Ah, Limited Too. The only place in the mall a preteen could get bedazzled jeans AND a Webkinz all in one place. From third grade through eighth grade (okay, maybe ninth), Limited Too was my scene. All my clothes bared the little Hawaiian flower logo embroidered in the corner, and I never went anywhere without my sequin pleather purse. I was all Limited Too, all the time, so in high school when it came time to apply for a job, I decided to give my nostalgic side a hug and apply to work at Justice, the now bankrupt Limited Too’s replacement.
I worked at Justice from the beginning of my junior year to right before I left for college. It wasn’t the best job, but it wasn’t the worst either.
First, there’s the obvious: Justice is pink. There’s also glitter on everything. Even if something doesn’t look glittery from afar, when you get up close, you can see there is literal glitter in the seam threads. Thanks to Justice, I started keeping a lint roller in my purse to manage the “constantly covered in glitter” problem. And the constant, super loud One Direction and Demi Lovato music gets pretty old after just a few minutes.
Since Justice is every tween’s favorite store, it gets pretty crowded. The hard part is that the little girls want everything (ESPECIALLY the punny graphic tees or impractical bedazzled shoes), but it’s the moms that pay. You have to cater to both the parent’s needs and the little girl’s, and most of the time, those don’t match up, making customer service hard.
Plus, no parent wants to spend their Saturday afternoon in a super loud, super pink children’s store. There’s always a row of dads standing outside, and a lot of stressed out, slightly cranky moms inside. That was the worst part.
Thanks to how jam packed the store always was, most of the time I felt pretty miserable while I worked. But there were always small moments that brightened my day. First of all, all the clothes at Justice have an inspirational quote embroidered on the tag. Most of the time kids don’t notice, but every now and then, I’d hear a little girl say, “Mom, this shirt says “be yourself” in it!” or, “This shirt says I’m beautiful inside and out!” It’s cheesy, but it really did make me smile when I saw how those little inspirational messages could brighten a kid’s day.
And I’ll never forget one particularly busy back to school season, a middle school-aged girl came in with just her dad. I could tell by what she wore that her style was more athletic and tomboyish that what she normally liked, and she looked even more miserable than the dad, who kept saying she should be more “girly.” I knew this pair would need help when I heard the dad say, “These jeans are called skinny jeans. I guess you can’t wear them!” Um, rude much? I couldn’t believe a dad would say that to his daughter. He kept trying to get to try on dresses, even though that so obviously wasn’t her style. She looked frustrated, upset and hurt.
I pulled the girl aside and asked her what sort of clothes SHE wanted to wear to school. She pointed to a table display of sweat clothes that all had “soccer” in sequins written all over them. The girl loved soccer, and she wanted to show that off with her wardrobe. The clothes were comfy thanks to the loose sweats, but also cute thanks to the sequins and bright colors, a win-win for the tomboy. In the end, both the little girl and her dad left happy, and I could tell the girl felt way more confident in herself once she had the clothes she wanted.
Even though customer service is trying, and I’ll never be able to get “What Makes You Beautiful” out of my head, working at Justice was a rewarding experience for me. I got to help preteen girls pick out the clothes that make them feel confident, and seeing how happy a new outfit could make a little girl never failed to put a smile on my face, too.