Some people here have been quite critical of the SA's and the store. I will continue with my experience of almost three years of working in a large mall.

There are some very weird things that happen, and some weird people that walk the malls. This weirdness increases in the evening. I was hired at NY & Co and then the Limited because I was a guy. They wanted a guy in the store especially in the evenings. Monday thru Thursday, it is the norm to work the store with one mgr and one SA. More SA's are added on Fri night and the weekend. I discovered early on that I was working a lot of weekday evenings. One evening, I asked my manager about it. She laughed and said that she scheduled it that way. She wanted me in there when she worked.

I could probably write a book on my three years of working a women's clothing store. I saw more weird people, more mean spirited people, and saw more attempted scams than I can count. Fortunately, I also saw many fine people.

Young SA's can be easily intimidated. Older, experienced SA's will act to handle anything out of the ordinary. We called in mall security a number of times when we thought we had a perpitrator or a drunk on our hands. We did not hesitate. Again, SA's are trained, highly trained and retrained at regular intervals to spot anything abnormal and to report such to the manager immediately. We were required to greet a customer within 30 seconds of them entering the store. Any experienced SA can size up a person from this greeting. We were trained to do that. By the time I decided to leave retail, I was a very experienced SA with many hundreds of hours working the floor. From the behavior, that Goofus self described, I would have surely notified the manager, and I would not have taken my eyes off of him. Nervous behavior will bring that upon you.

We didn't bat an eye at normal behavior. We assisted and hopefully sold them a great outfit.

So don't be so critical of the store. Sure, they are there to sell, but they have resources to protect from many nasty, unscrupulous people who frequent them.

If any of you are so skeptical, try working the floor of any store for about a year. Believe me, you will have your sweet eyes opened up big time.

Jodi