When I tell people that I am in retail management, they often don't know what to think. Some people assume that I am nothing more than a shift worker at a gas station, or a retail clothing clerk slaving away for minimum wage. Other people are quick to jump to just the opposite conclusion. They hear the word retail manager and assume that I am in charge of the whole operation, running a store or even several stores for the boss. Although there are people called retail managers in both of these positions, the truth in my case is somewhere in the middle. It isn't a really glamorous job, but it pays the bills.
To tell you the truth, I could have done much worse for myself than retail management. I never took a business degree training course, never even made it through college, and didn't get the best grades in high school. I was just not a very serious kid, and I did not think about my future until I had already messed it up. I got a job as a clerk in one of those big chain stores that promotes from in-house. I was lucky, and I was hard working. Within a couple years, I was a night shift manager. Soon after that, I got to move to days. I make good money, have a retirement package, and get benefits. All in all, it could have turned out much worse.
Even so, retail management doesn't seem like much of a future to me. I have seen the managers who have worked here for 20 years or 30 years, and they're not happy people. It's not that it is a particularly hard job, or that people are nasty to you, or that they work you to the bone. It is just years and years of fluorescent lights, background elevator music, complaining customers, and the same piles and racks over and over again. It tends to do awful things to your mind after a while. I already feel less sharp than I used to be.
The problem is that I am not really qualified to do anything else. Retail management is my only skill. If I had never done anything that advanced me beyond the level of a clerk, it would be easy for me to pick up and move on. Having a fairly decent, if unsatisfying job, however, makes it more difficult. I don't know if I want to risk trying something new.
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