By Kristina Dahl
I have been working at Coach House Gifts/Hallmark in the Paul Bunyan Mall for two years and six months, and it definitely has the potential to be both my best job, and my worst job. Maybe that’s because I’ve had only one other job that I count -- Taco John’s.
One might think that working at Taco John’s would be absolutely terrible, but that’s simply not true. I started on New Year’s Day 2006 at the age of 16. It was my first legit job; I had only worked before for one month as a personal care attendant for a seven-year-old girl with autism, which proved to be too difficult. Compared to being a PCA, Taco John’s was a dream. I was perfectly content chopping vegetables, dropping bags of meat in boiling water, mopping floors, washing tables, and taking orders. Unfortunately, I had to quit my dream job in August of the same year when my mother decided to up and move to Fargo, North Dakota.
I moved back to Bemidji when I was still 16 years old, just in time for the beginning of my junior year. At the end of my senior year at Trek North High School, I finally got my very first car, yes I know, I was a little late, but that was no one’s fault but my dad’s. My dad made me wait until I was 18 years old to get my driver’s license so our insurance rates wouldn’t go up. I got a 2001 Ford Focus, I called it gold but my dad insisted it was champagne. I got my license on June 4th 2008, a week or so after I graduated from high school. My dad wasn’t going to pay for my gas; it was time to find a job. I got in my car and drove to the mall, and I picked up applications from nearly every store.
I went back to my car, and filled out all my applications, and dropped them off at their respective places. At Coach House Gifts I asked to see the manager. For some reason I was reason I was really trying to pursue this particular job. What was wrong with me? I didn’t want to work in gift store, I’m too clumsy for one thing, and for another I’d rather be working at the music store across the hall. The manager was gone for training in Green Bay, Wisc., but the young woman behind the counter, who I came to know as Trista, said she would tell the manger to call me. Yeah right, I thought.
Weeks went by and I not received a single call from any of the places to which I had applied. Maybe it was because my only previous job was at Taco John’s? Perhaps. I knew I should have called the place I had applied at, but that sort of thing makes me nervous.
However, one day in July, I looked at my cell phone and saw that I had a missed call. I called the number back, prepared to say something like “Yeah I had a missed call from this number and I was wondering who it was?” but instead of answering with a simple “Hello,” the person on the other end replied with “Good Afternoon, Coach House Gifts, this is Sara; how can I help you?” I was shocked. They had called me back. I said something along the lines of, “Hi! My name is Kristina Dahl. I applied at your store a couple weeks ago. I saw that I had a missed call from this number; can I talk to the manager?” Sara was the manager, and she called because she wanted me to come in for an interview.
I guess my interview must have gone well although I felt very awkward the whole time, because she asked me to come back from training in a couple days. July 21st was my first official day of work. It took me awhile to learn the till. I often had to ask for help, but once I got it down, I was in love with it. I was a till hog. I didn't care too much for dusting glass shelves or straightening the plethora of greeting cards, but when I saw that a customer needed to be rung up and no employees were at the register, I dropped whatever I was doing and literally ran to the counter.
Although I often think of myself as socially awkward, I had no problem putting on a smile and greeting customers when they first came in the store, saying something such as "Hi! How are you doing? Is there anything I can help you find today? Well let me know if you have any questions." I came to find out that some people don't like this. They either give a monotone "Hi," simply smile, or don't even say anything. Sometimes they wouldn't even look at me. I found this rather disheartening, but I have always been a fan of killing with kindness, so I kept up my chipper attitude.
When a customer comes to the register, I say something slightly similar to what I would say when they first walk in the store: "Hi! How are you? Did you find everything okay?" They either give me an answer or they don't and this is when I decide whether to ask them if they have the Hallmark Gold Crown Card or not. "It's not a credit card. It's just a rewards card, a way to earn points, which turn into coupons that you can use on anything in the store. You get bonus points when you buy cards and Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments." This is where they say "Sure! Sign me up!" or "No thanks, not today." If they have cards I ask them if they want gold seals. Typical responses are "Yes, please," "Not necessary," and "What's that?" which is a question mainly asked by the male population; they usually don't get the gold seals.
A year went by, and my manager Sara was leaving so she could get married to her fiancé Pat, and pursue her education at the Northwest Technical College. The search was on for a new manager, and I was really hoping it wasn't the creepy guy who dropped off the five-pound resume. Sara and our district manager, Dona (if you saw her, you’d understand why her name only has one N), decided to go with a woman named Michelle; she was currently manager at one of my coworker's second jobs, Fashion Bug.
Michelle seemed very nice and but also very outgoing. A friend of mine that used to work at Fashion Bug told me that Michelle was a very cool manager, and that she could talk to her about pretty much anything. I soon discovered that Michelle had the people skills necessary to be a good manager, but she did not have the necessary managerial skills. After a while, it seemed like she didn't even have any social skills; she was crabby all the time and she was always talking about sex. HELLO! You can't talk about sex in a Hallmark store; it's just not okay.
I put up with her attitude, even though I heard that she had been talking about me behind my back, and she moved my name down six spaces on the schedule, while she had moved the new girl, Sammy, with whom she acted like best friends, to the very top of the list. The whole time Sara was the manager, employees were listed on the schedule in chronological order of when they were hired, with the exception of the manager and the assistant manager or Hallmark Coordinator. By the time Michelle was hired, I was number two or three on the list. I worked up the courage to ask her about moving my name down, and she told me that she just wrote down the names of the employees in the order that she remembered them, I found it hard to believe.
The chaos of two Christmas seasons with Michelle have gone by, and I am ready to rip my hair out every time I go to work. Nothing is ever done right. I am the only "old" employee left, somehow I just failed to find another job when everyone else I had been working with did. Michelle hired a bunch of new people between July and October, most of whom were her friends. All of her friends are like her -- completely incompetent. These people have been working here for months, and still don't know how to do basic register functions such as returns (which we haven't been doing as of December 15th because corporate has decided to close our store), exchanges, discounts, and taking coupons. And it seems that no matter how many times I help them, no matter how many notes I leave on the counter explaining how to do these things, no one gets it, either that or they don't care one bit.
Coach House Gifts will be closing to the public on January 23rd, 2011. There are twelve stores within the Coach House Gifts chain that are closing, all because leases are up, and the company doesn’t want to renew them. There has been talk of our store reopening in a new location, but I really don’t think that is going to happen. As much as I would like to think that there is a correlation between the store closing and Michelle’s poor managerial skills, it’s just not true. A coworker and I tried to get her fired once, but it didn’t happened. We called our district manager and told her all the things that Michelle had been doing wrong, but it almost seemed as if she didn’t believe us. Even though on her visits she had noticed how much of an utter failure Michelle was as a manager.
I’m a little sad about losing the job that I have had for two and a half years, but I’m also very excited to see what else is out there.
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