Also former Hot "Pocket" employee. We had random names for all of the shops- Abercrombie and Bitch, Wet Slut (Wet Seal), etc.
It was never dull whilst working there. What's your wildest story or favorite memory from your shop?
The lead singer from Lit came in and shopped and I pretended like I didn’t know who he was and checked his ID when he used his credit card. I think he was disappointed that he wasn’t treated like a celebrity.
I only lasted a couple weeks at Hot Topic. I was a little asshole at that age and refused to follow my manager’s rules regarding up selling; I felt it was too corporate and like, not cool, maaaan. I was also rail thin and my dogpile bondage pants kept sliding down when bending over…I was fired for “flashing customers” with neon thongs. 😂
Kay Bee toys during junior year 1997-98; Oshman's Sporting Goods right after high school (late '99).
Some of the clearance stuff we had hidden on the upper shelves at Kay Bee dated back to the 80s. Oshman's had an inline skating track around the store, a virtual golfing area, even a basketball court.
KB was my first job starting the summer between high school and college in 2000. We were the big ToyWorks store in the strip mall on the other side of the street from the mall and by then, we were just the initials KB, but we actually were like family there. Still the best job and best manager I’ve ever had.
Ask just about anyone other than this age group this question and they will look at you like you’re crazy.
Love that scene and Napoleon at the water park
Yes! And we got to be creative with the mannequins and dress them all funky! I always would love when people came in and bought one of the outfits I put together!
A movie theater that was in the mall. Not a bad job for a high school kid. The pay was crap (minimum wage) but they worked around the school schedule since most of the staff were students and free movies were an awesome thing to have at that age.
One interesting thing is that our hours weren't the same as the mall's so there were times most or all of the rest of the mall was closed and we were open. We didn't have our own exterior entrance so they had to leave one of the mall doors unlocked for us. They did have portable barriers they put in place to keep our customers from wandering too far into the closed mall though (we could still get to a few places though using the back hallways). The really weird times were holidays like Thanksgiving (movie theaters are open every day). The entire mall was closed except for us.
The mall I worked in never locked the exterior doors. There were ALWAYS mall-walkers in the dead of night or early in the morning. Black Fridays were wild.
This is crazy to think! My mall opened way early for mall walkers, but overnight? That’s crazy 😂. Side note, the mall walkers were some of the sweetest elderly people I’ve ever met. Formed close bonds to so many!
Working at a mall movie theater was the most fun I’ve ever had at a job. In addition to free movies, free soda, and all the popcorn you can eat, you got to see the film the night before official release (since the manger had to run it through anyway to look for splicing mistakes). And you basically worked for about 30 minutes while all the movies were seating, then you got an hour to just hang out until the movies started letting out. Concessions was a bummer (so many shirts ruined by butter flavoring), but usher and box office were great.
Employee showings were the best, especially for bad movies. Since no one paid to be there if the movie was bad it kind of turned into MST3K and we'd all be making fun of it.
I also did projection work for another theater in the same chain towards the end of my time working for that company. That was my favorite since I didn't have to wear the uniform or deal with customers and got to play around with the 35mm projectors. Biggest downside of that was when we had a film distributed by Technicolor that was ending. They always did overnight shipping and it had to be broken down right after it ended. So I'd have to work pretty late and would be standing there with the makeup table and film cans and start breaking it down as soon as the projector shut off. If it was the last show to end for the night a manager would sometimes let me know the Technicolor guy was already there and was waiting. I'd be like "I can only run it so fast without damaging the film." Other distributors were fine to wait until the next day so I'd just break them down between shows on Friday.
I also worked for one year for another theater when I was in college and needed some extra money (figured since I had experience it'd be an easy job to get, I was right). That was a megaplex though with many more screens so we didn't get quite the same break between sets like I did at the smaller theater in the mall. This one there were slower times but not like at a smaller theater since there were more showtimes. If it was a busy weekend those times were just long enough to clean up a bit and for some people to take breaks.
I too worked at Suncoast. Back in the day they sold porn uncovered. I remember getting yelled at by concerned mothers, as if I was in charge of that decision.
I remember the porn! It was by the counter and dudes would get really weird about buying at it if I was working at the counter. Like bro, go ahead get Playmate of the Apes or Vamps (where tonight heather will be lap dancing for her soul). I so don’t care. But they’d wait until one of the guys came up to check out.
