Yet again, my eyes swelled with tears while I tried to fold a shirt. Yet again, I tilted my head down to hide my face from him. Yet again, I crushed myself with aggravation, sadness, and overwhelming thoughts about how I should just quit and save everyone the trouble of having to deal with me. Yet again, I couldn’t handle being the new, shy, inexperienced, soft-spoken, terrified, insecure kid working at Calvin Klein in the Outlet Mall.

When I first got the job as a sales associate at Calvin Klein, I was ecstatic. I was embarking on a whole new adventure outside of school and home. I could not wait for change – new people to meet, experiences to have, responsibilities to undertake. However, I was always shy in school, so I knew that I would be shy at work. To work in retail though, it’s obvious that one must be outgoing and ready to help all customers. Over my first few days of work, I quickly found out the extent of my shyness: I was literally painfully shy. Merely trying to greet customers made me so scared and uneasy that I felt sick, and then I would mentally attack myself with insults, Just say ‘hello!’ It isn’t hard, you freak. Oh, look, now he’s gone. You idiot. With my mind always buzzing and my anxiety always ever-increasing, I oftentimes resorted to folding clothes to seclude myself. I would try to coax myself into talking to people, and sometimes it worked…but mostly it did not. I had all the intentions of changing myself because I really wanted to change, but I was not making much progress. I was an unconfident nervous wreck, and everything got worse when I met Alex.
Alex was a lead cashier who became a temporary manager at the time of my employment. I can’t count how many times I cried – and I am not one to cry easily – somewhere hidden on the sales floor, in their bathroom, and at home because of his sneers and the contempt in his voice whenever he would speak to me. I can’t remember how many times he would glare at me on a Saturday just to make me feel inferior. I can’t believe that the smell of his cologne, a weird fruity scent, is one that I came to detest and fear because of his ruthlessness when training me. Dealing with Alex made my shyness issue escalate because he made me extra nervous all the time. With my nervousness to the max, I became even angrier with myself when I saw how I was not improving as a worker. Alex was supposed to guide me; he was supposed to encourage me; he was supposed to understand my troubles and find ways to help me. Instead, he made it his job to antagonize me, which made it so much harder to change myself than it had to be.
“Hi, how are you?” he would ask me curtly, making malicious eye contact.
“I’m good,” was all I was able to remember to say as I quaked in fear.
“What?” he exclaimed loudly and callously while raising his eyebrow.
“I’m good, thanks. How are you?” The smell of his cologne drowned me in anxiety.
“Oh, I’m fine. You need to learn to speak up.” Then he would walk away. This happened at the beginning of almost every shift we worked together. Even if I made progress and spoke a bit more loudly and clearly, he’d still do this to me, which knocked any confidence I had built up right out of me. Sad, ashamed, and scared, I’d slouch my way onto the sales floor.
Finally, after weeks and weeks of trying my best to change, I was able to greet most customers and even answer a few questions. It was clear though that I was not at the progression point that I should have reached, so when Alex would stalk me around the sales floor and interrupt me to make suggestions, I continued with my self-hate and self-pity, and because of that I would lose enthusiasm and eventually stop talking to most customers.
One busy Saturday, one of the managers was talking to Alex, who was holding some papers while looking over at me. Alex called me over and said we were going to go in back to talk about my 90-day evaluation. My eyes widened, and I felt defeated even before we got in back to the stock room. I knew what was coming, but I didn’t want to hear it because I already felt sad and embarrassed about my too-slow improvement.
“Stacie, we’re going to talk about your 90-day evaluation, which is coming up in a few weeks. We’ve decided that we’re going to watch you closely again to see if you improve before your 90-day. We’d really like to see you improve, Stacie.” He always said my name too many times and in such a derogatory way.
“So, if this was my 90-day, would you be telling me I’m fired?” I asked earnestly. I could smell his cologne strongly. Tears were waiting to stream down my face, but I didn’t let them.
“No, we wouldn’t necessarily be firing you… Stacie, it’s just that we need to see you making more effort and breaking out of your shell more.” He continued by telling me what I was terrible at – I already knew all of it – and he didn’t mention anything positive even though other managers had been telling me that my effort was commendable. I stood there dazed in self-hate.
I was devastated after he talked to me in his patronizing, demeaning tone. I knew it was coming, and I knew it was true, but he was just so mean about it. I cried when I got home that day and swelled with hate for Alex and for myself. But after a while – maybe a week or so – I stopped being sad. I stopped feeling bad for myself. I stopped being so angry with myself. I reminded myself that my goal when I took the job was to change and break out of my shyness. I realized, yes, Alex is a jerk, but he was not the problem. I was the problem. The 90-day talk with Alex made me recognize that I had to step it up, or I was going to lose my job. I was always trying to change, but clearly I was not trying hard enough.
Once I accepted my failure, changing became much easier. Alex was, and is, one of the meanest people I’ve ever met, but I needed his extreme tactics to make me self-actualize. From my realization on, I forced myself way out of my comfort zone and spoke to everyone who came into the store. My shyness was definitely still there, but with my job depending on my change, I stuck it out. I changed, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I’m not a nervous wreck anymore, and I absolutely love my job now; they even love me there. I’m one of the most prominent workers on the sales floor, one of the manager’s little assistants, and have “mad folding skills.” Alex and I still don’t get along, and I still don’t like his cologne, but I’ve thanked him for his meanness because he, along with my own realization of my failure, helped me change into a person that I like being.