Post by Sephiroth on Feb 14, 2013 22:36:48 GMT -5
As I read stories of the slow demise of JCPenney, I cannot help but wonder, what would Skip Say? You see, up until last year I spent several of the worst years of my life working in a JCPenney store, and in the employee lunch area there was a wall sized illustration that portrayed a JCPenney store and offered employee's advice on how to deal with various situations.
The first thing that always struck me about this mural was that the store it portrayed was apparently located in a REALLY crappy neighborhood, because every single customer was trying to steal something. One panel showed a young lady blushing bashfully as she was caught attempting to stuff a bra into her purse; now I did catch a shoplifter or two during my years in the store, but I don't recall blushing being one of their reactions to being caught. Another panel showed a a friendly looking JCPenney associate (that is what we had to call ourselves) offering an alarmed looking customer help as he ran toward the doors holding a piece of merchandise in his hand. Another panel was actually rather frightening, because it portrayed a SERIOUSLY cheesed off looking man approaching a jewelry counter where an associate was showing some jewelry to another customer-the upset looking fellow was asking "Can I see that diamond?" while the associate behind the counter looked on with an unmistakably alarmed look on her face. Between the grimace the supposed customer was wearing and the way his hands were jammed into his pockets, it was pretty obvious this guy was about to pull a gun and stick the poor girl up.
However, the part that was the most annoying about this mural was the frequent appearances of a character called "Skip." First of all, Skip was either a mad scientist's cloning project, or he had the mutant power to duplicate himself, because he appeared in several different locations throughout this store, wearing a different outfit each time. What's more, Skip was very obviously out of his mind because he delivered advice on how to handle shoplifters and potential armed robbers with the most demented, bug eyed smile that I could imagine this side of Heath Ledger as The Joker, and he delivered this sage wisdom with incredible enthusiasm, as if fending off a man about to pull a pistol was the true highlight of his life. Skip was also evidently the victim of some sort of body-morphing disease, because in each appearance he made his head got progressively bigger and his body got progressively smaller-or vice versa, depending on how you were reading it.
So yeah, as JCPenney slides slowly into nonexistence, I can't help but imagine how much better the former retail giants existence would be if they had Skip at the helm.
The first thing that always struck me about this mural was that the store it portrayed was apparently located in a REALLY crappy neighborhood, because every single customer was trying to steal something. One panel showed a young lady blushing bashfully as she was caught attempting to stuff a bra into her purse; now I did catch a shoplifter or two during my years in the store, but I don't recall blushing being one of their reactions to being caught. Another panel showed a a friendly looking JCPenney associate (that is what we had to call ourselves) offering an alarmed looking customer help as he ran toward the doors holding a piece of merchandise in his hand. Another panel was actually rather frightening, because it portrayed a SERIOUSLY cheesed off looking man approaching a jewelry counter where an associate was showing some jewelry to another customer-the upset looking fellow was asking "Can I see that diamond?" while the associate behind the counter looked on with an unmistakably alarmed look on her face. Between the grimace the supposed customer was wearing and the way his hands were jammed into his pockets, it was pretty obvious this guy was about to pull a gun and stick the poor girl up.
However, the part that was the most annoying about this mural was the frequent appearances of a character called "Skip." First of all, Skip was either a mad scientist's cloning project, or he had the mutant power to duplicate himself, because he appeared in several different locations throughout this store, wearing a different outfit each time. What's more, Skip was very obviously out of his mind because he delivered advice on how to handle shoplifters and potential armed robbers with the most demented, bug eyed smile that I could imagine this side of Heath Ledger as The Joker, and he delivered this sage wisdom with incredible enthusiasm, as if fending off a man about to pull a pistol was the true highlight of his life. Skip was also evidently the victim of some sort of body-morphing disease, because in each appearance he made his head got progressively bigger and his body got progressively smaller-or vice versa, depending on how you were reading it.
So yeah, as JCPenney slides slowly into nonexistence, I can't help but imagine how much better the former retail giants existence would be if they had Skip at the helm.
