When you measure, slide the nob to the ball of the foot. The nob doesn’t do anything, but it looks calculated and official. Kneel while you slide so that your degradation is plain and the Customer reconsiders your authority. Your corporate-issue apron fits like a sack, and the most common question you get is, “Are you in So-and-So’s class?” Youth, as a limited-time excuse for failing and failing to care, is your shield of electrum.

Did your Customer put on the nylon socks? Ignore the texture of toe hairs pushing up against the nylon, for now. Recall this image when you have to pitch the Rewards program again. There are worse things than pitching the Rewards program, like microplastics or Jodie. Jodie is the manager who takes everything very seriously when she chews gum. Under her watch, checkout turns into customs. But time passes at the register, compared to the sales floor.

If you can help a man of sixty-plus years shop for Dockers, do. If you can help a suburban mom-type in athleisure, Windex the mirrors. The moms respect cleanliness and will leave you in peace. You notice the demographics of Customers. Then—and you don’t know how to justify this or stop this—you recognize patterns. Teenaged girls with Starbucks will just look. Boys from toddling age to mid-twenties will shy behind their no-nonsense mothers. Old women with tattooed eyeliner will make your day or unmake it. The one drag queen in town will endure your try-hard smile. People with lank hair and translucent skin will attempt a return without a box or receipt. The shoes, scuffed and discolored inside, will be cold. These attempts will happen when Jodie goes on break. Lou-Ann will appear ten minutes before closing and talk for an hour. Betsy will make you fetch thirty pairs of shoes on thirty separate errands. Veterans will inquire about a nonexistent military discount. Veterans in fatigues will guilt you.

These patterns are more coincidences than hard rules, but they prime you for the Customers who shop for power and not shoes. You’ll be ready when the Customer describes shoes from two years ago and expects you to know the model and whereabouts; scatters cardboard and tissue paper like beehive remnants down the aisles; brings a dog that you have to turn away; berates you when the chip reader acts up; pronounces your name like the snap of fingers; pronounces your name like a slur; informs you of the dog shit in Ladies Formalwear; asks if you’ve seen their kid; asks how old you are; or asks if you have it In the Back.

In the Back is the hottest club in town. Everyone asks about the Back and only people with clearance and proper footwear get to go. The Back has Nike backstock, the right counterparts to the tagged lefties on the sales floor, the hairy mop, and Jodie napping on a U-boat. She talks in her sleep, flashing her neon green cud. It’s expired and Powerball and Joint custody. More boxes pile on the cracked linoleum than on the shelves. The Back is the forbidden fruit and dying hope of the Customer. In a sense, so are you.

The work is better when you take pride in it, even if taking pride in measuring feet and sneaking email addresses into the Rewards system requires new lengths of humility. The next job will have its joys and its Jodies, and someday when you come back to the store to buy kitten heels and pantyhose, a kid in an apron will recommend the wrong size—that is, if she doesn’t start vacuuming upon your arrival.