The conversational dance
Thoughts from the shop floor where we're celebrating the warmth and humanity of female friendships, conversation and embracing mistake-making.
Dear reader, how are you this festive December?
It’s six (may be seven) shifts since I last wrote to you - forgive me - but if you don’t mind I’ll swap reciting a couple of Hail Marys and an Our Father at the back of church as penance for a couple of hours doing the daily restock under the fluorescent strip lights in the OB stock room.
I’m what three, may be four weeks into this job and I suspect my face says it all when answering, ‘how’s it going, are you enjoying it?’
Normally I’m a sit on the fence kinda gal, happily hedging my bets, seeing all angles of a question, not wanting to risk offending anyone but in this case the answer is an easy, emphatic, genuine head nodding yes. The only downside I can see right now is that it’ll come to an end at the end of the first week in January.
As a friend commented the other week. ‘What’s not to love Harriet. It’s all layers of loveliness isn’t it. Lovely products, lovely colleagues and lovely customers.’
In terms of all the decisions I’ve made this year, I think that deciding to apply for this job is up there as one of my best.
It is fun, but I don’t think I fully appreciated how much of a workout it would be for my brain. There are parts of it that are being exercised like never before and one happy consequence of all of this is that it’s helped me to get comfortable with asking for help (a lot) and making (many) mistakes.
Because my God, there are a lot of processes and there’s a lot to remember, even with what seem like the simplest of purchases.
“Can I take that for you? Is it a gift? Do you want me to take the price off? Do you need a bag, they’re 10p. Is that ok? Do you need it wrapping in tissue paper? We can put the jewellery in a little pouch for you? Are you paying by card? Yes, we offer a Blue Light Card discount. Can I take your email address and email the receipt to you? Do you get our newsletter? Do you need a gift receipt?”
All while remembering to breathe and maintaining just enough smiling eye contact so that the customer doesn’t think I’m ignoring them as they wave their card in the general vicinity of the card machine wondering why it isn’t allowing them to tap and go, not realising the screen I’m looking at needs a few more taps before the satisfying beep tells us the transaction has gone through.
Oh and there’s remembering to remove the security tag from clothes and handbags not to mention returns, gift receipts, click and collect, back stocks and re-stocks.
I’ve been on enthusiastic nodding terms with Elizabeth Day’s ‘How to fail’ podcast (loved this episode with Dawn French) for yonks and always happy to chat about the merits of having a learning mindset.
But there’s nothing like putting yourself in a situation where you know nothing to test how comfortable you are with making mistakes, asking for help and saying ‘I don’t know’ (but I’m sure I can find out).
It’s been a great way to dial down some of the daft (and unrealistic) expectations I often have of myself, and generally take a breath and worry less.
‘It’s muscle memory, you’re doing brilliantly and honestly you’ll soon just be tapping away without thinking, and one of us will always be here. You won’t do anything that can’t be undone'.
My colleagues have way more confidence in me than I have in myself.
The conversation dance
It’s the conversational dances I love though, once I’ve remembered to rearrange my face into (what I hope is) my gentle, welcoming resting smiling face rather than my usual resting confused face or resting ‘where have I put my glasses?’ face.
Sometimes it feels like OB is a confessional for female friendships and relationships. Young teen daughters telling me the candle is a birthday present for their mum and they think their aunt would love the little dachshund shaped sticky notepads.
The aunt hesitating over which slender silver bangle to buy for their niece before deciding it might be safer to check with the mum first. Adult daughters buying scarves for their mothers and the grandmother-daughter pair who joined forces to buy a dress for the 18-year-old (grand) daughter to wear to a party celebrating the grandmother’s 60th wedding anniversary.
The ‘I’m looking for a piece of jewellery for a friend, something with a star on because she’s been an absolute star supporting me this year.’
The woman in her sixties hovering by the glass fronted jewellery cabinet who shyly tells me that she’s recently come into a small amount of money. ‘My Godmother died, and she left me some money. I can’t quite believe that she remembered me so I want to buy something special, something I wouldn’t normally buy.’
The impish steel grey pixie haired woman that I, at all of my 5 foot 5 towered over, who asks me what I think about a pair of gold pated hoop earrings with a pearl. ‘They’re for a friend, she’s, well….how can I describe her. We’re quite different. I love dangly glittery earrings and she only ever wears simple studs and I really want her to be a little more adventurous, what do you think of these?’
Women shopping solo, in pairs and in groups, pushing grandchildren in buggies, holding bags and exchanging honest opinions in the changing room.
Non-stop chatting, laughing, heads leaning in to listen, brows furrowed in concentration as they walk through the door. Small groupings form naturally in the aisles as conversation is prioritised over shopping.
And the women who whisper a quiet, embarrassed almost, ‘oh no, they’re not a gift, they’re for me’ when asked if they want the handbag/belt/wallet/dress/scarf wrapped and the price removing. I celebrate those purchases with as much, if not more gusto than a purchase made for someone else.
So yes, there are delicate champagne flutes, leather handbags with changeable straps, silver hooped earrings and hot pink and green scarves. And yes, there’s the mid-afternoon restock where I disappear into the stock room dungeon with a computer print-out, black biro and over sized white version of the blue IKEA shopping bag to retrieve products that need to find their way onto the shop floor. But really - and here comes the cliche - it’s the privilege and joy of being allowed these teeny, tiny glimpses into peoples’ lives and relationships.
And when the headlines are one long list of humanity at its worst, these micro moments are a salient, timely reminder that this world is also full of kind, thoughtful, caring humans.
I’m not working today or tomorrow (Friday or Saturday) and last night was our Christmas meal (tapas and sangria - yes please thank you very much) but I’m back in on Sunday afternoon for more smiling, chatting and squinting at the restock print out.
I’ll leave it there though or this will end up as yet another post left languishing in drafts. It seems I have no problem writing words, it’s just that I struggle knowing when to stop and share them, as evidenced bythe overflowing drafts folder on my Mac and scribbles in my many notebooks.
I’m hoping (no pressure) that the Reset writing course with
in January will help me to unravel that sticking point and clarify where I want to focus my writing energy next year.Whatever I end up writing though I want to bring across some of the making mistakes, dialling down expectations, asking for help energy that I’ve been inhaling these past few weeks.
That’s for next year though. Right now I’ll leave you with the simple wish that your Christmas and end of year/New Year plans are coming together smoothly and that you can find a happy balance of conversation, quiet, mince pies and fresh air.
Thanks for reading, Harriet
I loved this! I miss retail. I don't think it gets enough credit for both how hard it can be - always makes me laugh when people say they want to drop their stressful job for something easy like barista or a supermarket - and how rewarding it can be. My favourite ever job was working for a certain chain bookstore :-) I think it's partly because I'm quite shy but in the shop environment find it much easier to interact with people. Also you don't have to sit still :-)
This read like a list poem of female friendship + gift buying+ gratitude. Delighted to add I need to go to OB to buy my sister in law and two close friends their gifts too 💝