Actually,
not just a store as in one of those generic shops that sell tacky trinkets that
can be found in any mall.
MY
STINT IN suburban Matteson was at the Carson, Pirie, Scott store that was one
of the Lincoln Mall shopping center’s anchors – and will potentially be the
only survivor of the 40-year-old mall on Lincoln Highway at Cicero Avenue (just
a mile or so from the Cook/Will county line).
In
my case, the very first job I got out of college was a part-time gig for a few
months at the then Chicago Heights-based Star Newspapers. The pay wasn’t great,
and the hours weren’t excessive, so I needed more money.
So
for a few months, I worked as a sales clerk in the men’s clothing department at
Carsons a few days a week, combined with the night shift work I did for the
newspaper.
Eventually,
I moved on to a full-time news reporting gig (the now-defunct City News Bureau)
that paid barely better, but enough that I could do it fulltime.
MY
MEMORIES OF working at Lincoln Mall are about 26 years old, and are similar
enough to those of anyone who has ever done a part-time job in retail to come
up with extra money.
Personally,
I always felt sorry for anyone who had to do retail full-time to earn a living.
It’s not easy work, and it contains its frustrations from dealing with
customers who prove on a daily basis that people like Harry Selfridge and
Marshall Field didn’t have a clue what they were talking about when they said, “The
customer is always right.”
The
customer usually doesn’t have a clue what they want, yet they don’t like having
anyone try to guide them because it exposes their ignorance – so to speak!
I
actually have more intense memories of my co-workers from those days, even
though I barely remember their actual names and haven’t seen most of them since
the day I quit in disgust during the first week of a new year.
I
REMEMBER QUITTING because of all the negative sales commissions I was getting
in the days following the Christmas holiday of 1987. All those “presents” I
sold to people for the holiday were being returned. Any commission bonus I
received prior to the holiday was being taken back.
There’s no way Carsons was going to lose out from
the fact that somebody didn’t like the tacky yellow sweater I sold some woman
as a gift for her brother.
But
I also remember the crowds that would stream through the mall proper, which I would
usually wander about during my breaks. I was never the type who wanted to spend
time in a break room or employee lounge. Why stay cooped up when I can check
out the surroundings.
Only
it seems now that there just aren’t any surroundings to check out.
FOR
AS I understand, Carsons is the only anchor retailer remaining in Lincoln Mall.
The Sears, Montgomery Wards and J.C. Penney’s that I remember are gone.
In
fact, more than half of the little storefronts inside the mall are now empty.
Yet
the mall is closing down because its current structural condition has become so
decrepit that Matteson village officials contend it is unsafe. It is in need of
significant repairs. And they don’t think the mall’s current owner (a New
York-based developer) is acting quickly enough to make such repairs.
Which
is why this fight is now in the courts. A hearing is scheduled for next week,
and it is possible that a judge could issue some sort of order that could force
the mall to close until repairs are made.
THAT
BIG A structure sitting empty would be such a money-loser that it would force
repairs to be made. Unless the owner (who isn’t the easiest of people to reach
these days) somehow decides to just write off his financial losses.
Which
I would hope does not happen.
I
already have a string of news organizations (the Star Newspapers, City News
Bureau, United Press International) in my work history whose offices no longer
exist. A part of me wonders if I personally have become a “kiss of death” to a
news outfit.
I’d
hate to see it come to the point where the only place I could go to, point to
it, and say “I once worked here,” is a Subway Sandwich franchise in suburban
Calumet City.
-30-
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