I actually did not apply for the job, I was contacted at where I was working by a recruiter who asked if I would be interested in something new. I was happy where I was working but thought it doesn't hurt to see what else is out there so I agreed to an interview. I was told I was going to meet with the Visual Director while she was out in stores, they told me which store and a time to meet her, so far so good. I got to the store 15 minutes early and when I walked in was approached by the Visual Director who asked if I was there for the interview. She introduced herself and we walked out into the mall and sat at bench in front of the store. I HATE when people do this, I think it is totally unprofessional. When you interview for a job you're already a little nervous, then to make it worse the person you are interviewing with wants to sit in the mall where it's hard to hear, people are sitting all around you and there are a million distractions. It's just rude. Anyway we talked about my background and my current job, all the standard stuff. She asked what I thought the big trends where going to be that summer, who I thought where style icons, what the next big color story was going to be, and then asked me to pull an outfit in 5 minutes. After I pulled the outfit she said she wanted me to come back for another interview, this time at a different store but the regional manager would be there as well as a few visual managers from different stores. They were doing a floor move/window change and asked me to be there at 9pm when the store closed. So I arrived at the store and she introduced me to the regional and about 15 other visual people. They had just received a shipment of mannequins and where unboxing them. I asked about them and she said they where replacing all the old forms/mannequins in the store with new realistic mannequins. I said that's great, how many did they get? She told me about 45.... 45 realistic mannequins that still had to be unboxed placed and dressed before they could leave. Insane! Just as I thought she had to be crazy, it got even better. One of the visual people came up and said they had the first one out of the box for her to see, we walked over and i said to her are they getting wigs? She was like of course! and starts looking around for them. She finds a box and pulls out a wig, not styled, not combed, nothing. So now they have 45 mannequins to unbox and place and style and 45 wigs to do on top of that. That is a ton of work to get done in 1 night and started to realize why she wanted me there after the store closed. SO she told me that they where going to work on the mannequins and she wanted me to merchandise the front of the store. OK....with what? Anything in the store....OK......so should I just pick a trend? Oh yea I want it to be Nautical. OK great....what about the fixtures? You can move/use any of them. Perfect. So I walk around the store looking for nautical merchandise, I walk around a second time, and now a third time. There is not 1 piece of nautical ANYWHERE. Not ready to admit defeat I find some things that could work but where really not nautical. I get everything pulled, I place the fixtures merchandise them and dress the forms. Takes me about an hour and a half. I go to her when I finished and she comes over, looks at it and says. This doesn't look very nautical to me, and starts slamming everything I just did. I take a deep breath and said, I'm really sorry I actually had a hard time finding anything nautical. WHAT? The store is packed with nautical she tells me. So I apologized again and said maybe I don't understand what she means by nautical and asked her if she could give me an example. She rolled her eyes and said fine. We walk around the store.....we walk around the store again....she stops and says maybe it hasn't come in yet. REALLY??? You ask me to pull together a statement when you don't even know if it's there or not? I ask what she wants me to do, she spots a military jacket. Do military. OK, wait... you want me to remerchandise the front of the store AGAIN... this is still just an interview. Alright. So i redo everything she comes back and starts telling me things they don't do, would have been nice to know that before I did it. She tells me to make then changes then find her. I stop her and said, It's 3am and I have to be at work in 4 hours, I don't think I can. She turns around completely pissed off and says fine I'll let you out. opens the door never says thank you or bye just closed the gate behind me and I never heard from them again. Which was fine I didn't want to work for her anyway, I loved my bosses and they where/are a million times more talented then she ever could be.
