Malled

"I'd spent my life as a shopper, an author, a reporter, a world traveler, a wife. Moving to the other side of the cash wrap felt as disorienting to me as Alice might have felt when she slipped through the mirror into Wonderland. By moving to the other side of the register, I, too, entered a new world, one I had glimpsed only in passing."

After losing her job as a journalist and the security of a good salary, Caitlin Kelly was hard up for cash. So she went and got a job at the mall. Suddenly she found herself, middle-aged and midcareer, thrown headfirst into the bizarre alternate reality of American retail: a world of low-wage workers selling over-priced goods.

At first, Kelly found her part-time job at The North Face fun and reaffirming, a way to maintain her sanity and sense of self worth. She thought it would be simple-after all, how hard could it be to hang up jackets and operate a cash register? But the unexpected physical pressures, the unreasonable dictates of a remote corporate bureaucracy, and the dead-end career path eventually took their toll. As she struggled through more than two years at the mall, despite surgeries, customer abuse, and corporate inanity, Kelly gained a deeper understanding of the plight of the retail worker.

Her many interviews with other retail veterans and industry experts gave her even more insight into the hidden dysfunction of the nation's third largest industry. Retail is a $4 trillion industry that offers its frontline workers a measly median wage of $8.92 per hour, with few benefits. It's no wonder that 50 percent of new hires are gone within ninety days.

Kelly brings poignancy and insight to the plight of the overqualified and underemployed. By documenting her own struggle to find meaningful work in a broken system, she addresses a plight shared by millions of Americans in the wake of the recent recession. And with sharp wit and a keen eye, she skewers the retailers who treat their best brand ambassadors like disposable drones.

Caitlin Kelly has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Seventeen, Town & Country, Glamour, New York, and Sports Illustrated, among others. She was a reporter and feature writer for the New York Daily News, the Globe and Mail, and the Montreal Gazette, and the winner of a Canadian national magazine award for humor. She lives in Tarrytown, New York.