A Hollister Holiday Story

My oldest princess has a part time job at the local mall, working at Hollister. She thinks she is so cool! Well, she did . Until she realized that the job isn't all that she thought it would be. Glamor and popularity and excessive coolness aside.... it's just not her dream job after all.

Katie was working one of her 4 hr shifts recently during the Christmas shopping rush.... and this is how her story goes:

She had been working for over 2 hours and she was feeling thirsty but it wasn't her break time yet. The store was packed with people, mostly crabby moms. (Boy, I can relate to that, two seconds in that store and I'm a crab and a half!) Katie was working in Betty's One - that means the first room of girls clothing.

One mom came up to her and was asking her something about a shirt. She needed the same shirt in a different size or something like that. Katie said that the lady just kept talking and talking and talking. Katie couldn't understand her. My poor little princess said that the lady was in her face just talking and nothing made sense to Katie - she was speaking English though. Katie said "I was just staring at her for the longest time and I couldn't understand or say anything - I just stared at her".

Oh my. Can you imagine what this poor frustrated mom was thinking at this point?

Katie's story continues.... The lady was talking and talking about the shirt, waving the shirt around, and then she went blurry. That's all Katie remembers. Then she woke up on the floor with a crowd hovering over her and her manager saying "KATIE KATIE KATIE KATIE!" She had herself a nice little seizure just then.

They got her up and moved her to the back room and let her lay on a boxes of sweatshirts, got her some water and asked her if she was ok. Well, she doesn't like to worry people, so she said she was just fine and she just needed to lay there a few minutes. So, that's what she did. Drank the water and rested for a while.

By this time she had an hour left of her shift and she was still feeling kinda goofy. Her manager said she could sit in the chair in the Betty's One room and drink her water for the rest of her shift, so that's what she did. Nice guy, huh? Did he call an ambulance? No. Did he hide her in the back room where she couldn't get any help if she needed it? Yes. Jerk. He better stay far far away from me, cuz I have nothing nice to say to the guy. You'd think he'd want to cover his ass for liability anyway. She said she folded a few pairs of jeans that were next to the chair so that she earned her hour of minimum wage.

Yes, minimum wage. The kid has worked there for a year and they don't give raises.

Then, she drove home. I know! Crazy kid!!! When she got home she was so pale and she looked exhausted. I knew as soon as I saw her that something was really wrong. Gave her some OJ and she told me how the lady was talking to her, she fainted, had a seizure and finished her shift and drove home. I made her promise me to call me for a ride or get a ride home from someone if ever this happens again. Yeah Yeah, she says. So I told her you could hurt someone else - maybe a family with little children. Oh! Well, ok. She promised then. She doesn't want to hurt someone else by accident. I also told her she didn't need to finish that shift, but she said she still needed to sit for a while so it was ok.

Oh my goodness.

Can you just imagine this mom trying to communicate with my Katie, who is staring off into space and non-responsive and then she just drops like a rock to the floor? That poor woman. Sounds like she was already having a difficult shopping day and then Katie faints at her feet.

My little princess has low blood pressure and has a history of occasional fainting followed by a seizure. It hasn't happened in quite a while so I figured she had grown out of it. I guess not. Sugar brings her around again as does fluids. I've taken her to see several docs and nobody could ever come up with anything wrong. They all say "it was probably a one time fluke". This one-time-fluke happens a couple times a year though. She's been having mild seizures since age 6 or 7, fainting since age 10 and that's when the convulsive seizures began too. In her younger years a seizure just looked like she had zoned out. We thought she was a daydreamer. She can feel it coming but was ignoring the signs since she was working and knew she had a break coming up she could get something sugary to drink then. But, she didn't make it till break time.

I think she was reminded of the urgent need to listen to her body when its talking to her. Poor girl. I cannot believe she didn't smack her head when she fell in that cluttered store. Have you ever been in there? I hate that store - I come out with shin bruises from their racks and a massive headache from the music, not to mention the poisonous toxic thick perfume in the air. I don't know how my daughter can stand to go in there and spend 4 hours. Blech!

She's looking for a better job - I wish she'd look harder.