What do you think?
Rate this book
Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail
One woman's midcareer misadventures in the absurd world of American retail.
After losing her job as a journalist and the security of a good salary, Caitlin Kelly was hard up for cash. When she saw that The North Face-an upscale outdoor clothing company-was hiring at her local mall, she went for an interview almost on a whim.
Suddenly she found herself, middle-aged and mid-career, thrown headfirst into the bizarre alternate reality of the American a world of low-wage workers selling overpriced goods to well-to-do customers. At first, Kelly found her part-time job fun and reaffirming, a way to maintain her sanity and sense of self-worth. But she describes how the unexpected physical pressures, the unreasonable dictates of a remote corporate bureaucracy, and the dead-end career path eventually took their toll. As she struggled through more than two years at the mall, despite surgeries, customer abuse, and corporate inanity, Kelly gained a deeper understanding of the plight of the retail worker.
In the tradition of Nickel and Dimed, Malled challenges our assumptions about the world of retail, documenting one woman's struggle to find meaningful work in a broken system.
After losing her job as a journalist and the security of a good salary, Caitlin Kelly was hard up for cash. When she saw that The North Face-an upscale outdoor clothing company-was hiring at her local mall, she went for an interview almost on a whim.
Suddenly she found herself, middle-aged and mid-career, thrown headfirst into the bizarre alternate reality of the American a world of low-wage workers selling overpriced goods to well-to-do customers. At first, Kelly found her part-time job fun and reaffirming, a way to maintain her sanity and sense of self-worth. But she describes how the unexpected physical pressures, the unreasonable dictates of a remote corporate bureaucracy, and the dead-end career path eventually took their toll. As she struggled through more than two years at the mall, despite surgeries, customer abuse, and corporate inanity, Kelly gained a deeper understanding of the plight of the retail worker.
In the tradition of Nickel and Dimed, Malled challenges our assumptions about the world of retail, documenting one woman's struggle to find meaningful work in a broken system.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2011
17 people are currently reading
578 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
June 24, 2018
sniff - oh, the memories. be kind to your retail workers this season, my fellow holiday shoppers...
aww caitlin kelly, you lookin' for some sympathy?? i got your sympathy right here: boo freaking hoo.
here's the lowdown: ms. kelly was a journalist. the economy tanked. she lost her position. so she got a part-time job working retail. it was harder than she thought it would be. so she wrote a book about how hard it is to work retail and how underappreciated companies make their sales associates feel.
did i mention that she started out with a whopping two shifts a week and then had to scale back to one shift a week because it was too much for her?
did i mention that the whole time she was working there, she was still getting paid for freelance writing and taking trips to france?
did i mention that she was living with a man at the time (a perpetual fiancé, it seems - which as an aside - anyone who has a fiancé for more than a year is bizarre - wrap it up already) who had a very lucrative career as a photo editor?
did i mention that she came from money, and got her very first journalism job at nineteen, while the rest of us were probably working retail and other low-paid jobs in order to pay our very first rents and couldn't afford to get unpaid internships to pump us right into our first-choice career??
do i sound bitter?? i'm not, really. but for this author to have written this book about her experience in the horrorshow of the american retail world, i would like her to have had to actually experience that world. i work retail. i don't get to go to france every year. i don't drop $200 on a blouse. reading this book feels a little insulting. do it for reals and then let me hear your complaints.
the book is not a revelation. everyone knows sales associates get treated poorly both by the public and the parent company who sees them/us as cogs. this is a 220 page book which, if one were to remove all the redundancies - even to the extent of repeating the same anectdote- it would shave off about 50 pages.
my first thought was, well - she is a journalist - maybe she just can't write long form without all the padding. fine. but then in her acknowledgments, she thanks her researchers. wait, what? you hired researchers to help write this crummy little repetitive book because what - your 16-hour a week retail job was just eating into all your time??
ugh. sympathy loss.
and then i tried to make allowances because she is older than me and i'm sure for a fifty year old woman having hot flashes, it is way more difficult to be on your feet for 8 hours, especially if you have never had to do it in your sweet sweet life.
but although she complains about the swollen feet and aching joints a lot, more of her complaints seem to be about her loss of autonomy and how she thinks she could do things better than the corporate mandates and why won't anyone listen to me and why am i so white and relatively well-off and all these young kids working here have tattoos and piercings and babies and they won't come to my apartment and swim in my pool???
yeah, i said it: "pool." where's my pool, you ask?? hmm, i must have left it in france.
and i'm not saying i could write a better book, but i could certainly write a more authentic book about the retail experience. and i wouldn't need any researchers, that's for sure.
i mean - gak - your example of a bad customer is when she called you hostile and threatened to call corporate?? honey, that's my best customer. five days a week. manhattan retail. and i rock retail. recognize.
come to my blog!
aww caitlin kelly, you lookin' for some sympathy?? i got your sympathy right here: boo freaking hoo.
here's the lowdown: ms. kelly was a journalist. the economy tanked. she lost her position. so she got a part-time job working retail. it was harder than she thought it would be. so she wrote a book about how hard it is to work retail and how underappreciated companies make their sales associates feel.
did i mention that she started out with a whopping two shifts a week and then had to scale back to one shift a week because it was too much for her?
did i mention that the whole time she was working there, she was still getting paid for freelance writing and taking trips to france?
did i mention that she was living with a man at the time (a perpetual fiancé, it seems - which as an aside - anyone who has a fiancé for more than a year is bizarre - wrap it up already) who had a very lucrative career as a photo editor?
did i mention that she came from money, and got her very first journalism job at nineteen, while the rest of us were probably working retail and other low-paid jobs in order to pay our very first rents and couldn't afford to get unpaid internships to pump us right into our first-choice career??
do i sound bitter?? i'm not, really. but for this author to have written this book about her experience in the horrorshow of the american retail world, i would like her to have had to actually experience that world. i work retail. i don't get to go to france every year. i don't drop $200 on a blouse. reading this book feels a little insulting. do it for reals and then let me hear your complaints.
the book is not a revelation. everyone knows sales associates get treated poorly both by the public and the parent company who sees them/us as cogs. this is a 220 page book which, if one were to remove all the redundancies - even to the extent of repeating the same anectdote- it would shave off about 50 pages.
my first thought was, well - she is a journalist - maybe she just can't write long form without all the padding. fine. but then in her acknowledgments, she thanks her researchers. wait, what? you hired researchers to help write this crummy little repetitive book because what - your 16-hour a week retail job was just eating into all your time??
ugh. sympathy loss.
and then i tried to make allowances because she is older than me and i'm sure for a fifty year old woman having hot flashes, it is way more difficult to be on your feet for 8 hours, especially if you have never had to do it in your sweet sweet life.
but although she complains about the swollen feet and aching joints a lot, more of her complaints seem to be about her loss of autonomy and how she thinks she could do things better than the corporate mandates and why won't anyone listen to me and why am i so white and relatively well-off and all these young kids working here have tattoos and piercings and babies and they won't come to my apartment and swim in my pool???
yeah, i said it: "pool." where's my pool, you ask?? hmm, i must have left it in france.
and i'm not saying i could write a better book, but i could certainly write a more authentic book about the retail experience. and i wouldn't need any researchers, that's for sure.
i mean - gak - your example of a bad customer is when she called you hostile and threatened to call corporate?? honey, that's my best customer. five days a week. manhattan retail. and i rock retail. recognize.
come to my blog!
