training day

so today was my first day of training at the mall, and i came in at exactly 10am wearing my black coat and pants, looking very professional and all. haha. my trainor, darlene, was a bit late because she said she got stuck in traffic in the highway. good thing i live only 5 minutes away from the mall.

i did the paperwork required of new hires, and i was made to watch this rather cheesy video about their "friendliness program." yep, it says in their handbook that employees must be "extremely friendly" to customers at all times. they even have star badges to measure your level of friendliness, the diamond star being the highest of them all. so that means i have to give out all the charm and congeniality (hmm do i have that? haha) i can muster when greeting customers. they have "mystery shoppers" to secretly observe your demeanor, and rate you without you knowing it.

in the afternoon i was joined by this other new hire named liza whose face was all made up, and rightfully so, because she was to be assigned in cosmetics. she looked like a cross between monica lewinsky and kelly osbourne. she had previously worked at the gap store in willowbrook.

we were made to practice entering transactions with the cash register. there are actually cash registers you can practice with on your own, guided by a booklet which tells you what to do when ringing up cash, credit, or gift card transactions. watching other sales people do it seemed very easy, but now i know i really have to get used with the keypads and all that.

my next training will be on saturday, i'll be coming in at 3pm until the mall closes. so help me god! haha.

oh yeah, yesterday was the aftermath of a full night's snow fall. we had about 9 inches of snow outside. they even suspended classes in NY & NJ. lucky kids. back home it's typhoons we look forward to. hehe.

okay, gotta finish reading the NJ driver's manual...