I was still working this job after Best Buy bought them out, and then promptly closed the branch I worked at. We gutted that place when we closed it down. I still have the very nice Polk Audio speakers that were used for the audio system.
Abercrombie and Victoria’s Secret. A&F was actually a pretty good gig in that we were told to ignore customers unless they asked for help. VS was a hellhole of thongs and creeps.
Did you work at Abercrombie when they had the huge wooden doors to the dressing rooms? And if so, did you ever have a problem with people f*cking in them?
I can recall a handful of friends saying that it was a fantasy for them.
Yes, but I never had any freaky stuff going on, just the usual degenerate BS of trying on a PILE of shit and throwing it on the floor. At least pile it on the bench you aholes
The mall was my social media, I had a buddy that worked at Ms. Fields, a friend at Wetzels Pretzels, another at the Limited, and at Sam Goody. It’s where I caught up on everything going on.
I worked at Sam Goody. Pure Moods, Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" and that G'damn MACARANA song were on top. I got a lot of dates working that job!
I tried explaining this to my kids when they saw the popularity of the mall in stranger things. We went to the mall because we were bored. We would walk around d looking for other kids that were bored to. Then we spent the whole day waiting for a rumor about something fun, like a party at so-and-sos house. Then we would all pile into our cars like a horde of bloodthirsty Mongolians and invade the poor saps house party. Good times. Also, streaking the mall was glorious. I am still banned from every sears nation wide.
I miss Sears. It was like the platonic ideal of a department store. It wasn't too fancy, nor was it KMart. It was the essence. So strange that the OG massive catalog company got choked out by online retail.
Ugh I sold shoes for a summer at Sears in the mall. It sucked but then I got hired to work at the malls guest service kiosk and that… well also kinda sucked, but not as bad.
I started at Victoria’s Secret but realized that working 40+ hours a week as a “part-time” employee (read: no benefits) was stupid so when the assistant manager from The Body Shop came to recruit me, I immediately applied and put my two weeks in. Worked there for two years and loved it but decided to take an assistant manager position at Gymboree for like, $3/hr more. Then I got sick of the mall and went into banking which was so much better /s
I’ve worked in healthcare for the past 23 years. It’s very similar to working retail in many ways.
I still miss that whole ticket system.
It was fun flipping through the tickets and their ad hangers. You got to read blurbs about every game AND passively see what was popular (i.e. fun) by how many tickets were actually left.
That and they often had the console boxes right there on the shelf under the tickets, so you could randomly check out the latest ones. It was usually the second-tier consoles though like Jaguars or 3D0s...
In 1997-1998 during my year off between graduation and starting college, I worked at Filene's - a New England-based department store chain that was acquired by Macy's in the mid-2000s.
Never worked at the mall, but I was a host at a Bennigan's in Ocean, NJ (now a tile shop) that was down the street from the mall.
Also, I remember the first item I was aware of from Spencer's Gifts:
https://preview.redd.it/jxpn5216tr5d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6a003c1a7cd0a511e68a7c680ad5ccc7e7f74d4
Indeed...greetings fellow Monmouth County alumnus. Quite the spot back then. I graduated in '99 so late 90s were when most of my mallrat days were, of course in my young adulthood I also shopped there plenty. It's a shell of it's former self now which brings me sadness.
Johnny Rockets, starting at the age of 16. Loved the job. From the 50s nostalgia to having customers flirt with me, getting invited to college parties by coworkers, watching movies at the adjacent theater and this weird sense that having a job made me mature/older.... It's not much now, but the first $20 tip I got that summer was magical.
Brookstone! I sold tempurpedic pillows, electric toothbrushes. golf and BBQ accessories, “personal massagers” and a $3000 massage chair! Also, those automated coin sorters/wrappers sucked.
I worked at a seasonal Xmas store called All Wound Up. They charged exuberant amount of money for toys that would only last a month. After Xmas we discounted stuff by 50%. I was normally not a register person but the manger left and told me to take over. I didn’t really know what I was doing and felt like people were getting ripped off so I gave 80% discounts and sometimes just for free when I was having trouble with the register.
