Ah summer vacation... how I love you for the free time and relaxation you give me. I'm a person who truly needs down time to just chill every once in a while, so summer vacation is great for me. But alas, I am not truly free, as I must have some source of income to stay afloat, especially with huge grad school loans on the horizon. Enter Big 5 Sporting Goods.
I swore to myself a couple summers ago that I would never set foot in a Big 5 as an employee again, but I sold my soul this summer because I needed a flexible job fast that would give me time off whenever I please. So once again, I put on my business casual outfit with my "Andrew" name tag.
So what is it really like working at Big 5? There are a few key skills you need to work as a Big 5 employee, and this is them:
#1. You have to own a business casual outfit and be clean shaven.
#2. You have to be alive.
Well actually that's pretty much it. So what happens when customers ask you questions about stuff in the store? In general, I'm pretty good at pointing people in the general direction of an item that they're looking for. However, when people ask me specific questions about an item, my knowledge becomes much more variable. When it comes to answering questions about running shoes and camping stuff, I might actually be able to help. With most other stuff my helping skills drop to about zero, and for guns/rifles, knives, and fishing gear, my help actually goes into the negatives. Meaning that if I try to answer a question, there's a good chance that the customer will walk out of the store with less knowledge than they came in with. Here, example interactions at the gun counter:
1. Customer: So what's the biggest legal size of a knife blade that you can carry in your pocket?
Me: o_O
2. Customer: I'm looking for one of those automatic rifles. You know, the ones that go 'bahbahbahbah!'. Do you guys carry those?
Me: .........Let me get the manager.
Those are some pretty typical interactions around the gun counter. Since our Big 5 branch is pretty close to Disneyland, we also get a lot of tourists who don't know how to speak English, so a lot of my interactions with people are actually done with improvised sign language. Sometimes we succeed in communicating, and sometimes they just give up and leave the store. One time, an old Asian lady grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to a clothes rack, where she proceeded to stare at me for a good 7-8 seconds. After asking if there was anything I could help her with and more awkward staring, we just ended up walking away from each other...
Anyways, for anyone who wants to work at Big 5, there are 2 big pieces of advice I can give you.
#1. Try not to look at the time for as long as possible. It only makes it worse.
#2. When faced with a question you don't know, and this will be about 85% of the time, make up an answer that is vague enough that it sounds legit, but not specific enough that they can call you out on it. Example interaction:
Customer: What kind of swimming goggles would you recommend for my son?
Me: Well, basically the higher you go in price, the better quality you're going to get. This here is a pretty good brand (point to random item on the shelf). See, it has all these features (proceed to read the features straight from the box).
And there you go. You're ready to work at Big 5.
P.S. In case you're wondering about the title of this blog, it was something I saw on a piece of tape stuck to the wall in the backroom at Big 5, and it pretty much sums up what goes down at Big 5. :P