September 8, 2011
"I'd never worn a name tag at work, only at conferences where I was an honored speaker whose words were taped and sold..."
I don't think it's possible to have a more clueless sense of entitlement. The premise is similar to Nickel and Dimed, where the author works in a low-paying job and talks about what she learns (my god! service industry work is actually hard! my coworkers are actual human beings! people are mean to us!), but Caitlin Kelly is just so profoundly fucking annoying. She worked one shift a week at The North Face in an upscale mall for a couple years. She keeps making comparisons to her career as a journalist and marveling at the lack of respect she gets from management and the public while working retail. Really, they didn't listen or care about your questions or ideas? Really, the stockroom was run inefficiently? She seems to be writing to this audience of wealthy privileged white people and trying to show them this exotic world to which they've never been exposed.
There's real, interesting stuff to be written about working in the service industry. Kelly does point out that the average worker at a national retail chain lasts about 3 months. Stores plan for 100% turnover every year. Shitty pay, shitty hours, no benefits, on your feet all day, patronizing corporate training videos - we all participate in this culture when we shop at these stores. And, in most cases, we don't expect a lot from the workers; that's kind of the bargain we make - low prices in exchange for low skills. And these service industry jobs are touted as the future.
Anyway, this book is not helping anything. I wanted to throw it into a roaring fireplace. She seemed so surprised that the system exists, that America has class inequalities and poverty, and that her coworkers had lives that were different from hers. She writes, "I knew only one person who'd grown up poor." There's your problem, right there.
I don't think it's possible to have a more clueless sense of entitlement. The premise is similar to Nickel and Dimed, where the author works in a low-paying job and talks about what she learns (my god! service industry work is actually hard! my coworkers are actual human beings! people are mean to us!), but Caitlin Kelly is just so profoundly fucking annoying. She worked one shift a week at The North Face in an upscale mall for a couple years. She keeps making comparisons to her career as a journalist and marveling at the lack of respect she gets from management and the public while working retail. Really, they didn't listen or care about your questions or ideas? Really, the stockroom was run inefficiently? She seems to be writing to this audience of wealthy privileged white people and trying to show them this exotic world to which they've never been exposed.
There's real, interesting stuff to be written about working in the service industry. Kelly does point out that the average worker at a national retail chain lasts about 3 months. Stores plan for 100% turnover every year. Shitty pay, shitty hours, no benefits, on your feet all day, patronizing corporate training videos - we all participate in this culture when we shop at these stores. And, in most cases, we don't expect a lot from the workers; that's kind of the bargain we make - low prices in exchange for low skills. And these service industry jobs are touted as the future.
Anyway, this book is not helping anything. I wanted to throw it into a roaring fireplace. She seemed so surprised that the system exists, that America has class inequalities and poverty, and that her coworkers had lives that were different from hers. She writes, "I knew only one person who'd grown up poor." There's your problem, right there.
July 4, 2011
Oh, poor Caitlin Kelly, I feel for for, oh not wait, I don't! Your book was utter drivel to be honest. English isn't my native language, so a few years ago I would have blamed myself for not getting your aweful jokes and your style of writing.
Caitlin Kelly work in journalism for many years, until the economy tanked and she lost her job. So, she had to resort to working with the common man, in a department store. She started off with a back-breaking two shifts per week and had to cut down to one due to her body being to sophisticated for manuel labour. All whilst taking freelance work from newspapers and having a partner who made a lot working as a photographer.
Caitlin portrays her coworkers as uneducated brutes just because they have no college education, GASP! Some of them have even done time in prison, good heavens! Caitlin wishes to be treat a superior to these people because she came from money and had a degree.
Of course, Caitlin naturally knows how to run the place better than the managers, because she is pure white, comes from money, and has a degree. But they just don't get it, she is better then them in so many ways they have the nerve to treat her in an egalitarian way. So what does Caitlin do? She has a fit and goes away to France to swim in a pool owned by a friend.
Caitlin Kelly tries to portray herself as a rich girl who is having a hard time with the economy, a Rich Girl Plain if you will, but she just comes off as a Rich Girl Arrogant. It's not a secret that I come from money and that my grandparents are paying for my college tuition, but I still have to work to support and feed myself. Caitlin comes from money and seems to flaunt that fact on every page.
She tries to portray herself as working class, but she constantly gets to go to France and yet still manages to drop two-hundred dollars on a blouse and has an apartment with a pool. Did I mention that Caitlin Kelly had her first journalism job at nineteen? Where was I when I was nineteen? I'll tell you when I turn nineteen! But I have the suspicious feeling that I will be working double shifts at the library to feed and clothe myself.
To be honest, I view this book as a waste of my time and braincells. If I had bought this book from a shop, instead of renting it from the library, I probably would have either thrown it out the window, or demanded a refund.
Caitlin Kelly, you have no idea of how to deal with a customer and shouldn't be working retail. Go back to your apartment and its lovely pool and let the rest of us work.
Caitlin Kelly work in journalism for many years, until the economy tanked and she lost her job. So, she had to resort to working with the common man, in a department store. She started off with a back-breaking two shifts per week and had to cut down to one due to her body being to sophisticated for manuel labour. All whilst taking freelance work from newspapers and having a partner who made a lot working as a photographer.
Caitlin portrays her coworkers as uneducated brutes just because they have no college education, GASP! Some of them have even done time in prison, good heavens! Caitlin wishes to be treat a superior to these people because she came from money and had a degree.
Of course, Caitlin naturally knows how to run the place better than the managers, because she is pure white, comes from money, and has a degree. But they just don't get it, she is better then them in so many ways they have the nerve to treat her in an egalitarian way. So what does Caitlin do? She has a fit and goes away to France to swim in a pool owned by a friend.
Caitlin Kelly tries to portray herself as a rich girl who is having a hard time with the economy, a Rich Girl Plain if you will, but she just comes off as a Rich Girl Arrogant. It's not a secret that I come from money and that my grandparents are paying for my college tuition, but I still have to work to support and feed myself. Caitlin comes from money and seems to flaunt that fact on every page.
She tries to portray herself as working class, but she constantly gets to go to France and yet still manages to drop two-hundred dollars on a blouse and has an apartment with a pool. Did I mention that Caitlin Kelly had her first journalism job at nineteen? Where was I when I was nineteen? I'll tell you when I turn nineteen! But I have the suspicious feeling that I will be working double shifts at the library to feed and clothe myself.
To be honest, I view this book as a waste of my time and braincells. If I had bought this book from a shop, instead of renting it from the library, I probably would have either thrown it out the window, or demanded a refund.
Caitlin Kelly, you have no idea of how to deal with a customer and shouldn't be working retail. Go back to your apartment and its lovely pool and let the rest of us work.
