My life as a shop girl

I started my working life in retail as a shop girl at the age of 15. I needed a work permit so that I could work at S.S. Kresge after school and on weekends. S.S. Kresge was the K-Mart of the 60's. I started at the check-out counter working the register. This was before the days of computers so I had to learn how to give change by "counting back", something that I can still do today. Ah, such talent! Actually, I didn't mind working the register because I liked making people happy and it seemed that they usually were happy when they bought their stuff. Every now and then I'd get a crabby person and I loved to be super sweet just to bug them. So evil! Soon after proving my prowess at the register, I was moved to all of the other departments to learn their inner workings. I was very succssful at some, and failed miserably at others. Which were my best you ask? Well, I did really well in the hat department (yes, we had hats in the old days!) I was also a star in jewelry, cosmetics and home decor. I did ok in the deli until I sliced my hand open. But my worst department was the lunch counter. I just couldn't remember who got what. I made a total of 10 cents in tips for an afternoon stint!For tis I was paid $1 an hour!

From here I went to several other retail establishments to get me through high school and a short college carreer. After leaving college early I was fortunate to land my dream job as a fashion illustrator for Chas. A. Stevens in Chicago. So now I was working as an artist. All I have ever wanted...to be an artist. Now I was making $47.50 a week! Over the years I have worked as an artist in many different venues, as a newspaper artist, a decorative painter, a muralist, a logo designer,and free lancing. I am

very blessed to have had these opportunities.I have learned so much from all of the artists that I have worked with. Much more, I have been told, than if I had gone to art school. Now, in the autumn of my years (wait isn't that a song?)I am, once again, a shop girl! It's a lovely job working in a very nice little boutique in the suburbs of Chicago. I get to put on cute clothes and talk to fun people and then go home with no stress in my shop girl life!I make a lot more money than those first shop girl jobs but that is not the important part. When I am not doing this I get to go into my studio and do what I love most...paint!!! This is what I must do. Except for raising my children, painting is what makes me feel real. It's what I must do. It is my air.

So being a shop girl has given me more than minimal wage. It has brought me to the point in my life where I can do and be what I was born to do.