Cosmic Bus said:
Do your internships prevent your from working elsewhere? I don't really see why you'd leave a paying job before having something else lined up, but maybe it's just envy clouding my judgment: I'd love to have any job right now, let alone one that pays two digits an hour. That kind of money is like a goddamn fantasy for me. Ugh.
Macy's sent me another interview invitation and I'm having the exact same issues trying to schedule anything, and after spending 20 minutes on the phone with the woman in HR, I nearly burst into tears of frustration. To have these jobs dangled in front of me twice in a month and not be able to use their asinine system or have any way around it when no one else will even give me a second glance is just maddening.
Man, you read my mind. I'd gladly jump back into the part time retail thing alongside internships to pay the bills (especially because I dig at least seeing tons of people and helping people spend their cash wisely), but the hours for the internships are so scattered and all over the place that I'd be unable to commit to regular retail shifts.
I don't wanna be the jackass calling up the manager or other part timers asking to have my shifts covered all the time. My priority right now has to be making myself as available as possible to stuff in my target industry so that the other people competing with me who "can't be there because they've got a shift" will lose out to me. Thankfully, I have a bit of family support and my own savings to practice this strategy for half a year or so and really try to make it work.
I bizarrely actually miss retail though. Gamestop was an oddly fun place to work, because (not to toot my own horn too much), people dug me because I was the one EB games rep that wasn't a jackass in the city and actually knew what I was talking about. Earned a lot of trust and respect and generally made people's experiences happy and awesome, which revved me up. I know it sounds retarded to say this about such a bottom rung job, but what can I say, managed to make me happy while I pursued my education and work without pay in those areas.
To address your situation better man, I'll describe what I went through. Over the years, I've worked at EB/Gamestop, Rogers Video, HMV and Chapters, and with me and everyone else I've seem hired during my time at each store, hiring was ALWAYS done by the manager simply taking on people he/she already knew or that one of his employees knew and trusted. This could be great/loyal customers, extended relatives, siblings-in-law, friends from neighboring stores in the mall (happened all the time), etc. I'm sure you've already tried this, but man, it works; become the best customer or at least, the best regular visitor/schmoozer at your store with whoever does the hiring there, and then indicate you're interested. Bam, you're ahead of the entire résumé pile.
So yeah, in my experience, they never or rarely hire according to rules or qualifications for those entry level retail jobs. They hire who they know or who they like, personality-wise. So many people who didn't know shit about games came through EB stores while I was there. They just knew the boss or were super friendly. I guess I was lucky to be that and a savvy gamer.