May 4, 2011
Man, I've been on a bad book streak lately. From the reviews, I thought this would be a sort of "Nickel and Dimed," a sharp and witty look at what it's like to slave behind the retail counter. But no! The author whines nonstop about her less educated, less white coworkers and managers (she mentions about a dozen times that she's not used to people with tattoos who live in places like Yonkers! and Harlem! Eeeeeugh!) and about the dreadfulness of menial labor, and lousy hour-long lunch breaks and, worst of all, the tragic insult of being told what to do, when she -- a JOURNALIST! with a DEGREE! -- knows better. Oh my God, if I worked with her I would shove her into a supply closet and barricade it with a fork lift.
August 9, 2011
I am appalled by the amount of time I spent waiting to rent this book from my library. I only made it through the first two chapters before I had to put this down in absolute disgust. First of all, let's start with some clarification. If you consciously decide to get a specific job, search for and apply to said job, that is not in fact "unintentional." That is "on purpose." Ok, so moving on, what was the catalyst that prompted Kelly to seek out employment in retail? Children to feed? Can't make the mortgage payment? About to go bankrupt? No, none of the above. She was simply "tired of freelancing in solitude." Seriously? A desire to lord your your self purported "talents" over your coworkers is what prompted this "unintentional" descend into the world of retail? Please. Narcissism then abounds as she attempts to compare retail to journalism while spouting off her apparently considerable (according to her)knowledge, respect and general greatness.
Again, I put the book down after barely two chapters because I could stand it no longer. Most definitely not a full review but I seriously couldn't take her egotistical prose even a second longer. Definitely would not recommend and would give negative stars if I could.
Again, I put the book down after barely two chapters because I could stand it no longer. Most definitely not a full review but I seriously couldn't take her egotistical prose even a second longer. Definitely would not recommend and would give negative stars if I could.
December 5, 2013
Reading this book made me a little crazy. There's so much classist, elitist, privileged baggage here that I was hard pressed to find the point of the book. Kelly, a journalist by trade, worked in retail for two years, five hours a WEEK and claims she was doing it so as to make ends meet, at $11/hr while living in New York, traveling to France & Toronto, owning a car. I call shenanigans on that- I believe she was in it for the book.
Kelly comes off as a privileged special snowflake without any real clues. The book is repetitive, with Kelly sharing the same anecdotes numerous times- as though each chapter was destined to be a magazine article, maybe. Her description of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad encounter which finally made her cry made me wonder how she'd deal with a real asshole on the floor. One other bad time she had, and referred to several times, made much of the fact that the customer was obese. Because let's face it, it's much harder to take rudeness from the fatties who so clearly don't belong in the mall. *eyeroll*
Kelly's indictment of the corporate culture, of the interchangeableness of the retail store clerk, of the disdain with which clerks are treated from both management and customers, was dead on. I would have preferred a straight journalistic report, rather than all the special snowflakeness about how educated and cultured and smart and well-traveled the author, stooping to retail, is.
Kelly comes off as a privileged special snowflake without any real clues. The book is repetitive, with Kelly sharing the same anecdotes numerous times- as though each chapter was destined to be a magazine article, maybe. Her description of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad encounter which finally made her cry made me wonder how she'd deal with a real asshole on the floor. One other bad time she had, and referred to several times, made much of the fact that the customer was obese. Because let's face it, it's much harder to take rudeness from the fatties who so clearly don't belong in the mall. *eyeroll*
Kelly's indictment of the corporate culture, of the interchangeableness of the retail store clerk, of the disdain with which clerks are treated from both management and customers, was dead on. I would have preferred a straight journalistic report, rather than all the special snowflakeness about how educated and cultured and smart and well-traveled the author, stooping to retail, is.
August 26, 2012
I was pretty disappointed in this book since I expected it to be like an updated version of Barbara Ehrenreich's classic "Nickel and Dimed." While there are some similarities to "N & D," "Malled" is really just a long rant by a privileged, educated (yet ignorant), and somewhat snobbish (and racist) woman who worked a whopping one or two shifts a week at a store in a New York City suburb. Yes, retail jobs suck and the pay is abysmal. However, the author -- unlike her co-workers -- wasn't trying to live off off of an $11/hr salary and in fact, was going on trips to France and her native Canada, splurging on beauty supplies, etc. Thus, I couldn't help but feel that she didn't really have much to bitch about. Unless you actually have to live on a low wage, you really don't know what it's like and just how difficult it is. At least Barbara Ehrenreich left the trappings of her upper middle class lifestyle when she worked in low-wage jobs so she could get the full experience.
Anyway, stick to "Nickel and Dimed" if you're looking for a harrowing, sobering look at what it's like to live on next to nothing. "Malled" is just a long-winded rant by a clueless, over-privileged woman.
Anyway, stick to "Nickel and Dimed" if you're looking for a harrowing, sobering look at what it's like to live on next to nothing. "Malled" is just a long-winded rant by a clueless, over-privileged woman.
July 19, 2011
Like working a shift with an older lady who tells you Every Night that she's really a Canadian freelancer for the New York Times and she only works retail to get out of the house.
April 25, 2011
I thoroughly enjoy biographies. I love to get inside a person’s head and hear their life, their observations, the nuances, the challenges in their voice. I have to say, though, that this time I was anxious to finish this book and get the author our of my head.
http://100bookninja.wordpress.com/201...
I heard part of author Caitlin Kelly’s NPR interview last week and was intrigued by the idea of the book: displaced professional take a retail job to help make ends meet. As the economy continues to try and recover, the media has covered individuals who have been forced to select other professions and lower-paying jobs after losing their jobs.
Kelly is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other big names. The unfortunate part is that by the time I finished this book, I bet I had been reminded of this fact no fewer than a dozen times. In juxtaposing her part-time retail job at a Northface store, she repeatedly and at excess reminded the reader of what her former life had looked like. While some of her observations of her one-day-a-week second job were pithy, the constant reminders of her former life, combined with other repetitive points and details, led me to wonder if at some point she hadn’t run out of things to talk about but had a page count she was required to reach…because she kept having the same conversation with me.
There are a number of legitimate and insightful points made in this book — our lack of respect for those who ring us up when we’ve bought the latest fashions, our weekly groceries and wait on us when we’re out for a meal, as well as much of corporate America’s lack of focus on treating workers with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, these points were nearly lost on me when the author’s voice and tone were more intrusive than educational.
http://100bookninja.wordpress.com/201...
I heard part of author Caitlin Kelly’s NPR interview last week and was intrigued by the idea of the book: displaced professional take a retail job to help make ends meet. As the economy continues to try and recover, the media has covered individuals who have been forced to select other professions and lower-paying jobs after losing their jobs.
Kelly is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other big names. The unfortunate part is that by the time I finished this book, I bet I had been reminded of this fact no fewer than a dozen times. In juxtaposing her part-time retail job at a Northface store, she repeatedly and at excess reminded the reader of what her former life had looked like. While some of her observations of her one-day-a-week second job were pithy, the constant reminders of her former life, combined with other repetitive points and details, led me to wonder if at some point she hadn’t run out of things to talk about but had a page count she was required to reach…because she kept having the same conversation with me.
