Record stores. Remember those?
Note: This post is best read when listening to Tonic’s first record, Lemon Parade.
I was lucky enough to work at a record store during my last few years of college in Boston. It was called Vibes Music and it was one of the best record stores I’ve ever been to as a customer, so I was happy to have become an employee. I remember that before it became a record store, it was a Gap and I bought tie there once for a fraternity thing. According to Google Maps, it’s some pizza place now.
It wasn’t the first job I had, but it was the first job I loved.
It was almost not even a job…almost.
Most days, I couldn’t believe that I was getting paid to do what I was there to do. Don’t get my wrong, it wasn’t just hanging out and talking music — there was a lot of responsibility — but goddamn it was a fun job.
I’ve written before about the dangers of making a hobby your job, but I don’t remember ever feeling that tension at this job. Chalk it up to being young and naive, maybe…but looking back, I think it was because of the people with which I had the privilege to work. Never a dull moment.
Record stores are a microcosm of life
Fast forward to today, I can’t help to draw a lot of parallels and comparisons between that job and later jobs, including the job I have now as a business owner.
It was a simpler time then, but some of the lessons and experiences from that store still hold up.
1) Customer service. This was a big part of the store’s culture. It was the small things, like instead of just telling you where Green Day’s Dookie was, we’d walk you over to the exact spot and grab it for you…then tell you to save nine bucks and pick out one of the four copies in the used bin.
We also used to keep the names and numbers of customers that were interested in the POP (point of purchase) display posters that you see in the windows and throughout the store. When we took the posters down to put a new display up, we’d call whomever wanted the posters and they’d come get them instead of us just throwing them away. It’s amazing how many people were surprised that we actually called them.
2) Creativity. Speaking of those POP displays, we’d always challenge ourselves to do something new and creative with them. Anyone can just pin a poster up, but learning to have some fun with it and thinking of new ways to do it was always a little bit of a friendly contest between us.
Don always won.
3) Cleanliness. All of us were pretty good about keeping the place super clean. Mopping the floor at the end of the night was a drag, but had to be done. We had pride in our little corner of the world. One time, I was at this party and a friend of a friend, a girl, thought it was a good idea to attempt to publicly tease me because she saw me through the windows vacuuming the rugs one night after closing. No one laughed, though, because she was a total B. Let’s move on…
4) Expand your horizons. As you might expect, we listened to nothing but new records — of all genres — and then talked about them. We didn’t always agree on everything, but here’s the thing: we didn’t have to. We disagreed, nodded at each other, smiled, and then continued to be friendly and live our lives. Seems crazy now, but I promise you it’s still possible.
5) Face your bills. This means to make sure all the bills are facing up and turned the same way. This makes paper money easier to count. Turns out that having fun is waaaay easier when you simplify the important business stuff. Counting the registers at the end of every day was super important, obviously, so anything you can do to make that easier for that night’s counter was always appreciated.
These days, I don’t carry cash all that much, but you better believe that when I do, those bills are faced AF!
6) Don’t be late. Being internally motivated and knowing that people are counting on you goes a long way. I never felt that 5 minutes was that long of a time until a coworker was 5 minutes late. That’s like forever in record store minutes.
7) Create experiences. Do you peruse through stores still? We all do. We like to be around things that make us happy. For our record store, we knew that visits should be an experience for people and not just an opportunity for us to sell stuff. Don’t join the party…be the party.
Is it the job, or is it you?
Take a second to think about all the jobs you’ve ever had and you might find that as different as they each might be, there are a lot of similarities.
Those similarities might be more than coincidences. It’s in those overlaps where you might realize that it’s those things that you bring to each job. Some jobs are inherently a certain way, but if you’re able to bring yourself — your personality — into the mix, then it offers you an opportunity to get the most out of that experience.
Now, let’s turn this next track up a little bit.
A little more.
Yep, good.
#bewhatyoumake
