erin mccann |Verified account

They made us sign people up for store credit cards, and promised us a whole dollar for each one.

I would fill in in shoes, where people got paid by commission, while I didn't. Women old enough to be my grandma made me use their IDs.

That way they got the commission. I was too naive to realize what was going on. I thought all adults were fair.

I spent a bunch of days working in plus-size clothing. A woman brought her granddaughter in. Girl was maybe 12. Needed bigger clothes.

This woman spent the entire visit humiliating her granddaughter. Finding the ugliest clothes for her. I kept trying to slip her nice things.

Whenever I think of the ugliest parts of Pennsylvania, I think of that grandmother in a Boscov's department store, humiliating a child.

(We also got a ton of customers from Ontario that summer. Canadian dollar was strong and PA doesn't tax clothes.)

Anyway, despite everything happening to malls and retail stores nationally, Boscov's is, still, the anchor of my hometown mall.