There are a number of legitimate and insightful points made in this book — our lack of respect for those who ring us up when we’ve bought the latest fashions, our weekly groceries and wait on us when we’re out for a meal, as well as much of corporate America’s lack of focus on treating workers with respect and dignity. Unfortunately, these points were nearly lost on me when the author’s voice and tone were more intrusive than educational.
June 12, 2011
I think a lot people picking up this book are going to be those who have worked or are working in retail. They will likely be disappointed. Even her tales of bad customers, which anyone who's worked in a service-based job will be happy to commiserate with, fall short. As someone who has worked in amusement parks as a teen, major retail post-college and now in a public library, I was not impressed with Kelly's "woe is me, I work five hours a week, customers are nuts" whining. She's repetitive (yes, I get it, your stock room was a badly lit mess), her research data didn't add much, and overall, she comes across as patronizing. Come back when you've done six days a week, 9+ hours a day, in 90 degree weather for minimum wage.
May 24, 2011
This could have been a much better book with one small change: if it was written by someone else. Caitin Kelly's brief stint in retail should not qualify her for the amount of whining that she does in this book. She worked a couple of shifts a week in an upscale shopping center at a higher end sportswear store. Give me a book written by the 40/hr. a week night cashier at Wal-Mart, please. That person can whine to me. Not Caitlyn Kelly.
Want to read
March 29, 2011This totally happened to me too. Except I was never a journalist and I chose retail as my career....
January 22, 2013
This could have been amazing book, but it wasn’t even close. There have been fabulous books before about the plight of the lower or lower middle class worker (like this one—please read it) and I think that’s exactly why Kelly wrote Malled.
What’s amusing is that the very title of the book—my unintentional career in retail—is the first and most glaring of the many contradictions that start to show themselves as the book progresses. After Kelly was laid off from her job as a journalist at the New York Daily News, she started looking for a steady job to help bring in extra income. After looking at a few different options, she turned to retail to help buoy her until her freelance work picked back up.
The hilarious thing about this entire scenario is that for the majority of the two years Kelly worked as an associate at The North Face, she worked one shift a week. For those of you with any familiarity with the retail industry, you’ll know that given the measly hourly wage you’re paid for an 8 hour shift once a week, the job would be barely worth the gas spent driving yourself there. I think it’s safe to say that Kelly did not need this job to help legitimately pay her bills. Why take the job then?
She made a book out of it. In what I consider what of the more gross examples of journalistic exploitation, it becomes ever more evident that Kelly lowered herself to the level of retail associate once a week simply to gather enough intelligence about her job and her coworkers to write a book that she could market in the new wave of experimental journalism.
And it’s not even a good book.
I think that The North Face store where she is eventually placed is in the Westchester Mall in White Plains, NY, a short distance outside of NYC. It’s an “upscale” mall, and Kelly is quick to point out that she can afford to eat there and shop there when she’s not gathering intel at The North Face for 8 hours a week. In fact, Kelly likes to point this out a lot. She wants you to be sure you know she’s a privileged, educated, talented woman who doesn’t really need this job, but kinda does. (But doesn’t.) She mentions she’s met the Queen of England no less than twice. She discusses the many countries she’s visited for work or pleasure at least once per chapter. She loves to point out her more successful journalistic coups. She cannot help but continually point out the race and general life circumstances of her mostly minority coworkers in a way that comes off racist and/or pitying. Oh, and to round out this picture, she seems like a total fucking nightmare to work with.
I don’t have a lot of personal experience with retail, but I’m close to people who do. A book about the retail industry and the employees who slog away for minimum wage just so Americans can buy more shit would be a book I’d read. There are moments when Kelly gets closer to that book. She cites interesting statistics and occasionally decides to do some actual research about the industry at-large. The problem is that unlike the majority of retail workers, she didn’t need this job. At one shift a week, there’s no way. However, most people that work in retail live from small paycheck to small paycheck and hope that the list of dozens of fire-able offenses or a frustrated manager or LP officer don’t eventually send them packing. The turnover in the industry is alarmingly high, but most companies don’t bother to change working conditions, offer benefits or increase pay rates because they know that someone, somewhere will want that job regardless. Why? Retail is one of the few types of jobs still remaining where an unskilled worker has a shot. You may not have a college education, but if you work hard and manage not to have a colossal screw-up (based on handbooks filled with do’s and don’t’s), you have a shot at working your way up. Retail management wages usually start around $30,000 and can go up to the high $60’s and $70’s (or higher, depending on what company you’re with). With that kind of incentive, no matter how far-fetched or unlikely, there will always be a worker to fill the slot of one who wasn’t quite making the grade or who left to go back to school or who moved to another store that offered them $.25 more an hour.
Think about where you are right now reading this. Maybe you’re reading it on your phone, but you’re probably sitting at a desk somewhere on a computer, dicking around on Tumblr while you’re supposed to be working or mindlessly flipping between work email, your web browser, gchat, whatever. If you’re at work and you realize you have to go the bathroom, you go. If you want to take a break and step outside or run across the street to get coffee, you probably can. (Maybe not every day, but I’ll wager you still have the option at some point.) If you want to eat lunch at your desk, maybe you can do that, but if you’re lucky and get an hour-long lunch break, you probably take it. Maybe you don’t. But you have the option. If you’re thirsty, you have a bottle of water on your desk to drink at your leisure. If you’re hungry, you can have a snack while you work. If you want to call or text your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or mom or whoever, you can discreetly do so or step outside for a few minutes without worrying about losing your job.
Retail employees, by and large, don’t have those options. If they do, they’re empty promises. “You get a lunch break,” they’ll say. And then the line is 20 people long and you’re running every register behind the cash wrap and your manager pleads with you to wait a few hours until things calm down and before you know it, your shift ends anyway. And don’t even think about trying to bring a drink of a snack to work. You may be able to grab a gulp of water in the back room or place a cup behind the cash wrap and discreetly sip when there are no customers in sight, but you can’t just sit and catch your breath at will. Forget about texting or calling friends or family or taking their calls either. Many retail employees start smoking because it’s sometimes the only way they can get out of the store for a few minutes. All of this yes, but retail employees also have to be “on” every second of their shift. A constant smile while angry, entitled shoppers shove receipts in your face or scream at you or curse at you. (Or in one case a friend told me about, a customer threw a cup of coffee at them.) You don’t have a second to sit there and take a break and check articles in the Washington Post or scroll through your Tumblr dashboard. You’re on, you’re working, you’re on your feet and you better say the right things and get the right kind of sale if you want to keep the job. If those percentages aren’t looking good or you aren’t doing something just right, whether it’s pushing the retail credit card or rewards card or up-selling, you might lose the job. And you cannot afford to miss a couple paychecks. You may not be able to afford to miss even one.
