Episode 131: Broken Glass, Dirty Underwear, and An Inexplicable Amount of Dildos (Working In A Thrift Store) with Dylan + Ryan

Hi, welcome to episode 131 of Clotheshorse. I’m your host, Amanda

Normally I would do something kinda cute for the intro, or at least something that seems a little funny to me…but I’m not just not there this weekend. If you’re listening to this far off in the future, I’m recording this the weekend after the Supreme Court had quite a wild week of rulings that are completely dismantling civil rights in the United States:

On Tuesday, the court ruled that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools. Previously parents were allowed to use these vouchers only for non-sectarian (meaning: non religious) schools. This could open the door for more cases that chip away at the separation of church and state.

On Thursday the court ruled that suspects may not sue police officers who fail to inform them of their right to remain silent. This means that in the future, if an officer forgets to read a suspect their Miranda rights before arresting them (you know, “you have the right to remain silent, etc), they cannot be sued for it later. And this is a big deal because if officers don’t have to read people their rights, those people might not know they are under arrest and they could incriminate themselves.

Also on Thursday, the court struck down a New York gun law enacted more than a century ago that placed a lot of restrictions on carrying a concealed gun outside of the home. This is a big deal because it could influence rulings on other gun-related cases.

And then of course, the most devastating news in a pretty scary week of news in a year of devastating news in years of anxiety-inducing, terrifying news: the court struck down Roe v. Wade, leaving states to determine the laws around abortion access in their state. Abortion is now banned in 10 states (including Texas, where I live), will be banned in an additional 5 states in a month, and likely to be banned in five more states.

When you don’t even own your own body, you own absolutely nothing.

Even worse, language in Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion called for revisiting decisions on previous cases that protected access to contraception (1965’s Griswold v Connecticut), same sex consensual sexual contact (2003’s Lawrence v Texas), and same sex marriage (2015’s Obergefell v Hodges).

I am frightened. I am angry. I feel overwhelmed and powerless and just too sad to really enjoy anything…but I cannot wallow in this place. I have to pick myself up and get to work. Because, while it might seem as if it is GAME OVER, it is actually more like GAME ON. This is just the beginning of the fight and every single person has to be on board. No one gets to skip out because they have brunch plans or because it’s their birthday month.

I’ve talked in the past here about the idea of “things going back to normal.” You know, what everyone was wanting in 2020. Still hoping for in 2021. Pretending was happening in 2022. If there’s anything that all of you have learned from listening to me talk for hours every week, it is that what was “normal” before 2020 was only good for a small group of privileged people who had the money, safety, and support to be oblivious. Because access to abortion has been hanging on by a thread for decades. People have been taking on more and more medical debt just to stay alive. The United States has had the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world for a big chunk of this century. Many of us have been working 2, 3, 4 jobs just to pay our rent and eat. Few of us will be able to retire. Black men and mentally ill people were and are killed or at least injured by the police on a regular basis. Victims of sexual assault rarely get justice or support. The gender pay gap still exists and it’s even worse for women of color. Hate crimes abound.

Things weren’t “better” before 2020. Things were a little bit better before 2016 (but still all of the problems I listed above still existed).

It’s time once and for all for anyone out there who was longing for this illusion of “normal” to accept that it does not exist.

What should be normal is collective action. Of assuming our own personal responsibility in tandem with others. Of recognizing that all of our fates are entwined with the fates of others. And fighting for them, fighting alongside them…that is fighting for ourselves, too. For the people we love.

Right now we are a major crossroads. And while there is an almost infinite number of ways everything could play out, there are two major paths.

Path Number 1 is the easy path. Or at least, it’s the easiest one right now. We feel defeated, we give up, we surrender. We say “there’s nothing I can do.” And so do the majority of other people. Republicans win the midterms, regaining full control of Congress. And literally no good legislation passes in the next two years. Should any Supreme Court justices retire, they will not be replaced by more liberal or even moderate justices. Most likely in the 2024 election, a Republican will win the presidency because everyone will be too disenfranchised to vote Democrat. Meanwhile, Republicans will be voting like crazy in hopes of banning abortion fully and installing gun vending machines on every block. Btw at this point, that president will be either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. You’re already familiar with Trump, but if you’re not scared enough by this timeline, please go google “Ron DeSantis asshole.” This is a guy who literally bullied the Special Olympics into revoking a vaccine mandate. Yeah, cool dude.

Here’s what happens in Path Number 1: There is no gun control. There is no universal healthcare. Abortion becomes fully illegal in this country. Maybe it gets harder to access emergency contraception and other birth control. Same sex marriage is dismantled. Trans people lose all of their rights. Hate crimes become totally chill and NBD.

This is a scary fucking place, my friends. I hate to bring The Handmaid’s Tale into this because I think white women use it way too often in the fight for reproductive rights, ignoring the fact that in the past women of color, poor women, mentally ill women, intellectually disabled women, and women caught receiving illegal abortions were literally sterilized by the government. That less than two hundred years ago, black women were literally owned by white men and they had no ownership of their own bodies. So yeah, while I love The Handmaid’s Tale as a book and a television series, we have actual real, non-fiction source material that we should be drawing from, right? But I’m bringing up The Handmaid’s Tale because the Republic of Gilead existed because too many people were apathetic for way too long. Meanwhile, those who wanted to strip women of their rights and exterminate gay and trans people, were PUTTING. IN. THE. WORK.