Babbages. We had like a mall mafia going. My friends worked at the movie theater and arcade so I never paid for a movie and I got a ton of free tokens. My friends got discounts on video games.
In the 00's I worked at a kiosk that sold belts with huge buckles and knock off Coach, D&B and LV handbags.
We also sold knock offs of those HIDEOUS quilted paisley Vera Bradley diaper bag looking back packs.
I was right outside of an American Eagle, Aeropostale, and Claire's. The battling music drove me nuts.
Not me personally, but my first gf was the employee equivalent to a mall rat. She started working at Claire's boutique then switched to the Gap for a bit and ended up as a shift manager for PacSun before finally graduating to a cashier at Lowes.
‘Late 90s I worked at Herbergers. Head of juniors for a bit, then ran their Estée Lauder counter for a while. Eventually was offered management position of Vanity late 2000. Ran it until two weeks before my first child was born, beginning of 2003. They cried when I decided to quit, instead of come back from maternity leave lol.
I worked for The Bon Marche. It was a great gig, they hired me at 15 even though I couldn't work the register until I was 18. I folded, cleaned the fitting rooms and sometimes helped with Loss Prevention because no one suspects a little girl of working for security.
I got a couple of friends hired to work the juniors section (I was primarily in men's) and we independently came up with a system to track items going in/coming out of the fitting rooms. I moved to California for uni and was amazed to see that their department stores had also similar systems.
The Body Shop…no not the fancy bath item place, but the 579 knockoff clothing store place. I became an excellent numerical typer as there were no skus to scan, we still took paper checks and could also call Mom to verify the credit card. The mall was still fun then, everyone wanted to work at The Gap.
I worked at The Great Train Store where we sold model trains and trained theme gifts. Our target demographic were boys under four, men over seventy and people buying things for those two groups. In 1999 Cindi Lauper came in and bought some Thomas figures for her son. It was awesome.
The Warner Bros. Studio Store, it was a pretty fun job except for having to clean out the inside of Marvin the Martian’s spaceship (kids pee’d and poo’d in there)
Banana Republic. I needed to build a collection of "professional, grown-up, work clothes" and if you worked there you got a little discount. I didn't fit their vibe (I'm typically a jeans and T-shirt/funky patterned button down guy) so they kept me in the stock room, lol. Got some nice clothes to go on interviews with though!
I worked at the arcade, of course. There was never a reason for a person to work there. The games took quarters, not tokens. There were two change machines; one in the front and one in the back. The manager told me I couldn't wear my Jnco jeans. I was 19, what did I care? I got fired for wearing my favorite jeans and looking awesome.
I worked at CompUSA in our local town but I did have a six month stint at the mall working for Foot Locker in the late 90s, a friend of mine got me to work there. It was pretty cool.
I'm early GenX and worked at a leather clothing store called "Jekyll's Hide" at the Woodbridge Mall in NJ. We sold all kinds of things, from high-end lambskin jackets to biker jackets and accessories. I distinctly remember we sold feather earrings (remember those?) from a vendor called "Mother Plucker". Some customers would come in and sniff the jackets and commented on how good they smelled. Summer was so slow we resorted to super gluing a quarter to the terrazzo floor in front and watching people try to pick it up. Always some smartass with a knife that would pry it up.
Our mall had a Dollar Tree, I worked there in '99 I think it was. I had a friend who worked at Sears at the same mall, I always thought his job was more fun as he sold computers.
I live in Atlantic Canada and we only got Spencer's in 2015(ish) I opened the store in moncton and was a manager in a different city. Yes the store was wild, but it was super fun to work there!
Never worked in a mall but my buddy use to work in Foot Locker and I would go hang out with him. I went to a huge local mall a few weeks ago and barely recognized any of the stores BUT they still had a Spencers lol
I mean, who really bought their dildos there? It seemed like a marketing gimmick more than anything. Like, who buys something to put into one or more bodily orifices from a place that sold lava lamps and Nightmare Before Christmas sweaters?
Please guess.
Bro was waiting 12 years for this moment. Edit: math
Yeah, 12 years ago was 1988; too young to be working.
‘88 kid checking in here, 12 years ago was 1997 get your math right
😈
Me too, where one of my shift tasks was to play with toys in front of the store (and my coworkers hid walkie-talkies around the store to scare kids).
