Can I Speak Your Manager?

Can I Speak To Your Manager?

When you go to a store or restaurant and are unhappy with the service what is the first thing you say? Can I speak to your manager please? When you say that what do you expect? An expert in the field, customer service or maybe just an older adult that will be more understanding? Well, managers are usually all of these and more.

With retail being an artery in the body of the United States economy ( over three million retail stores nationwide) everyone has either worked in it or shopped at a location and has an opinion on it. There are over 40 million retail jobs so the managers have an important and difficult job to keep everything intact and running smoothly.

I decided to interview one of the managers at my job, Aaron, to get an inside perspective on what it is really like. Aaron at first glance doesn’t look out of place at all, basically a regular guy, about six feet tall with a slender build the only standout feature is that he shaves his head. He has a personality that is almost satiric and at the same time always manages to keep a playful smile on his face.

When I went to interview Aaron we sat down in the vacant store manager’s office since he resigned about a month ago. I made a sly comment saying “are you ready to move in here” to which he responded chuckling “hopefully.” Before I started the interview I reminded him to answer honestly and as candidly as possible.

I started off the interview with getting the basics, he is forty two, originally from Kansas and does not have any kids but has a longtime girlfriend. Aaron’s job background is interesting, he did not go to college instead he worked his way up from being a bagger at a grocery store to a sales associate until he got a management...

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...re you are going to be at, until you reach the corporate level which is where everyone is striving to be at.” Honestly when I heard this I had some second thoughts about the career as a whole, even though almost no job is guaranteed if I go into a career I want job security and stability.

In conclusion, after everything I have learned over the past two weeks, I would say that being a retail manager can be a very rewarding and successful career while at the same time being one of the most difficult and stressful. Retail management is something everyone can attain through experience, hard work and or education and become extremely successful with all of them. Retail. You can turn a first job into a lifetime career, some people love it, some people hate it but one thing is for certain, it is here to stay and someone has to help run it, which is where you and I come in.