Week 1 EOC Best and Worst Jobs

The best job I have had was at UNIQLO USA as a Visual Merchandiser in San Francisco, CA. I was hired two weeks after I successfully completed the nine month Fashion Merchandising program at City College of San Francisco. UNIQLO started me full time at $15.00 per hour I was over joyed and excited to dive head first into this Japanese retail company. At this time this was their first store on the west coast which I had the pleasure of being a part of the building process. Now, this was not my first retail job but it was my first time working for someone that had no visual merchandising guidelines or layout because they believe in letting us be creatively free and work together as a team. During my two years at UNIQLO I was allowed to style the mannequins the way I wanted, my visual team and I created extravagant window displays, changed the floor based on sales and worked overnights to update the whole store. Once my talents were noticed I was sent to New York to work at their studio as an assistant stylist for their online catalog after that I was a part of the traveling visual team that opened 5 more stores over the next year in California.

The worst job I ever had was working as a barista at Specialty's Café in Oakland, CA. In the beginning I was excited to just have a job, I was open to the industry that I would be working in and learning new skills that I can take with me forever. Well three weeks into the job I felt like I was going to kill myself. The crazy customers that want their coffee “perfect” and will tell you to do it over until it is, I would start work at 5 o' clock in the morning almost every day and on top of that my manager was so mean I think she was an ex drill Sargent, “Much of a person's attitude about work is affected by interactions with other management and non-management employees” (Hayes, David K. Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry, 1^st Edition, Pg 6). Needless to say I parted ways from my career as a barista after one month, but the job has taught me to be nice to all baristas because most customers are not.