SoCal Hell

Surrounded by “intoxicating smells” and “deafening music”, it was just another day at work for Jessica. Stationed in “Betty 1”, she spent most of her day banging her head against her hand waiting to greet the next customer.

When a four-year-old and his mother walked in, Jessica greeted them with the required, “Hey! What’s up?”. The young boy looked up at his mother and said, “Mom, I’m scared.”

Jessica, 18, of Tinton Falls worked at “the vintage beach shack of SoCal” in the Monmouth Mall from April 2013 until October 2013. She has since acknowledged that the store’s reputation for being “loud, dark, and smelly” as accurate and has come to dislike the company.

Photo Courtesy of Puerto Venecia

“It’s an evil, awful machine of navy blue.”

The worst part of the job was the music. According to Jessica, the same 12 songs played on repeat for two months. During one shift, employees would hear each song seven times at full volume.

“It drove me up a wall. I started scheduling my breaks around what song would be playing.”

Jessica also disliked the store’s clothing policy, inconsistency and unreliability in employment, and her “evil, Russian, anal retentive” manager.

Despite her animosity towards the company, Jessica did enjoy her relationship with her manager Andy as well as the fact that she worked close to home and indoors.

Remembering the little boy, Jessica recalls that she didn’t know how to respond and just began to laugh. But thinking back says that she was scared too.

“There’s definitely a door in the supply room which is a portal to hell.”