Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Money
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genres: Biographies & Memoirs, Business & Money
Book Type: Hardcover
Helpful Score: 9
Caitlin Kelly has no idea what it is to work in retail.
Working one day a week, for just over two years, in a high-end store, in one of New York's most upscale malls is not "experiencing what it's like on the other side of the cash wrap". At best, what Kelly experienced was an extended research project to benefit her successful journalism career. Yet, she continously writes about the difficulty of being on your feet for such long hours (again, for one shift per week) and how dreadful her pay is for the work she puts in ($11/hour - more than I've ever made at any retail job with 12 years of experience).
However the most disturbing aspect of this memoir is her constant mention of her co-worker's ethnicites. Kelly often makes mention of her African-American and Latino co-workers as getting the best job they could. In one disturbing section of chapter 3, she finds it necessary to talk of the store manager's assistant's personal life, letting us all know she had a baby out of wedlock. After discovering that some co-workers may have criminal records, Kelly states "I was shocked, although maybe I shouldn't have been.". No further explaination for this statement is given and one must assume the undertone is "because they were all blacks from the Bronx".
Kelly may have done well for herself in her chosen career of journalism (this book makes it clear she loves dropping the fact that she's interviewed Presidents and the Queen of England), but writing this book was a false step. The pages reek of her racial and social privledge and prove that she is still blind to it. While she wants us to believe she is now a much more enlightened consumer, the only thing we know for sure after reading this is that she'll do anything for a scoop.
Working one day a week, for just over two years, in a high-end store, in one of New York's most upscale malls is not "experiencing what it's like on the other side of the cash wrap". At best, what Kelly experienced was an extended research project to benefit her successful journalism career. Yet, she continously writes about the difficulty of being on your feet for such long hours (again, for one shift per week) and how dreadful her pay is for the work she puts in ($11/hour - more than I've ever made at any retail job with 12 years of experience).
However the most disturbing aspect of this memoir is her constant mention of her co-worker's ethnicites. Kelly often makes mention of her African-American and Latino co-workers as getting the best job they could. In one disturbing section of chapter 3, she finds it necessary to talk of the store manager's assistant's personal life, letting us all know she had a baby out of wedlock. After discovering that some co-workers may have criminal records, Kelly states "I was shocked, although maybe I shouldn't have been.". No further explaination for this statement is given and one must assume the undertone is "because they were all blacks from the Bronx".
Kelly may have done well for herself in her chosen career of journalism (this book makes it clear she loves dropping the fact that she's interviewed Presidents and the Queen of England), but writing this book was a false step. The pages reek of her racial and social privledge and prove that she is still blind to it. While she wants us to believe she is now a much more enlightened consumer, the only thing we know for sure after reading this is that she'll do anything for a scoop.
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