We have to do the work and we have to do it TOGETHER.

Which brings me to Path #2: WE GET SHIT DONE. TOGETHER.

We put our smaller differences aside and fight to make this place safe and free for everyone.

We vote. We help others get registered to vote. We literally take people to the polls on election day.

We protest. We help others get to the protest and feel safe. We hand out water and volunteer our medic services if we have those skills.

We call our representatives (even if they are Democrats). We coordinate with others to ensure these calls are coming in nonstop.

If we have the money, we donate it to groups that are helping others with less privilege get the care they need. We facilitate this care by driving people to clinics, giving them a place to stay, and keeping them safe.

Yes, this is work. But here’s why path #2 is great: we get a major blue wave in the midterm elections. Now we have a Democrat in the White House and Democrats running Congress. They pass legislation overriding the state’s rights to ban abortion and same sex marriage. Access to abortion, same sex marriage, gun control, universal healthcare, police reform, turning the minimum wage into a living wage, a revamp of the student loan/higher education system, EPR regulations for fast fashion, CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY…these will become the laws of the land. And they pack the Supreme Court to uphold these laws.

This is just the beginning in so many ways because there is so much to fix in this world. But it’s a start. The other path does not lead to a better world. This one drops us off in the parking lot of a better world and we just need to keep working to get closer and closer. And we will. Because we will be working on this together. Empathy, collaboration, bravery, community, support…let those be your guidelines. This is what “normal” is now (and it should have been the “normal” all along).

Be angry, be sad, be frightened. But also: be ready to do the work.

Okay, now let’s get into the actual episode, which I’m really excited to share with you, despite everything else this week! Today’s special guests are…my daughter Dylan and their partner Ryan. Last year, they both worked for one of the largest thrift store chains in the United States. At first, we were (as a family of avid thrifters) pretty excited about their new jobs. But, pretty rapidly, their stories really shifted a lot of my own thinking around donation, thrifting, and our own behaviors when it comes to the stuff we no longer want. Like a lot of the things we talk about here on Clotheshorse, the thrift industry has a major impact on the humans working within it. Wages are low, expectations are high, and there is little room for advancement. Also: it’s gross and frequently dangerous.

Dylan and Ryan were visiting me in Austin last week and I asked them if they would like to share their experiences with you. This is the first episode I’ve recorded IRL with a guest and it was so fun. Definitely makes me want to do more in-person interviews in the future!

Okay, let’s jump right into to our conversation!

Amanda

All right, why don’t the two of you go ahead and introduce yourselves to everyone?

Dylan

Hi, my name is Dylan.

Ryan

Hello, my name is Ryan.

Amanda

And our either of you related to me by blood?

Dylan

perhaps.

Amanda

So Dylan and Ryan are joining us today, because they are past employees of a really large thrift store chain. I we’re not going to say the name here. But I think that this brand has become shorthand for thrifting or donation in general, sort of like Kleenex is for tissue. So you you know, the place that we’re talking about, you’ve probably been to one you may have donated some of your unwanted stuff there. And we’re today we’re going to talk about what happens to our stuff when we drop it off there. The reality of it, and it’s and life. And we’re also going to talk about what it’s like to work for this very huge thrift chain, and what the impact of that business and its policies is on the people who work there, which is something that we we just don’t hear enough about. Spoiler alert, it sucks.

Dylan

Yeah. Very true.

Amanda

So why don’t the two of you explain when you work there and what you did,

Dylan

so I work there from October of 2020 to June of 2021. I started out there as a cashier for a few months and then I was moved to the back where I was then a production assist associate production associates pretty much do whatever tasks needs to be done. That could be anything from where sorting, clothing, sorting, hanging up clothes, just anything that needs to be done that the people in the other positions are not able to do. From there I was then made a ware sorter and the ware sorters are in charge of going through anything that is not clothing, or textile of any kind and sorting them to be put out onto the floor as well as pricing them.

Ryan

I started March 2021 and left June 2021. I applied to be a DSR which is the donor service representative but was placed in a were sorting position. I was then probably a month later moved to the DSR position, which is taking in donations from the door taking donations from off the truck like raw wares, raw textile, and then again re putting everything back onto the truck to be taken to wherever it is they take it to.

Amanda

So let’s start with stuff arriving at the at the at the store. You know, this was a place that accepts donations in addition to selling not all thrift stores are like that. But I would say most locations of this chain do both. So what was the standard routine for when stuff arrived? Did people just leave it there? Or did you actually have interaction with them? It sounds like you did Ryan?

Ryan

Well, so it was weird. Basically, like when we would open I would go out and put out a like board and some big bins, like spring bins for everything to like fit, there would be times where they would bring the doorbell to get assistance. At that point, there was kinda like the pandemic, we weren’t really able to help them take things out of their cars,

Dylan

people would just simply ring the bell to let us know that they dropped something off. But other times people would just drop it off.

