I Was a Teenage Bra-Fitter

I was updating my profile today and realized that I have a wealth* of stories to tell.

Yeah fine, most of them are not fit for human consumption due to their lack of interesting details and/or valid point, but have no fear, I will share them anyway.
 I know you have important things to do like pay bills, feed your children and watch kittens on YouTube but I appreciate those of you who are still reading.

For example...

 

In 1998 I got a part-time job at JCPenney. I got this job because I was in college, my graduation money had all but run out, and I was hungry. You can only live on Ramen Noodles for so long before you actually TURN INTO Ramen Noodles.

Anyway, you know how some people have a God given talent to sing, or paint or do long division in their head? Well, I didn't get any of those cool talents. As it turns out, I am awesome at RETAIL.
Yep. You heard me. I am a retail savant. Me and retail, we just clicked. Which is disappointing because I really wanted to find that winning the Lottery was my forte but NO SUCH LUCK.

Now, any of you who are human work in retail are probably scratching your heads and saying, "Gee, Katie.  Retail is pretty easy stuff. They hire college kids for that kind of job. A potty trained orangutan would be good at it!"

To that I say: I agree. It does not take a lot of talent, a college degree, or business sense to work in the women's department of a clothing store.  And yes, an orangutan COULD probably do it, but they would have trouble using the sticker guns and the ink tag removers so NER.

What I DO have that an orangutan doesn't is an uncanny ability to take an irate customer and turn them into a not irate customer** just by talking to them. I also have the talent to help a customer find exactly what they need even if they don't KNOW what they need.

Because I possessed these rare abilities, I was hired then promoted quickly.

How was I shown appreciation for my efforts and skills in the women's department?

I was eventually promoted to:

PROFESSIONAL BRA FITTER

 I'll give you a moment to take that in.

Every.Girls.Dream. = NOT.

Becoming a Professional Bra Fitter (PBF) or a "Titter Fitter" as we called ourselves in the break room -was not an easy task.
One had to pass BRA FITTING UNIVERSITY (BFU)*** which consisted of watching six 10 minute videos of staged (and quite poorly acted) BRA FITTINGS.

BFU graduation was only achieved by correctly measuring someone else in the class under the watchful eye of whatever manager happened to be on duty at the time  and culminated with being handed a framed certificate that contained your name, picture, and the words BRA FITTING PROFESSIONAL. Unfortunately, these were not ours to keep. Eventually they would be posted in the women's fitting room, so that if a customer found herself in a bra fitting quandary, she had only to track us down in the store based on our pictures.

After I graduated from BFU, I was an equal mixture of proud of myself and embarrassed for myself.

Weeks later, after pounding the pavement like a breast obsessed super hero in an exhausting effort to help the 70% of women wearing the wrong bra size, I told a friend (a guy) about my newest job responsibilities.

His reaction was,

 "ARE YOU KIDDING?...How can I apply for that job??!! I could measure women's boobs day and night. I bet I wouldn't even have to use a measuring tape. I bet I could just eyeball 'em or do some hand cuppage**** to figure sizes!"

In his horny college boy mind, he imagined tall, blond, perky college girls coming to me and asking for help finding their correct size which quickly led to hot girl on girl action in the fitting room.

What he failed to realize is- that if college girls know one thing, It's how to find a bra in the correct size. Not only that, college girls know exactly the right kind of bra to best enhance their assets. College girls excel at this.

Do you know what kind of person needs help with bra sizing?

The kind that:

• Burned her bra in the 60's and hadn't worn one since. (read:30 years of gravity saggage)
• Doesn't really need help finding the correct size, just likes to show people her boobs and incidentally DOESN'T like to SHOWER and/or SHAVE her armpits
• Just needs someone to talk to/is lonely and knows they will have a captive audience during bra fitting
• Wants to STUMP the bra fitter with breasts so gigantic/oddly shaped/differently sized/ that a  correct size for them hasn't been invented yet.

After I explained this to my friend, he was no longer interested. Quite frankly neither was I.

Being a PBF was a difficult, thankless, sometimes dirty job. I like to think that somewhere out there,  a woman is pulling on her (correctly sized) bra this morning and thinking fondly of the perfect stranger who was just trying to make money to eat found her a  perfectly fitting bra, size 48FFF, all those years ago.

Which, on second though seems creepy.






*approximately 8 stories
** a dangerous and highly difficult situation
***can't remember the real name of the program but it was something equally silly
****a gross phrase to this day