Goodbye JC Penney catalog center in Midlothian. Channel 12 is reporting the office will close at the end of March, putting 256 people out of work. Penneys has apparently suffered a 78 percent drop in third-quarter earnings, which seems huge. I tried my best to help. Easily 90 percent of my clothes for the past six years or so came from the catalog. They have a size that fits me perfectly, so it's just easier to shop there. I hate trying things on in store dressing rooms.
But I don't call in to the catalog center. I order online. I am guessing most people do that now so the catalog center can't keep those 256 people busy.
I used to be one of them. Whenever I was in an unemployed situation, I'd apply to call centers for temporary jobs. It was an easy-in, easy-out situation, (although as many times as I applied and even interviewed, I could never get hired by Time-Life on Parham Road.)
In the early '80s, I did get hired for Christmas rush at JC Penneys on Alverser Drive, across from the Chesterfield Towne Center. Christmas rush lasts from September to January. You could not specify a day or night shift. You could not ask for the same days or weekends off. You had to have 24-hour, seven days a week availability, and every week your work schedule was different, depending on projected sales call volume. The number of hours you worked also varied. And you were paid just a little above minimum wage.
You had to punch into a time clock within 5 minutes either way of your shift starting time. If you punched in 6 minutes or more late, you were flagged. If you were flagged late three times in a six-week period, you were on probation, and if you were late again while on probation, you were fired. Panicky women would pull up to the entrance door, double-park with their motor running, run in and punch in, then run back out to park to avoid being flagged.
I forget how long training was, at least a week, maybe more. We tediously went through the manual of how to answer the phone, put callers on mute or hold, take an order, process a return, and upsell a customer if an item wasn't available. The computer would give you alternatives to offer. We learned the jargon of catalog numbers, sizes and color codes.
The computer terminals were tiny boxes with black screens and glowing green Courier looking type. The training only went as fast as the dumbest person in the room, and there was always someone who couldn't follow, who was totally lost. The instructor had to explain things over and over while the rest of the class snoozed. Nevertheless, eventually we were all set loose on the floor to take orders, in long rows of computer terminal semi-cubicles.
You never sat in the same cubicle, so there was no decorating your workspace. The bulletin board by the time clock assigned you a cube number for the day, and there you sat with your headphones on. Your headphones came in a disinfected bag, but you brought your own alcohol to clean your keyboard and phone set each day. Tissues? Check. Lozenges for scratchy throats? Check. Some women brought their own seat cushions. No food or drink in the cubes. At the end of the shift, everything went home with you. Only the full-time year-round employees had lockers.
By the time I made it to January, I was on probation for being late three times, but I managed to find a full-time job just in time to get out before I was fired. Christmas rush was over and I was going to be laid off anyway.
In many ways, I enjoyed the job. You stayed busy. The calls were constant. It was interesting to see the kind of things people were buying. It was interesting to see how some women seemed to have endless money and would order dozen of things regularly. And they'd return dozens of things, too. Some accounts were flagged, so if an item was out of stock, you didn't suggest another one. They were only going to bring it back anyway. For some reason, the early-early morning shift was always full of calls from women in New Jersey, ordering drapes and bedding. It was very curious.
Then there was the Creepy Guy. Creepy Guy usually turned up on the evening shifts. Sometimes Creepy Guy got right to the point and asked what was I wearing. Sometimes he pretended to be ordering women's underwear and would ask for descriptions of bras and panties on certain pages. What do you think of this bra? Would you like this one? How would it feel on you? What are you wearing under your clothes now? What color is it? Is it tight? Is it see-through? Does it have lace on it? He had a thing for lace.
Creepy Guy was relentless. I got a call from him at least once during every evening shift. I could hear from the chatter up and down my row that other call-center women were getting calls from him, too, so he was a nightly serial caller. He kept calling and calling. That's because every so often he would strike gold. Someone would be bored and actually tell him what she was wearing. It only encouraged him. Even I got enticed one evening and told him, and then he got creepier. What did I look like under my underwear? Okay, enough of you, Creepy Guy.
One evening, while Creepy Guy was trying to get me to describe a bra in the catalog, I could hear on his end of the line the sound of children's voices. He was startled -- apparently the arrival home of the wife and children was unexpected. Flustered, he said he had to go. Creepy Guy, I exclaimed, you have children? And you're making these calls? Shame on you, shame on you!
After that, when he called, I asked him about his kids, and he hung up on me.
After the catalog call center shuts down, what will Creepy Guy do?
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