I am sad to see that Mervyn's is going out of business. There is one pair of black shoes that is the Mervyn's brand and I love them. I must have bought them 5 times in a row. They are my standby shoes. Mervyn's is also a stop on our day-after-Christmas shopping tradition. Plus I still know alot of people that work there that will be out of their job. Goodbye, Sprockets, Hillard and Hanson, Cheetah and Ellemeno.
When I started at Mervyn's the big thing was to make it to become a "Blue Badge". To be a Blue Badge you basically had to be trusted to approve returns and large purchases. (They all had to be signed) A Blue Badge associate was identified by a thin blue strip under their name on their name badge. The day I became a Blue Badge I thought I was so awesome, especially since I made Blue Badge before most of the Christmas hires...and I was only 16. ;)
Everyone loved to be assigned to work "Stock". First if you were assigned to stock you were able to wear jeans. Second you worked in the back stockrooms and basically by yourself. In Sportswear we rotated the stock person but I remember in the men's department they always had the same stock person. Whenever I was the stock person I reorganized the areas. That was great!
The only thing that could beat out being a Blue Badge and working stock was being assigned to Fine Jewelry. The keys for Fine Jewelry had one of those little rubber key bands that you could use to put the keys on your arm or wrist. So not only were you in charge of the keys you got to publicly display the keys proudly on your arm so that everyone could see you had them. I loved responded to "Customer Service, Fine Jewelry". That was awesome. So with that I give this final Mervyn's Haiku:
I rocked as Blue Badge
Jeans was best dress for Stock Room
Nothing beat the keys