The retail industry is a complex, fascinating and frustrating one. The few companies that are doing it right seem to have had no influence on the ones that aren’t. Americans still view retail as a “less than” job, or one you’d only take if you really had to. This country looks at retail with the same derision that it does fast food service—invisible people doing an invisible job that makes it really easy to curse in their faces and act like animals when they don’t do exactly what we want at the exact second we demand it.
There’s a book to be written about the retail industry. There should be a great, well-researched and informative book written about the retail industry and the millions of employees that count on it to feed their families and pay their bills. This book wasn’t it. If you find it, let me know.
What’s amusing is that the very title of the book—my unintentional career in retail—is the first and most glaring of the many contradictions that start to show themselves as the book progresses. After Kelly was laid off from her job as a journalist at the New York Daily News, she started looking for a steady job to help bring in extra income. After looking at a few different options, she turned to retail to help buoy her until her freelance work picked back up.
The hilarious thing about this entire scenario is that for the majority of the two years Kelly worked as an associate at The North Face, she worked one shift a week. For those of you with any familiarity with the retail industry, you’ll know that given the measly hourly wage you’re paid for an 8 hour shift once a week, the job would be barely worth the gas spent driving yourself there. I think it’s safe to say that Kelly did not need this job to help legitimately pay her bills. Why take the job then?
She made a book out of it. In what I consider what of the more gross examples of journalistic exploitation, it becomes ever more evident that Kelly lowered herself to the level of retail associate once a week simply to gather enough intelligence about her job and her coworkers to write a book that she could market in the new wave of experimental journalism.
And it’s not even a good book.
I think that The North Face store where she is eventually placed is in the Westchester Mall in White Plains, NY, a short distance outside of NYC. It’s an “upscale” mall, and Kelly is quick to point out that she can afford to eat there and shop there when she’s not gathering intel at The North Face for 8 hours a week. In fact, Kelly likes to point this out a lot. She wants you to be sure you know she’s a privileged, educated, talented woman who doesn’t really need this job, but kinda does. (But doesn’t.) She mentions she’s met the Queen of England no less than twice. She discusses the many countries she’s visited for work or pleasure at least once per chapter. She loves to point out her more successful journalistic coups. She cannot help but continually point out the race and general life circumstances of her mostly minority coworkers in a way that comes off racist and/or pitying. Oh, and to round out this picture, she seems like a total fucking nightmare to work with.
I don’t have a lot of personal experience with retail, but I’m close to people who do. A book about the retail industry and the employees who slog away for minimum wage just so Americans can buy more shit would be a book I’d read. There are moments when Kelly gets closer to that book. She cites interesting statistics and occasionally decides to do some actual research about the industry at-large. The problem is that unlike the majority of retail workers, she didn’t need this job. At one shift a week, there’s no way. However, most people that work in retail live from small paycheck to small paycheck and hope that the list of dozens of fire-able offenses or a frustrated manager or LP officer don’t eventually send them packing. The turnover in the industry is alarmingly high, but most companies don’t bother to change working conditions, offer benefits or increase pay rates because they know that someone, somewhere will want that job regardless. Why? Retail is one of the few types of jobs still remaining where an unskilled worker has a shot. You may not have a college education, but if you work hard and manage not to have a colossal screw-up (based on handbooks filled with do’s and don’t’s), you have a shot at working your way up. Retail management wages usually start around $30,000 and can go up to the high $60’s and $70’s (or higher, depending on what company you’re with). With that kind of incentive, no matter how far-fetched or unlikely, there will always be a worker to fill the slot of one who wasn’t quite making the grade or who left to go back to school or who moved to another store that offered them $.25 more an hour.
Think about where you are right now reading this. Maybe you’re reading it on your phone, but you’re probably sitting at a desk somewhere on a computer, dicking around on Tumblr while you’re supposed to be working or mindlessly flipping between work email, your web browser, gchat, whatever. If you’re at work and you realize you have to go the bathroom, you go. If you want to take a break and step outside or run across the street to get coffee, you probably can. (Maybe not every day, but I’ll wager you still have the option at some point.) If you want to eat lunch at your desk, maybe you can do that, but if you’re lucky and get an hour-long lunch break, you probably take it. Maybe you don’t. But you have the option. If you’re thirsty, you have a bottle of water on your desk to drink at your leisure. If you’re hungry, you can have a snack while you work. If you want to call or text your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend or mom or whoever, you can discreetly do so or step outside for a few minutes without worrying about losing your job.
Retail employees, by and large, don’t have those options. If they do, they’re empty promises. “You get a lunch break,” they’ll say. And then the line is 20 people long and you’re running every register behind the cash wrap and your manager pleads with you to wait a few hours until things calm down and before you know it, your shift ends anyway. And don’t even think about trying to bring a drink of a snack to work. You may be able to grab a gulp of water in the back room or place a cup behind the cash wrap and discreetly sip when there are no customers in sight, but you can’t just sit and catch your breath at will. Forget about texting or calling friends or family or taking their calls either. Many retail employees start smoking because it’s sometimes the only way they can get out of the store for a few minutes. All of this yes, but retail employees also have to be “on” every second of their shift. A constant smile while angry, entitled shoppers shove receipts in your face or scream at you or curse at you. (Or in one case a friend told me about, a customer threw a cup of coffee at them.) You don’t have a second to sit there and take a break and check articles in the Washington Post or scroll through your Tumblr dashboard. You’re on, you’re working, you’re on your feet and you better say the right things and get the right kind of sale if you want to keep the job. If those percentages aren’t looking good or you aren’t doing something just right, whether it’s pushing the retail credit card or rewards card or up-selling, you might lose the job. And you cannot afford to miss a couple paychecks. You may not be able to afford to miss even one.
The retail industry is a complex, fascinating and frustrating one. The few companies that are doing it right seem to have had no influence on the ones that aren’t. Americans still view retail as a “less than” job, or one you’d only take if you really had to. This country looks at retail with the same derision that it does fast food service—invisible people doing an invisible job that makes it really easy to curse in their faces and act like animals when they don’t do exactly what we want at the exact second we demand it.
There’s a book to be written about the retail industry. There should be a great, well-researched and informative book written about the retail industry and the millions of employees that count on it to feed their families and pay their bills. This book wasn’t it. If you find it, let me know.
December 24, 2014
First of all, a little over two years, at 5-7 hours a week(!), in one line of work hardly makes it your career.
I found the author very whiny, arrogant, and lacking a sense of humor. She reminded the reader at every turn that she had come from a rich family, was college-educated, and found it hard to relate to those not raised at her level of society and education.
Example: "I was the only Caucasian [on the store team]. That was a first."
"I'd never spent time, socially or professionally, with anyone who had a visible tattoo, or several, who traded the names of their favorite ink artists the way my friends mentioned that of a chic Kensington hotel or a great West Village colorist." (about her coworkers)
"I'd never even met, let alone needed to impress, someone so inked." (about her store manager)
"My managers and coworkers, in Montreal, Paris, or small-town New Hampshire, were all college-educated, some with master's degrees, even a few with PhDs, MBAs, or law or medical degrees. That mattered to me... People who avidly read--and wrote for--the most exclusive media outlets, like The New York Times, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker. People who summer, using the noun as a verb, in elite enclaves like Nantucket or Easthampton." [bold emphasis added by me - I mean seriously? Anyone who suffers through this book is going to know what summering somewhere means!]