Really miss those 1:28 scale die cast model cars
Olive Garden.
ME TOO! I oddly loved that job, it was a lot of fun.
Hot Topic 99’-00’. What a time to be “alternative “.
Hot Topic 99 - 2002! I still have those tripp pants someplace lol.
These are my exact HT years too!
I did not work in a Hot Topic but I did desperately yearn for the approval of any and all HT employees lol
I can still fold a beautiful t-shirt with a clipboard.
Hot Topic '99 🧷🦇🤘
That was PEAK Hot Topic; with the gates and the red lamps hanging from the ceiling!
Also former Hot "Pocket" employee. We had random names for all of the shops- Abercrombie and Bitch, Wet Slut (Wet Seal), etc. It was never dull whilst working there. What's your wildest story or favorite memory from your shop?
The lead singer from Lit came in and shopped and I pretended like I didn’t know who he was and checked his ID when he used his credit card. I think he was disappointed that he wasn’t treated like a celebrity.
I only lasted a couple weeks at Hot Topic. I was a little asshole at that age and refused to follow my manager’s rules regarding up selling; I felt it was too corporate and like, not cool, maaaan. I was also rail thin and my dogpile bondage pants kept sliding down when bending over…I was fired for “flashing customers” with neon thongs. 😂
Kay Bee toys during junior year 1997-98; Oshman's Sporting Goods right after high school (late '99). Some of the clearance stuff we had hidden on the upper shelves at Kay Bee dated back to the 80s. Oshman's had an inline skating track around the store, a virtual golfing area, even a basketball court.
We’re like family.
KB was my first job starting the summer between high school and college in 2000. We were the big ToyWorks store in the strip mall on the other side of the street from the mall and by then, we were just the initials KB, but we actually were like family there. Still the best job and best manager I’ve ever had.
I definitely bought clearance Atari 2600 games at Kay Bee in the mid 90s.
Great memories shopping at Kay Bee as a kid.
The KayBee toys clearance PC pile had some amazing nuggets in it.
You worked at Oshman’s? Was that before or after it was totally ravaged by Genghis Khan?
After, but we were still Excellent to every customer.
That’s most non-heinous, party on dude!
Ask just about anyone other than this age group this question and they will look at you like you’re crazy. Love that scene and Napoleon at the water park
I worked at Delia*s! It was the best!!!
They had actual stores??? I thought it was just a catalog.
Yes! And we got to be creative with the mannequins and dress them all funky! I always would love when people came in and bought one of the outfits I put together!
A movie theater that was in the mall. Not a bad job for a high school kid. The pay was crap (minimum wage) but they worked around the school schedule since most of the staff were students and free movies were an awesome thing to have at that age. One interesting thing is that our hours weren't the same as the mall's so there were times most or all of the rest of the mall was closed and we were open. We didn't have our own exterior entrance so they had to leave one of the mall doors unlocked for us. They did have portable barriers they put in place to keep our customers from wandering too far into the closed mall though (we could still get to a few places though using the back hallways). The really weird times were holidays like Thanksgiving (movie theaters are open every day). The entire mall was closed except for us.
The mall I worked in never locked the exterior doors. There were ALWAYS mall-walkers in the dead of night or early in the morning. Black Fridays were wild.
This is crazy to think! My mall opened way early for mall walkers, but overnight? That’s crazy 😂. Side note, the mall walkers were some of the sweetest elderly people I’ve ever met. Formed close bonds to so many!
Remember the "Mall Walkers" shoes?
Working at a mall movie theater was the most fun I’ve ever had at a job. In addition to free movies, free soda, and all the popcorn you can eat, you got to see the film the night before official release (since the manger had to run it through anyway to look for splicing mistakes). And you basically worked for about 30 minutes while all the movies were seating, then you got an hour to just hang out until the movies started letting out. Concessions was a bummer (so many shirts ruined by butter flavoring), but usher and box office were great.
Employee showings were the best, especially for bad movies. Since no one paid to be there if the movie was bad it kind of turned into MST3K and we'd all be making fun of it. I also did projection work for another theater in the same chain towards the end of my time working for that company. That was my favorite since I didn't have to wear the uniform or deal with customers and got to play around with the 35mm projectors. Biggest downside of that was when we had a film distributed by Technicolor that was ending. They always did overnight shipping and it had to be broken down right after it ended. So I'd have to work pretty late and would be standing there with the makeup table and film cans and start breaking it down as soon as the projector shut off. If it was the last show to end for the night a manager would sometimes let me know the Technicolor guy was already there and was waiting. I'd be like "I can only run it so fast without damaging the film." Other distributors were fine to wait until the next day so I'd just break them down between shows on Friday. I also worked for one year for another theater when I was in college and needed some extra money (figured since I had experience it'd be an easy job to get, I was right). That was a megaplex though with many more screens so we didn't get quite the same break between sets like I did at the smaller theater in the mall. This one there were slower times but not like at a smaller theater since there were more showtimes. If it was a busy weekend those times were just long enough to clean up a bit and for some people to take breaks.
I worked at Suncoast Video and for so many reasons, it was my favorite job I’ve ever had.
I miss the fresh VHS smell of Suncoast with my entire being.
I too worked at Suncoast. Back in the day they sold porn uncovered. I remember getting yelled at by concerned mothers, as if I was in charge of that decision.
I remember the porn! It was by the counter and dudes would get really weird about buying at it if I was working at the counter. Like bro, go ahead get Playmate of the Apes or Vamps (where tonight heather will be lap dancing for her soul). I so don’t care. But they’d wait until one of the guys came up to check out.
I wanted a job at Suncoast or Babbages so badly.
Hello from Sam Goody, across the 'mall street'!
One of those stores I can close my eyes and be right back in the middle of multiple locations.
I was still working this job after Best Buy bought them out, and then promptly closed the branch I worked at. We gutted that place when we closed it down. I still have the very nice Polk Audio speakers that were used for the audio system.
Walden Books.
B. Dalton for me.
B. Dalton here too
Borders!
Abercrombie and Victoria’s Secret. A&F was actually a pretty good gig in that we were told to ignore customers unless they asked for help. VS was a hellhole of thongs and creeps.
Did you work at Abercrombie when they had the huge wooden doors to the dressing rooms? And if so, did you ever have a problem with people f*cking in them? I can recall a handful of friends saying that it was a fantasy for them.
Yes, but I never had any freaky stuff going on, just the usual degenerate BS of trying on a PILE of shit and throwing it on the floor. At least pile it on the bench you aholes
VS alumnus here too. Always wash your clothes immediately after purchase, People.
Contempo Casuals!
The mall was my social media, I had a buddy that worked at Ms. Fields, a friend at Wetzels Pretzels, another at the Limited, and at Sam Goody. It’s where I caught up on everything going on.
Yes! Even better when your breaks aligned and you could meet at the food court.
I worked at Sam Goody. Pure Moods, Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" and that G'damn MACARANA song were on top. I got a lot of dates working that job!
Pure Moods will always be the shit
I tried explaining this to my kids when they saw the popularity of the mall in stranger things. We went to the mall because we were bored. We would walk around d looking for other kids that were bored to. Then we spent the whole day waiting for a rumor about something fun, like a party at so-and-sos house. Then we would all pile into our cars like a horde of bloodthirsty Mongolians and invade the poor saps house party. Good times. Also, streaking the mall was glorious. I am still banned from every sears nation wide.
I miss The Limited 😔
I worked at a Dillard’s for most of the 90’s and there was Dillard’s gossip and mall gossip. The mall gossip was always better, well almost always.
Sears. I sold electronics and appliances on commission.
Sears in the stock room and package pick-up.
I miss Sears. It was like the platonic ideal of a department store. It wasn't too fancy, nor was it KMart. It was the essence. So strange that the OG massive catalog company got choked out by online retail.
Ugh I sold shoes for a summer at Sears in the mall. It sucked but then I got hired to work at the malls guest service kiosk and that… well also kinda sucked, but not as bad.
Orange Julius! I specifically applied there so I could get free Juliuses, they were my FAVORITE.
I started at Victoria’s Secret but realized that working 40+ hours a week as a “part-time” employee (read: no benefits) was stupid so when the assistant manager from The Body Shop came to recruit me, I immediately applied and put my two weeks in. Worked there for two years and loved it but decided to take an assistant manager position at Gymboree for like, $3/hr more. Then I got sick of the mall and went into banking which was so much better /s I’ve worked in healthcare for the past 23 years. It’s very similar to working retail in many ways.
Toys r us, for one holiday season, it was busy and a bunch of youngsters so we had fun. I remember the managers being jerks tho
I remember their ticket system when you wanted to buy a console or game. Then you had to wait at the window. I guess it was a Loss Prevention thing.
I still miss that whole ticket system. It was fun flipping through the tickets and their ad hangers. You got to read blurbs about every game AND passively see what was popular (i.e. fun) by how many tickets were actually left. That and they often had the console boxes right there on the shelf under the tickets, so you could randomly check out the latest ones. It was usually the second-tier consoles though like Jaguars or 3D0s...
I worked in TRU’s apparel section for one holiday season - easiest gig in the world.
I worked at Ritz Camera doing 1hr photo processing and some sales in the Glendale Mall. It was… pretty awful
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In 1997-1998 during my year off between graduation and starting college, I worked at Filene's - a New England-based department store chain that was acquired by Macy's in the mid-2000s.
Filene's Basement was the only reason I was able to afford suits at my first job. I used to dig thru those bins! That's a good memory somehow :)
Camelot Music
Camelot gang unite! (Or not; Idk how this works lol...) But yeah, also Camelot here which, for me as a huge music fan, was fucking awesome. :)
Radioshack, at a remote cell-phone booth at the other end of the mall from the actual store during the holidays.
Never worked at the mall, but I was a host at a Bennigan's in Ocean, NJ (now a tile shop) that was down the street from the mall. Also, I remember the first item I was aware of from Spencer's Gifts: https://preview.redd.it/jxpn5216tr5d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6a003c1a7cd0a511e68a7c680ad5ccc7e7f74d4
Fellow New Jersey kid here. We had a Bennigan’s in Wayne and I used to love going to that place as a kid
https://preview.redd.it/y1jaajog4u5d1.jpeg?width=639&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=667411ca12dda75fa4aab7c711ea9ed5383853e5
Fuckin Willowbrook Mall hells yes.
Was it Monmouth Mall? That's where I worked and spent my formative teen years. Lol
Indeed...greetings fellow Monmouth County alumnus. Quite the spot back then. I graduated in '99 so late 90s were when most of my mallrat days were, of course in my young adulthood I also shopped there plenty. It's a shell of it's former self now which brings me sadness.
Class of 2000 here! I haven't been back in nearly 20 years but I heard about them tearing it down. So many memories there, it really makes me sad.
Structure! My headset was always falling off my face.
Sam Goody
Sam Goody team! Was always fun to get those early promo CDs
Disc Jockey!
Johnny Rockets, starting at the age of 16. Loved the job. From the 50s nostalgia to having customers flirt with me, getting invited to college parties by coworkers, watching movies at the adjacent theater and this weird sense that having a job made me mature/older.... It's not much now, but the first $20 tip I got that summer was magical.
B. Dalton Books
Same here. Loved the Barnes and Noble discount that came with it, plus any stripped books that looked interesting would end up in my bag home.
Where? The Wherehouse (Music)!
Quiznos then Toys R'Us
Service merchandise, in the warehouse dungeon
Forgot about Service Merchandise! Layaway heaven for my trashy parents.
Sanrio Surprise! 1996 or 1997 or both, definitely xmas holiday time.
Brookstone! I sold tempurpedic pillows, electric toothbrushes. golf and BBQ accessories, “personal massagers” and a $3000 massage chair! Also, those automated coin sorters/wrappers sucked.
The Nature Company! (Before it was bought out to become the Discovery Channel Store.)
I worked at a waterpark. No mall for me.
I worked at a seasonal Xmas store called All Wound Up. They charged exuberant amount of money for toys that would only last a month. After Xmas we discounted stuff by 50%. I was normally not a register person but the manger left and told me to take over. I didn’t really know what I was doing and felt like people were getting ripped off so I gave 80% discounts and sometimes just for free when I was having trouble with the register.
Body shop
Sears in the Juniors department (awful) and Pac Sun when it was still called Pacific Sunwear.
Bath and Body Works, Sbarro's Pizza, and Victoria's Secret.
I tried for both Deb & Claire’s the second I turned 16, but no luck.
Hollywood Video! Technically not the mall, but we were across the street from it. And it suffered the same fate 😔
Electronics Boutique at Forest Fair Mall, so I got myself a dead and gone two-for.
Babbages. We had like a mall mafia going. My friends worked at the movie theater and arcade so I never paid for a movie and I got a ton of free tokens. My friends got discounts on video games.
Natural Wonders in 97 and Toys R Us in 98 (the dreaded year of the Furby)
In the 00's I worked at a kiosk that sold belts with huge buckles and knock off Coach, D&B and LV handbags. We also sold knock offs of those HIDEOUS quilted paisley Vera Bradley diaper bag looking back packs. I was right outside of an American Eagle, Aeropostale, and Claire's. The battling music drove me nuts.
Peak people watching position!
My fave was overhearing people lie on the phone about where they were. It was constant.
I worked at the food court at Target. I learned a lot but it put me off working food related jobs for a long time too.
Baskin Robbins
Carmike 8 theaters baybeeee
Piercing Pagoda, Dillard’s, Sears, and a couple of smaller companies long since out of business.
Sunglass Hut.
Electronics Boutique. Good times.
I worked at Spencer’s! It actually wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be and I only made $5.15 an hour but I got a pretty good employee discount.
At a small chain arcade. It was across from a Subway and we would barter free game play for food.
5-7-9. Looking back as an adult, that was a terrible store.
Not me personally, but my first gf was the employee equivalent to a mall rat. She started working at Claire's boutique then switched to the Gap for a bit and ended up as a shift manager for PacSun before finally graduating to a cashier at Lowes.
The Gap
Friendlys!
Def worked at Friendly’s, but it wasn’t in a mall. They had the best damn peanut butter ice cream topping tho…
https://preview.redd.it/1oflut185u5d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=677a678bcc70c6c628f1b509360cc073fedd1190
B. Dalton books. Great times. I still put “Senior Bookseller” on my resume.
Natural Wonders.
Pretzel Time!
County Seat.
I loved that store!
Media Play. It was one of the two anchors of a very small indoor mall, the other one being CompUSA.
[удалено]
I worked at Old Navy and was deputized with making sure the 3/4 shorts and tech vests stayed well stocked.
Glamor Shots!! lol
Party in the front, porno in the back
Gadzooks
Anchor Blue
Good ol Millers Outpost Edit: That Pimp cologne 🤣
Wicks 'N' Sticks
Brookstone. Hated it to say the least.
Fast Forward
Waccamaw
I did 6 months at Spencer’s and then managed Hot Topic’s from 1999-2009. It was honestly a blast and I made some life long friends doing it.
Things Remembered and Musicland.
I remember looking at sex toys in the very back with my girlfriend in 10th grade (97/98)
Marshall Fields and Fossil. Worked 1 day a week at Fossil for that sweet sweet discount.
Mervyns junior dept summer 97, Sears drapes dept summer 98, Foleys junior dept in 99/2000 😮💨
Cinnabon.
I worked at Sears 1995-1998.
https://preview.redd.it/ftb7p4t6ks5d1.jpeg?width=268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=90056a8a5c5659b076f77fd49774c5df180074c3
We still have a Spencers here lol
The Wall! Alphabetizing CD’s were my specialty hahah
Zumiez! Lol
Not a store, but I worked at a General Cinema movie theater inside the mall.
I sure do miss those penis shaped mints
‘Late 90s I worked at Herbergers. Head of juniors for a bit, then ran their Estée Lauder counter for a while. Eventually was offered management position of Vanity late 2000. Ran it until two weeks before my first child was born, beginning of 2003. They cried when I decided to quit, instead of come back from maternity leave lol.
I worked for The Bon Marche. It was a great gig, they hired me at 15 even though I couldn't work the register until I was 18. I folded, cleaned the fitting rooms and sometimes helped with Loss Prevention because no one suspects a little girl of working for security. I got a couple of friends hired to work the juniors section (I was primarily in men's) and we independently came up with a system to track items going in/coming out of the fitting rooms. I moved to California for uni and was amazed to see that their department stores had also similar systems.
KB Toys!
Babbage's/Gamestop. I survived the PS2 launch, it was hell.
