What I Learned in Retail
I started working in retail for the first time in my life. I feel like I’ve gone through a rite of passage of some sort, because the generation older than us started off here: they found summer retail jobs and used their pay for school and fun.
I have never had to really handle transactions on a register, really handle customers. I’ve handled students and some parents on the phone and in the office when I worked at the main School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program Office located on one of the campuses at Rutgers University — New Brunswick. I learned basic office/administrative work. I learned how to make copies, handle information, and send out emails to the community.
But catering to others to provide a positive experience, different than just having students pick up forms or cords, is something different entirely.
Jobs like these are important, not only for small business, but also for businesses that are part of franchise because you learn the art of conducting transactions.
That art is not just simply a transfer of money for goods and services. It is an experience. When people are paying for something, they are paying for an experience. This is the basic tenet, or even definition, of user experience. So user experience shouldn’t just be applied to the way someone uses a computer but how a customer reacts with an environment.
This is why I believe the most successful businesses thrive when they also provide an experience, a pleasant environment, rather than just things.
I’ve only been working at Monster Mini Golf for a week, and this is only the beginning of what I’ve learned working there. It’s an important step for me towards starting my own business one day, and so I’ll be cherishing the time I’ve spent there not only honing my skills and learning new things, but also helping everyone have a great time.