You can tell she had a hard time waiting on the people she felt belonged to her social standing. She has a kind of "Don't you know who I am, where I've been, and what I've done?!" kind of attitude.
Example:
Chapter 1: "I talked to Queen Elizabeth" (loose paraphrase)
Later in Chapter 1: "I met Queen Elizabeth on a yacht." (loose paraphrase)
Chapter 3: "I met or interviewed Queen Elizabeth." (loose paraphrase)
The book was worse. Written by a journalist, it was a compilation of articles documenting the author's complaints and her out-of-touch-with-reality viewpoint. The chapters did not build on one another and were full of redundancies. Every time she mentioned a professional she'd interviewed she'd go through his credentials AGAIN. Yes, I know he owns that company and what the company does. You told me four pages ago in the last chapter!
1 star. I had to force myself to finish.
I found the author very whiny, arrogant, and lacking a sense of humor. She reminded the reader at every turn that she had come from a rich family, was college-educated, and found it hard to relate to those not raised at her level of society and education.
Example: "I was the only Caucasian [on the store team]. That was a first."
"I'd never spent time, socially or professionally, with anyone who had a visible tattoo, or several, who traded the names of their favorite ink artists the way my friends mentioned that of a chic Kensington hotel or a great West Village colorist." (about her coworkers)
"I'd never even met, let alone needed to impress, someone so inked." (about her store manager)
"My managers and coworkers, in Montreal, Paris, or small-town New Hampshire, were all college-educated, some with master's degrees, even a few with PhDs, MBAs, or law or medical degrees. That mattered to me... People who avidly read--and wrote for--the most exclusive media outlets, like The New York Times, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker. People who summer, using the noun as a verb, in elite enclaves like Nantucket or Easthampton." [bold emphasis added by me - I mean seriously? Anyone who suffers through this book is going to know what summering somewhere means!]
You can tell she had a hard time waiting on the people she felt belonged to her social standing. She has a kind of "Don't you know who I am, where I've been, and what I've done?!" kind of attitude.
Example:
Chapter 1: "I talked to Queen Elizabeth" (loose paraphrase)
Later in Chapter 1: "I met Queen Elizabeth on a yacht." (loose paraphrase)
Chapter 3: "I met or interviewed Queen Elizabeth." (loose paraphrase)
The book was worse. Written by a journalist, it was a compilation of articles documenting the author's complaints and her out-of-touch-with-reality viewpoint. The chapters did not build on one another and were full of redundancies. Every time she mentioned a professional she'd interviewed she'd go through his credentials AGAIN. Yes, I know he owns that company and what the company does. You told me four pages ago in the last chapter!
1 star. I had to force myself to finish.
May 9, 2014
Yowza. This book was such a piece of garbage and made me so angry and annoyed I stopped less than a quarter of the way in. After flipping through the rest of the book, I saw that I didn't miss anything and didn't waste any time returning this book to someone who borrowed it from someone who got it for free. I was hoping for a fun read, as I also left the corporate world for retail. However, what I found an overwhelmingly racist, classist, obnoxious, and sad woman who repeatedly lets the reader know how much better off she is than her coworkers and managers. If you end up reading this book, to pass the time it might be fun to play this drinking game: do a shot every time the author reminds you that she is white. I recommend calling 911 in advance because you'll probably suffer from alcohol poisoning halfway through the first chapter. Boo, Caitlin Kelly, boo.
June 30, 2011
This is a great book to read if you enjoy vapid, egotistical musings from someone who has no idea what it's like to live in the real world. I actually threw the book across the room when I got to the part about how she had never worked with people who didn't have their Masters, and *GASP* she learned she might be working with felons! Caitlin Kelly lives in a privileged fantasy land. She wrote a book based off of the ten hours a week she worked retail? For someone who claims to be a journalist, this book is poorly written and extremely repetitive - I think she mentions how she interview the Queen of England at least ten times.
Here's a though, Ms. Kelly - get off your pedestal and please, for the sake of journalism, don't ever write again.
Here's a though, Ms. Kelly - get off your pedestal and please, for the sake of journalism, don't ever write again.
May 5, 2012
In this memoir, a fifty-something journalist recounts her experiences in part-time retail work. Caitlin Kelly, having recently lost a steady job writing, turns to hourly work in a new North Face store. After landing the job and going through training, Kelly begins her “career” as a retail associate, although her time in the job really only lasts a couple of years (hardly a career). She describes the feeling of being a part of a cog in the machine of corporate owned and run business, of being a faceless employee and having to adhere to rules handed down from headquarters. Although she points to her financial struggle as a reason for seeking such menial work, Kelly has the luxury of only needing to work one shift a week, with her freelance journalism work and her employed fiance’s support. Throughout the book, Kelly seems to be attempting to relate to her co-workers, including those who are single parents, uneducated, or in much worse financial straits, but almost always comes off with a superior attitude, and this mars any sympathy or empathy I might have for her situation and her encounters with fellow coworkers or customers.
Overall, I enjoyed this book much less than I had anticipated. Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” is a much more interesting and genuine recounting of a journalist in retail and hourly work.
Overall, I enjoyed this book much less than I had anticipated. Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” is a much more interesting and genuine recounting of a journalist in retail and hourly work.
May 24, 2011
As a retail veteran myself, I found this book to be quite insightful when it comes to the good and bad side of retail. This is the account of a successful journalist who had to enter the workforce as a retail clerk at The North Face in a mall located in an affluent New York suburb. She describes the typical norm when it comes to the environment of a retail store; the impending doom that corporate offices play into a store whether their store location is successful or not; the sad reality of the abuse retail workers take from customers; and the low wages that retail workers earn while their company has sky-high profits. This is a sobering and realistic account of what it's like to be a retail worker in America during a recession, and in one of the nation's highest-growing industries.
Caitlin Kelly is obviously a very talented writer, storyteller, and displays a good amount of humor in telling her story. There is hardly a dull moment in this book. I'd recommend this book for those who work in retail, and i dare to suggest that those in retail management read it to understand that you get what you pay for--you can't have effective customer service and customer satisfaction on skeleton crews, low-wage employees, and high turnover rates.
Caitlin Kelly is obviously a very talented writer, storyteller, and displays a good amount of humor in telling her story. There is hardly a dull moment in this book. I'd recommend this book for those who work in retail, and i dare to suggest that those in retail management read it to understand that you get what you pay for--you can't have effective customer service and customer satisfaction on skeleton crews, low-wage employees, and high turnover rates.
June 9, 2011
After hearing an interview with the author on NPR I was really looking forward to reading this book. Instead I thought this book was a poor excuse for a non fiction account of the retail world. I do work in the service industry and I have a really hard time feeling sorry for the author ( who CONSTANTLY complains about her sore feet etc) when she only worked 5hours a day once a week! I was hoping for greater insight concerning the huge percentage of our population who are in retail or the service industry and a mistreated-- either by their employers or their customers. Instead she just drops some "data" into the text here and there and cites unknown people and events as secondary sources. I felt like this woman was completely out of touch and I found her judgements about her coworkers were at times demeaning and superficial. Big disappointment!
