Alice Cunningham: My First Job
The Seattle Times, November 13, 2005
Current position: Co-Owner, Olympic Hot Tub Company, a 28-year-old company with four retail stores in Seattle, Fife, Everett and Issaquah and a fifth opening in Lacey in December.
First job: Selling Lingerie at Bloomingdale’s flagship store in New York City.
Pay: $42.10 a WEEK (not a typo: 4-$10. bills; 1-$2. bill; and a dime)
How I got the job: During a quarter off from school, I wanted to go to New York more than anything. Bloomingdale’s took college students with no experience. The college placement office arranged it.
What I learned: Selling in the lingerie department was a revelation to a naive 19-year-old who had never had a job before. The department was run on strict seniority and strict rules. All of the lingerie was behind glass in drawers. We re-folded the lingerie every spare moment and cleaned the glass twice a day. We were expected to have excellent product knowledge and to maintain beautiful displays. Customers came first - the personal service was outstanding. I even took items to customers who couldn’t come to the store. Everything was done with great class and dignity except on sale days when passions ran so high over the bargains that I had to stop fights between customers. Our department outsold every other lingerie department in the city and we had the lowest returns because we listened to what our customers wanted and sold them the right sizes and styles. The concepts of superior training, product knowledge and customer service rolled into a beautiful showroom are what I brought from Bloomingdale’s to Olympic Hot Tub Company.
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