The Hopeful & Helpless: My Life as a Merchandiser for American Greetings and Hallmark
All those damn envelopes and amateur therapy sessions.
This description of one of my most interesting former jobs originally appeared on Medium before Christmas 2022.
After a quiet summer on the job front, I’m now inundated with application and interview requests. I was thinking of getting back into the merchandising game before my bombardment, so I met my new potential boss at a Walmart recently as she showed me the ropes behind working for Claire’s as a merchandiser. (Yep, that jewelry is not serviced by the store.) I had to apologize for my phone going off about other jobs and tried to focus, but in the end, I looked at this sweet woman who came all the way from Seattle to Walla Walla and said, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to work for me.”
As I backed away, eyes strained and nails broken after helping with a wall reset, I bumped into a friend who asked “What happened to writing?!” Love my people.
So as I figure that out and make decisions about my new 9-to-5-ish, enjoy this account of the ominous world of greeting card merchandising.
Greeting cards are kind of wasteful. Literally because all the leftover cards get trashed after each holiday.
“Do you recycle or store them?” concerned customers always asked as I threw endless handfuls into boxes. Hilarious.
I think cards serve as a precursor to today’s emotional laziness via the standard holiday or birthday text message. I can’t stand when people send a card with only a complimentary close: “Love, Mom, Rob, and Spot.” At least a text is cheaper and creates less of a carbon footprint.
If you’re going to send a card, add some emotional heft in pen, please.
While in seminary in Raleigh, North Carolina, I worked for American Greetings with a suburban Target as my largest account. Later when I moved to Washington state, I just couldn’t help myself and stocked cards for Hallmark, assigned to the coveted Walmart account, the only one in our county. Most people don’t know that an outside merchandiser is the one who stocks the greeting cards at most retail establishments. These brave souls follow planogram packets to place the next season’s set-up within a tiny time frame.
The job isn’t difficult. It mainly requires lifting heavy boxes and restocking. It’s great if you just want to zone out for several hours of your choosing and you have an organizing fetish. The best perk: no coworkers. I saw my boss every two to four months, and because turnover is so high, she was just happy I showed up to work.
It was like working at a library since much of the job was putting away “shopbacks.” This was when I used my handheld device to scan a card to find its “home,” or the pocket it was assigned to. That’s right, you can’t just put a card back anywhere you want, losers.
Unfortunately, merchandisers are not exempt from helping customers with their stupid inquiries. (“I don’t know your grandmother. Sure, choose the dirty card.”) It’s odd how people just open up in the greeting card aisle about sensitive topics and relationships. I should have wheeled out a chaise lounge and welcomed people to tell me all of their problems as I scribbled down the heart-breaking and embarrassing moments of their lives.
The perfect greeting card has to accompany a genuine apology or a long-distance reconciliation. I heard stories about adult siblings not communicating for decades over what happened during a Christmas dinner in the mid-1990s (usually money-related). I was giddy and engrossed in one sweet man’s account of his long-lost love as he shopped for a sympathy card since she was now a widow. (Sir, you get on that!)
Men, in particular, asked me for opinions regarding what card to get their wives or girlfriends. Some would actually flirt and ogle as I pretended to read through quips of desire and devotion, so I could give them my preferred choice between the two cards they were too lazy to read themselves. I always chose the more expensive card.
One older gentleman, brooding and always clad in a plaid short-sleeved dress shirt, regularly appeared in the card department when I was present. I ignored the fact that he probably memorized my schedule.
One hot summer day after a few previous polite interactions, he moved close to reach for a random card, cocked his head towards my ear, and said, “If I was younger, I’d smack your backside.”
“No, you wouldn’t because I wouldn’t allow it,” I said, rolling my eyes and robotically returning to stocking cards with my stinging paper cuts on display. “You can leave now.”
(Looking back, I don’t know exactly how I would have not allowed or prevented it. Saying that just gave me power, I guess.)
He stomped off declaring my rude behavior, and because he served in the Army for however many years, he didn’t have to stand for that.
I laughed because I could. Because I was in a busy store. Because the alternative was to get angry.
On a lighter note, other interesting characters included the occasional homeless person with trippy philosophies and a runny nose. (I always tried to keep tissues with me.) It’s also hard to forget those procrastinators who griped about how expensive the cards were which always caused me to leave out the pricier ones when I was clearing one holiday out for the next. I gladly did this after Valentine’s and Mother’s Day.
Then there were the older women who introduced themselves as Cathy or Minnie and stocked up on birthday, anniversary, and just-in-case sympathy cards for the year. They came in with lists, usually on the back of a used envelope, filled with the names of friends and family, written in the smallest and neatest cursive I’ve ever seen.
Talking about envelopes, people always stole those. Cards without their respective envelopes sat ashamed in their pockets. I ordered extra and would save some from the previous holiday to use for the everyday categories, but there were never enough to keep up with sticky fingers that assumed no barcodes meant they were freebies.
The most intriguing people were the retail workers at the accounts I serviced. Sometimes they were difficult when I needed to place a display outside of my department, but I always got my space. Everyone knew that the cute greeting card merchandiser liked to chat, so I had many walk through my aisles to laugh and share gossip. I liked to hear their “real” career aspirations like screenwriting, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship. We all said the same thing: “This is just what I’m doing right now, but next year…”
An odd thing happened after I left those two merchandising positions. When I visited my former accounts as a customer (and obviously to assess the current merchandiser’s job performance), it was like my old retail pals forgot about me. I was back on the “other side.” They assisted me and told me where to find razors, mechanical pencils, and cough drops. But when I asked about their plans or how another coworker was doing, their answers were short and few. Maybe it was because I sold out or the fact they were still in retail.
After a while, I shrugged it off and accepted our new roles.
After leaving merchandising, the biggest perk is knowing the secrets. Sometimes when I’m shopping for a card, I make sure no one is looking before opening the overstock storage compartments to hunt for extra of the cheaper holiday cards that have already sold out on display. Scandalous, right?
Or, even worse, take an extra envelope or two.
Because in the throes of life and while exquisitely printing addresses, we sometimes make mistakes.