April 6, 2014
I can't believe how ANGRY this book made me. At first glance, the reader is led to believe it will be a thoughtful and insightful examination of the "retail culture" and the day-to-day workforce that keeps it thriving. What we got, instead is a soulless attempt by the author to justify "demeaning herself" for a paltry one day a week at a "mindless" "trained monkey could do it" retail job.
While she laments that America doesn't value the position of sales associate the way other cultures do, in her next breathe she purports that no one with drive or ambition can bear to stay in retail,
I picked the book up at a local bookstore and there are only two reasons I'm glad I bought it. 1 - I paid $2. 2 - I supported an independent bookstore.
If you want a non-self-serving look at minimum wage, read "Nickeled and Dimed."
While she laments that America doesn't value the position of sales associate the way other cultures do, in her next breathe she purports that no one with drive or ambition can bear to stay in retail,
I picked the book up at a local bookstore and there are only two reasons I'm glad I bought it. 1 - I paid $2. 2 - I supported an independent bookstore.
If you want a non-self-serving look at minimum wage, read "Nickeled and Dimed."
August 5, 2012
Awful. Her career in retail? She hardly worked. She's so obnoxious that you just want to smack her. I can't believe that she found a publisher for this tripe.
January 30, 2024
While Kelly’s goal seems to be to elicit sympathy for the plight of retail workers, she does it while simultaneously looking somewhat down on them herself.
Working only one day a week at The North Face to supplement her journalism income (which is - she makes a point of mentioning, several times - significantly higher than her retail paycheck), she makes no bones about being able to leave when she chooses to, while the others she works with don’t have that same luxury.
She speaks of her time in retail as if it made her more understanding of the plight of retail workers. Yet she tells of several instances when she goes into stores as a shopper and is disappointed by the lack of customer service. Meanwhile she will turn around and tell anecdotes about her own difficulty providing that same level of service for customers, even occasionally snapping at them.
She makes digs about the caliber of some of her coworkers while simultaneously acknowledging how overworked and underpaid they are, not seeming to make the connection that they have no good reason to care more than the bare minimum about their jobs.
I hoped to read this book for some catharsis of having spent the bulk of my working life in retail, and while there was some of that, I also spent a large chunk of it feeling irritated by the author complaining about not having enough in common with the people who regularly work for poverty wages vs. those who have more upward mobility.
I would have preferred a book like this from someone who wasn’t just a retail tourist.
Working only one day a week at The North Face to supplement her journalism income (which is - she makes a point of mentioning, several times - significantly higher than her retail paycheck), she makes no bones about being able to leave when she chooses to, while the others she works with don’t have that same luxury.
She speaks of her time in retail as if it made her more understanding of the plight of retail workers. Yet she tells of several instances when she goes into stores as a shopper and is disappointed by the lack of customer service. Meanwhile she will turn around and tell anecdotes about her own difficulty providing that same level of service for customers, even occasionally snapping at them.
She makes digs about the caliber of some of her coworkers while simultaneously acknowledging how overworked and underpaid they are, not seeming to make the connection that they have no good reason to care more than the bare minimum about their jobs.
I hoped to read this book for some catharsis of having spent the bulk of my working life in retail, and while there was some of that, I also spent a large chunk of it feeling irritated by the author complaining about not having enough in common with the people who regularly work for poverty wages vs. those who have more upward mobility.
I would have preferred a book like this from someone who wasn’t just a retail tourist.
May 12, 2020
Having worked retail in several different capacities over the course of 15 years, I was expecting some stories about the weird things that happen while working in that environment – bomb scares, over obvious shoplifters, shenanigans in the dressing rooms with security guards, the high school football player passing out when you pierced his ears, etc. This book did not really have that. The explanation of working during the holiday season was quite accurate. She really lost me when calling the mall sterile and soulless. Each one of those properties has a personality from the giant ones that locals fought construction of to the small lifestyle centers. There is also a management team running the property that has similar ups and downs within the team and corporate. Those people pitch in to help housekeeping mop up a roof leak despite wearing a skirt suit and heels. They help security get customers out of the building during a bomb scare while fighting their instinct to get out of there themselves. They calmly call a county official to come pick up their teenager who pulled the fire alarm and caused the fire department to roll and the building to be evacuated on a busy Saturday night. They deal with parents convinced that the mall Santa is drinking gin because the customer is not familiar with the shape of a Fiji water bottle. Definitely not a sterile or soulless environment.
July 29, 2011
I was drawn to this because it neatly encompasses two sides of my life - that of a writer/book reviewer, and that of a full-time retail employee. For the most part, I enjoyed it, and there were some things that I learned (the almost absurd retail obsession with how long tasks should take you=taylorism). I could also sympathize with her feelings that the higher-ups just don't care about the cogs in the machine. I'm closing in on a decade of working retail, so I've been there.
Other reviewers have made some good points about this book. The most obvious is that working one shift a week is retail lite. Caitlin Kelly views herself as pretty crucial to the operation for someone who's rarely even there. And yet she still manages to complain about her aching feet. Really?
Another problem I had is that she seems to want it both ways. She complains repeatedly, almost ad nauseum, about how poorly retail workers are treated, and how everyone looks down on them. And yet she feels the constant need to remind us that she's different. She came from wealth. She worked for respected publications! She was qualified to do More Important Jobs. She is better than her co-workers and every other retail employee out there, who must all be doing it because they have no other option. With all her research, I really feel like she could have looked harder for an employee who actually liked his job. I'm a college educated woman - as are many of my co-workers. Caitlin Kelly is not actually the first woman with an education (or a husband/partner/fiance who makes decent money)to take a retail job. But you would almost think so if you read this book. There are lots of reasons to work retail - not the least of which is that it's flexible for families. But then it's also obvious that she knows nothing about raising a family or having kids. And if she knows so freaking much about journalism, she should have found a decent editor - one who let her know that repeatedly touting her qualifications was annoying. You're a smart professional. We get it already.
For me, the funniest part is toward the end. The assistant manager at her store is about to go on maternity leave, and Caitlin asks to be considered for the job. She is baffled and hurt that they don't seem to give any thought to promoting her, because she's one of the best salespeople. As a manager myself, I'm more than happy to explain this to her. Selling clothes and managing people are not the same skill set. You can be a fabulous seller and a horrible manager. I've seen it. They knew you weren't qualified because you repeatedly acted like a prima donna and got irrationally upset when dealing with challenging customers. Caitlin, who exactly do you think gets to deal with the MOST challenging customers? The ones you snapped at? It's your managers, genius. Then they had to deal with YOU. The lady who broke a piece of hardware in a fit of anger. And stabbed a pen into a cardboard box. You were not management material.
On the whole, I wouldn't really recommend this book to others, mostly because I'm afraid they'll think all retail employees act and think like her, and that all customers are awful. This book is one person's experience. One bitter person's experience.
