A Brief Time in Retail

Fashion Tidbits

• Autobiographies

								
Fashion Tidbits
Cyndi Huculak
April 24, 2024
A Brief time in Retail
“A new beginning”
My earliest childhood shopping trip was taking a bag from my schoolbooks and knocking on my older sisters’ Laura’s’ door and asking her if she had any items to sell to me.
It was a little fun for a few minutes. 
When I was in grade 2, I took a mail order magazine from my mothers’ and fathers’ mail and took it to a few elder housewives around the neighbourhood.  I managed to sell and locate the product for the wives with my fathers’ help driving me to the store.
It was a neat magazine “Regal”’and at that time, the city had no Walmart just a Woolco and a Kmart. The items sold in the magazine were a bit eclectic but practical.
I saved my dollars from being a seller of magazine plastic goods and bought my first outfit in grade 7, new jeans and a few new sweaters.  I was proud of myself.
The retail days continued when a friend in high school suggested I try working as a retail Assistant in a store Mariposa.  Even though I was getting used to standing in the floor for 8 hours for a few dollars an hour, we sold a few t-shirts and jeans from the outlet.  Of course, I had to mop the floor at the end of the shift so a hot dog at the nearby kiosk was a treat. I wasn’t really vegetarian then. I graduated high school and bought a nice grad dress for prom.
I didn’t really suit retail but when I returned from grad school that I didn’t quite complete, I found work in a mall with a neat Indian style American clothing store. I was offered work as a assistant manager and worked as a key holder and cashier for shifts each week.  My fiancée at that time seemed in awe of the job and I was asked by a few if I had owned the store. We sold a few outfits each week and I met some nice people.
Of course, the studies I had completed in my first degree came to haunt me, so I found work as a geography contractor and insurance clerk.  I left the pleasant retail job for corporate world again.
It wasn’t until after a tragic car accident that I survived (I had a green light) that I realised what I had lost.  A lot of kinaesthetic and physical mobility and accuracy to detail. When I managed to get to a mall after the accident, those part-time full-time jobs were a thing of the past.  As the model salesclerks stood behind me in the coffee line, she said “Sorry Cyndi, I don’t think we can use you anymore for retail”. It was a sad awakening. My injuries had deformed my body. I went home and am still depressed about it.
The good thing was I recently got a few gym passes. I hope to use them, but it won’t be for the fashion industry that it will be used for but for looking after myself and my elderly mother. 
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