When I tell people I spent a chunk of my early 20s working at a hipster clothing retailer infamous for salacious ads and sexual assault allegations, I’m usually met with scandalised interest. I imagine what they imagine: a harshly lit harem of flesh and vice, where young women were offered up on an altar of mid-priced T-shirts.
We had our moments. An occasional visiting corporate lackey would inevitably grind up against one of us while checking a window display. A weekly caller would gasp and choke while asking if we sold women’s underwear. A co-worker inquired whether I’d be interested in going on dates with rich, interesting men for money. It was impossible to ignore the reputation of our store. But it was the 2010s, a strangely liminal time of sexual and social awakening. When we could roll our eyes at the problematic gender politics of our advertisements while never considering wearing a bra to work.
But the truth is, despite the global reputation, our little store in Melbourne was one of the most positive workplaces of my life.
The store was divided into two tribes: shop assistants – mostly doe-eyed art girls – and backstock workers – mostly charming burnout skaters. While the shop assistants got the most attention and lustful public glares, the weed-scented heart of the store was the backstock room.
I was a rare breed: a shop assistant who transitioned to a backstock role, mostly because I couldn’t use a cash register properly.
Despite technically being a demotion, the move made me the envy of the shop assistants. In backstock we’d listen to music while folding T-shirts and debating Simpsons lore like greasy-haired scholars.
After hours we drove around listening to music, slept in each other’s beds, held pizza parties, dated friends of friends, occasionally kissed and sometimes fell in love.
Memories of this time seem to exist in an endless summer, where it was always warm twilight at closing time. Even when winter rain flooded through the roof and we mopped up dirty puddles with damaged clearance stock. It felt less like a sexy party and more like wholesome summer camp.
Central to this group was our boss, who was barely 30 but held the role of paternal authority. He guided our rambling crew of bleary-eyed adult children through the basic requirements of our jobs.
He ran a tight ship. We might have smelled like cheap wine but we worked hard, dutifully memorising our SKU codes and ensuring the dickheads of Melbourne were kept in a steady supply of lamé leggings.
After about two years of this heavenly haze, he pulled me aside. Ensconced in piles of chunky acrylic knits, he broke the news: “You have to quit.”
I was shocked. Yes, I was famously bad at my job. But his directive wasn’t based on my shirt-folding incompetence.
The problem was I loved the job so much I’d never leave.
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He knew I wanted to be a writer. Occasionally I’d pick up a passing freelance gig or have a submission accepted. But in the time I’d been working happily at the store, my career had made little progress.
With this context, he made something clear that I’d been too afraid to admit to myself: this fantasy life was stopping me from beginning my real one.
He pointed out that instead of being satisfied, I was satiated. I had just enough fun to keep me ticking along day after day. This was, he stressed, exactly the kind of job that could trap you.
It was a tough lesson, and one I didn’t receive immediately. But slinking away, I reflected on how little I’d actually written. How many days were full of work I liked but hardly lived for.
Within a month, I’d applied for an internship that would lead to the job that would shape the rest of my 20s and kickstart my life as a professional writer. It often made me stressed, angry and exhausted, but it also expanded my abilities and sense of self.
Fifteen years and many jobs and careers later, I still return to that advice. It’s not that I don’t want to feel comfortable and happy. Rather, I’m aware of the sticky allure of “good enough”. A job, relationship, situation that isn’t actively bad, but isn’t what I truly want or deserve.
Although, even now, nothing relaxes me like folding a T-shirt.