Other reviewers have made some good points about this book. The most obvious is that working one shift a week is retail lite. Caitlin Kelly views herself as pretty crucial to the operation for someone who's rarely even there. And yet she still manages to complain about her aching feet. Really?
Another problem I had is that she seems to want it both ways. She complains repeatedly, almost ad nauseum, about how poorly retail workers are treated, and how everyone looks down on them. And yet she feels the constant need to remind us that she's different. She came from wealth. She worked for respected publications! She was qualified to do More Important Jobs. She is better than her co-workers and every other retail employee out there, who must all be doing it because they have no other option. With all her research, I really feel like she could have looked harder for an employee who actually liked his job. I'm a college educated woman - as are many of my co-workers. Caitlin Kelly is not actually the first woman with an education (or a husband/partner/fiance who makes decent money)to take a retail job. But you would almost think so if you read this book. There are lots of reasons to work retail - not the least of which is that it's flexible for families. But then it's also obvious that she knows nothing about raising a family or having kids. And if she knows so freaking much about journalism, she should have found a decent editor - one who let her know that repeatedly touting her qualifications was annoying. You're a smart professional. We get it already.
For me, the funniest part is toward the end. The assistant manager at her store is about to go on maternity leave, and Caitlin asks to be considered for the job. She is baffled and hurt that they don't seem to give any thought to promoting her, because she's one of the best salespeople. As a manager myself, I'm more than happy to explain this to her. Selling clothes and managing people are not the same skill set. You can be a fabulous seller and a horrible manager. I've seen it. They knew you weren't qualified because you repeatedly acted like a prima donna and got irrationally upset when dealing with challenging customers. Caitlin, who exactly do you think gets to deal with the MOST challenging customers? The ones you snapped at? It's your managers, genius. Then they had to deal with YOU. The lady who broke a piece of hardware in a fit of anger. And stabbed a pen into a cardboard box. You were not management material.
On the whole, I wouldn't really recommend this book to others, mostly because I'm afraid they'll think all retail employees act and think like her, and that all customers are awful. This book is one person's experience. One bitter person's experience.
March 30, 2011
Advanced, unedited galley from netgalley.com
Caitlin Kelly takes a job at The North Face in need of some sort of steady paycheck when writings jobs drop off around the time the recession. She first enjoys working retail but soon realizes that the environment is not the best. We experience her frustration with having too few employees, crowded storerooms, inadequate lighting and equipment all while trying to provide the best service. Letting us peek into (or relive) an environment that can make even the strongest lose a little sanity. Along with Kelly’s experiences she also gives us facts and figures about the world behind the cash wrap. All of it ties up into a nice little expose of the darker side of shopping. Without the ones working in the stores we could get very little accomplished in a day, we see them everywhere from when we get gas to when we need groceries. How can the environment they work in be so wrong for what they need to put out?
“Malled” is a quick read great for a business major, a recently graduated teen (even if it shows the dirtier side it can help them prepare for it or find the best fit environment for them) , their parents, someone wanting someone to commiserate with, or even just someone interested into taking a peek into the world of cogs that helps run their world. I can only hope that from this book we learn that the retail environment we currently have creates a environment that is not the best for productivity. We really need to take a deeper look at it and try to understand why there is such a high turnover rate and how to fix it.
Caitlin Kelly takes a job at The North Face in need of some sort of steady paycheck when writings jobs drop off around the time the recession. She first enjoys working retail but soon realizes that the environment is not the best. We experience her frustration with having too few employees, crowded storerooms, inadequate lighting and equipment all while trying to provide the best service. Letting us peek into (or relive) an environment that can make even the strongest lose a little sanity. Along with Kelly’s experiences she also gives us facts and figures about the world behind the cash wrap. All of it ties up into a nice little expose of the darker side of shopping. Without the ones working in the stores we could get very little accomplished in a day, we see them everywhere from when we get gas to when we need groceries. How can the environment they work in be so wrong for what they need to put out?
“Malled” is a quick read great for a business major, a recently graduated teen (even if it shows the dirtier side it can help them prepare for it or find the best fit environment for them) , their parents, someone wanting someone to commiserate with, or even just someone interested into taking a peek into the world of cogs that helps run their world. I can only hope that from this book we learn that the retail environment we currently have creates a environment that is not the best for productivity. We really need to take a deeper look at it and try to understand why there is such a high turnover rate and how to fix it.
June 22, 2015
The author, recently laid off from her journalism gig, went to the lowest depths of hell to share with us her "unintentional" "career" in retail.
Except it seems that she intentionally took this job since she needed something to write about, being laid off from her job and all. And her retail career lasted two years, twice a week at most, sixteen hours a week at most, lest this lowly poison interfere with your beloved writing. And this "retail" position was for the North Face the upper class suburbs; a non-commission position at that.
Poor Caitlin, she needed this job working once a week to pay for her overseas adventures and here we are making fun of her for it!
When you work 39 hours a week every week, including some sixteen hour days, for at least 5 years, either in a busy city, bad area, or in a commissioned position, which you need to pay next month's rent, then I'd like to hear your story.
Except it seems that she intentionally took this job since she needed something to write about, being laid off from her job and all. And her retail career lasted two years, twice a week at most, sixteen hours a week at most, lest this lowly poison interfere with your beloved writing. And this "retail" position was for the North Face the upper class suburbs; a non-commission position at that.
Poor Caitlin, she needed this job working once a week to pay for her overseas adventures and here we are making fun of her for it!
When you work 39 hours a week every week, including some sixteen hour days, for at least 5 years, either in a busy city, bad area, or in a commissioned position, which you need to pay next month's rent, then I'd like to hear your story.
April 18, 2017
Terrible book, worse human being.
She is casually racist throughout, and quits in a huff when they refuse to promote her to management. Despite having no retail mgmt experience, only working Sundays, and picking a fight to bring a chair behind the cash register for her to sit on. A chair. She wanted a chair. On the sales floor. Entitled and privileged barely even scratch the surface of this person. Read it if you want insight into what your casually racist middle aged white aunt thinks, otherwise steer clear.
She is casually racist throughout, and quits in a huff when they refuse to promote her to management. Despite having no retail mgmt experience, only working Sundays, and picking a fight to bring a chair behind the cash register for her to sit on. A chair. She wanted a chair. On the sales floor. Entitled and privileged barely even scratch the surface of this person. Read it if you want insight into what your casually racist middle aged white aunt thinks, otherwise steer clear.
June 13, 2025
Spoiler Alert. What sticks with me about this book is the Walmart Black Friday riot which took place on November 28, 2008. Jdimytai Damour had been on the job for a week when he opened the door on the crowd of frenzied shoppers only to be trampled to death in the rush. Some shoppers apparently complained when the store was closed and kept on shopping. Caitlin Kelly does an excellent job of putting this incident in perspective and laying blame where it properly belongs.
May 20, 2013
Painfully repetitive, fluffed-up 3000 word essay extended to a slim book. Upper-middle class woman works (briefly) in retail for 1 day a week, punishes all future readers for as long as this is in print.
October 22, 2012
Terrible.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews