, but yeah, it was interesting.  I also got to use a giant pole-hook to help a man get a shirt from the upper racks.  I talked with one guy about my hair, since he liked its color, and with another about the Producor and Trader pants we sell.  I’m glad I read up on those pants.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to help one guy who had a question about jeans, so I looked pretty stupid.  I also saw some former Ladue people tonight – I spoke a bit with Brian Milner – his girlfriend also works at Express.  I also saw Sharde Miller and then Michelle Pisoni and Courney Engel walk by the store.  Considering the Galleria is where lots of Ladue people shop, I expect to see more.  Fabulous.  Closing the store was the next big thing for the night.  I went around the reordered pants according to size, sorted the boxes of clothes for sale in the front of the store, and folded a bunch of shirts.  That took a few hours.  After closing the store at 9:30, we finished all of that around 12:10AM.  My feet are still a little sore after standing up for five hours.  But, it was fun.  Holly said she was very impressed with me on my first day, so that’s good!  She said I could call tomorrow because she knows of some hours that are open that I could take.  I really hope I can make myself seem useful and be a good sales associate, because as the store moves towards selling higher priced items, it’s going to result in less customers who buy more, so there will be less employees, but employees that know more.  So yeah, gotta prove myself to some extent.

Anyway, after close, I drove to Andrea’s.  We hung out and I got to have some of the brownies that we had made earlier.  I almost forgot the sweet corn her Mom wanted me to take home.  Then, computer time.  Then, bed.