Tough guys in soft, cuddly retail

I’ve worked in furniture for quite a while. It’s easy, pays more than any other job I’m qualified for, and it’s not full of toxic masculinity like a lot of the factories I worked in throughout my 20’s.

Just kidding! I think it might be worse, to be honest. The toxic masculinity I mean; working in sales is just as easy as I thought it would be. If you’re not college-educated and have no useful skills, it’s easily the most money for the least amount of work.

But the guys who work here suffer from egos more fragile than the glass end tables we sell. And I think it’s for the same reasons I thought it would be so progressive and un-manly: we sell soft, comfy, pretty things.

It’s hard to convince someone you’re a hardass if you’re slangin' plush mattresses for a living.

Personally? That’s what drew me to it. I don’t like building things out of raw materials. Table saws scare me. I don’t like crankin' on engines either. Or contact sports. I like cartoons and laying in bed. I like cuddly things, and sometimes having a good cry without feeling like my manhood has been compromised. I go by he/they pronouns, after all.

I like working in retail sales because the scariest thing I have to deal with on a day to day basis is usually just a grumpy old couple with sticker shock.

Furniture isn’t cheap these days, but it’s also not “buying a new car” expensive. No one is going to be out on the streets because they bit off more than they could chew financing a dresser. The negotiations aren’t as tough as trying to sell someone a four-bedroom house.

But going into a sales meeting is like walking into a mini Trump rally — nearly everyone’s at retirement age with white hair, white skin, and an abject fear of anything loosely related to sushi, pronouns, “the libs”, and/or the entire state of California.

They all act just as tough as the redneck dudes I used to work with in factories, only without all the muscle and hard times.

I know this reads like I hate these people lol I don’t. I hate some of most of their worldviews and how they have to act so tough all the time, but some of them are decent people, under all those peacock feathers. It just tickles me pink that I had this whole other vision of what this industry would be like, but it’s just a different version of everything else in Middle of Nowhere, Ohio.