The Gap
The Body Shop…no not the fancy bath item place, but the 579 knockoff clothing store place. I became an excellent numerical typer as there were no skus to scan, we still took paper checks and could also call Mom to verify the credit card. The mall was still fun then, everyone wanted to work at The Gap.
I worked at The Great Train Store where we sold model trains and trained theme gifts. Our target demographic were boys under four, men over seventy and people buying things for those two groups. In 1999 Cindi Lauper came in and bought some Thomas figures for her son. It was awesome.
Waldenbooks, Sears, Ritz Camera, Kay Bee
More of a strip mall, but PlayCo Toys. I was 15 and the store manager was 19, and employees just smoked weed in the Backroom lol Ah the 90s
FuncoLand! I worked there till 2000, right before they became part of GameStop.
The Warner Bros. Studio Store, it was a pretty fun job except for having to clean out the inside of Marvin the Martian’s spaceship (kids pee’d and poo’d in there)
Friendly's Ice Cream Shop!
The Body Shop, employee discount on all the dewberry you can handle!
Suncoast Video 98 - 99 General Cinemas 99 - 01 Then a couple years out of the mall at BBV, before a final year and a bit at a B. Dalton
Rand McNally. Anyone remember their retail stores?
Number 1 seller,1994: Personal "Massage Wand". Source: worked PT at Spencers and Sbarro's, in the same mall.
Lmao my 45 year old friend still working there 😂
Crabtree and Evelyn, Luciano's Pizza
No gadzooks love?
Banana Republic. I needed to build a collection of "professional, grown-up, work clothes" and if you worked there you got a little discount. I didn't fit their vibe (I'm typically a jeans and T-shirt/funky patterned button down guy) so they kept me in the stock room, lol. Got some nice clothes to go on interviews with though!
I worked at the arcade, of course. There was never a reason for a person to work there. The games took quarters, not tokens. There were two change machines; one in the front and one in the back. The manager told me I couldn't wear my Jnco jeans. I was 19, what did I care? I got fired for wearing my favorite jeans and looking awesome.
Pacific Sunwear from 96-99. Fun place when it was still a skate and surf store.
I worked at CompUSA in our local town but I did have a six month stint at the mall working for Foot Locker in the late 90s, a friend of mine got me to work there. It was pretty cool.
JC Penny
Waldenbooks, FuncoLand, and RadioShack.
I'm early GenX and worked at a leather clothing store called "Jekyll's Hide" at the Woodbridge Mall in NJ. We sold all kinds of things, from high-end lambskin jackets to biker jackets and accessories. I distinctly remember we sold feather earrings (remember those?) from a vendor called "Mother Plucker". Some customers would come in and sniff the jackets and commented on how good they smelled. Summer was so slow we resorted to super gluing a quarter to the terrazzo floor in front and watching people try to pick it up. Always some smartass with a knife that would pry it up.
Software Etc. The manager was a cool guy who hired all of us weird nerds.
Radio Shack!
Spencer's...and I sold Glow-in-the Dark Erotic dice to an Amish couple. Perfect for a couple with no electricity.
 Auntie Anne’s
I can smell this picture
Our mall had a Dollar Tree, I worked there in '99 I think it was. I had a friend who worked at Sears at the same mall, I always thought his job was more fun as he sold computers.
I live in Atlantic Canada and we only got Spencer's in 2015(ish) I opened the store in moncton and was a manager in a different city. Yes the store was wild, but it was super fun to work there!
World of Science! One of my favorite jobs at one of my favorite stores! Freshman year college, Xmas season 1996.
Sam Goody!
TSX
I browsed too far as an early teen into "The IT Store" and some clerk told me to leave that section of the store.
Never worked in a mall but my buddy use to work in Foot Locker and I would go hang out with him. I went to a huge local mall a few weeks ago and barely recognized any of the stores BUT they still had a Spencers lol
Bath and Body Works for 1 day. No thank you.
I mean, who really bought their dildos there? It seemed like a marketing gimmick more than anything. Like, who buys something to put into one or more bodily orifices from a place that sold lava lamps and Nightmare Before Christmas sweaters?
I worked at the Wall (later bought by FYE) for a summer. I ended up switching to waiting tables instead - retail wasn't for me.