Ryan

They a lot of the time wouldn’t put them in their bins where they were supposed to go, they’d kind of just shove it under the railing on to the concrete stoops that they were or just sit it out on the curb not even going up the steps like they’re supposed to making it harder for my job to be done really.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, I do think you know, this is something we talk about a lot on Clotheshorse is that a lot of people use these places, whether they’re bins or actual stores where they’re dropping it off as kind of like a dumping ground. It’s really interesting to me, it’s sort of like, Oh, I’m gonna go this extra stop to dump it here instead of in my trash. But often the same sort of mental approach is taken to it where it’s like, we’re just not even going to think of the people working here. We’re just going to drop it off.

Dylan

There has been times where we have told people that we cannot accept the specific items that they’re donating or that we are just too full of donations and we can’t accept them because we quite literally do not have room for them. And people will come up with every excuse or try to guilt trip you into taking the donation they’ll be like, Oh, but I came all the way here you can’t just tell make one more item, even though oftentimes it would be like whole couch or just Yeah, literal trash. Yeah,

Ryan

they wouldn’t make the story of like, oh, well, but this is my like mom’s she’s a cancer patient or just something along those lines, there’s just like most of them really feel bad and take this, I drove five minutes from my house to hear with all of these boxes of garbage.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, ultimately, it costs money to get access, trash carried away, or even certain items like a couch, like a television like appliances, you would have to literally pay a service to come and pick it up, right? I think a lot of people use these donation centers as a way to get rid of stuff for free, rather than bear the actual responsibility of these things that they owned and no longer one makes me really angry. We had a large thrift store pretty close to our last home in Burton hand. And they had a huge dock for donations and like bins as well out there. But no, during like peak pandemic time, when especially like during delta, where things would just close because they didn’t have enough staff or because like the city itself was closing things. I would go by there. And I would just see tons of just, I mean, trash tossed there, whether it was broken furniture, or like a stove or stuffing garbage bags that were like ripped open already, like out in the rain in the snow. And I realized that like people use a lot of these thrift stores as trash cans.

Dylan

I mean, I would say at least 60% of the donations that we received were unsellable in, not even just because of any guidelines that our management just didn’t want us to put out for whatever reason, like sometimes it would be actual trash, shattered glass stuff covered and dirt, mud rat droppings, just stuff that you wouldn’t think to donate because nobody would be able to use that.

Amanda

Yeah, just using it as trash. I mean, I remember you telling me once when you were still working there that you dreaded, when like the auctioneer companies would show up. So Oh, yeah, Pennsylvania, like people don’t really have estate sales as much as they have these like auctions of their estates. It’s so strange. It’s like such a Pennsylvania thing. And so it’s, it’s basically the same as an estate sale, but with like bidding and you know, be able to 556. But it’s essentially like the same kind of thing. And you were saying that you dreaded when they would show up

Dylan

because there would be large trailers, and it would almost all be trash, absolute trash, or,

Ryan

or just like large amounts of huge furniture that they would expect one person, like, sometimes we would, we would be lucky to have two DSRs on at a time while we would work, but like they, they weren’t allowed, like customers and donors like we’re not allowed inside the back, of course, for liability reasons. And just also because they’re not allowed. But like we, in the back had no room to store any of this furniture if we even want it to. And then on the floor, it was just a small square, like smaller than a living room really, to store all of this furniture that they expected us to keep.

Amanda

And you were saying that you would receive a lot. I mean, yes, you would receive broken things, things that were unsafe for humans to be around or things that were moldy, that kind of thing. But you also just received a lot of stuff that like you couldn’t sell anyway, like and we’re you’re telling me like alcohol?

Dylan

Yeah, people would donate. I mean, just pretty much anything like alcohol guns, we’ve gotten grenades. People have donated dildos, plenty of sex toys have been donating to us. I’m not sure why because some of them looked like they might have been used.

Ryan

Some of them also were like, like, once were alive, like animal like things like like just like weird oddities of that sort. And like we just simply were not allowed to put out like, there was just like, Baby shark thing. And like some sort of terrarium, like, surprised that it didn’t break in its transit to that place. But

Amanda

yeah, it’s weird. It’s like, once again, it goes back to this idea that people are using these donation centers as as like a I don’t know, like a dumping site, right. And so anyone with any common sense wants know that most In fact, I’m just gonna go ahead and say all thrift stores because I’ve never seen this anywhere. Can’t sell guns can’t sell dildos can’t sell open bottles of alcohol or alcohol at all. And so once it’s just like, Oh, I’m just want to get rid of us with the least amount of effort possible.

Ryan

We also would get a lot of food which I didn’t understand why they would donate food to a thrift store when yeah, there’s honestly like four with banks within a five mile or less radius of where we worked, I have

Dylan

seen some other stores in this chain put food out on the shelves, but at our specific location, they didn’t want us putting food out on the shelves, and I still don’t see a lot of it. And I just think it would be way better if it was donated to a food bank.

Ryan

I will also like I wasn’t even like, it was really unclear as to whether it was a like, a rule itself or an unspoken rule of we’re not allowed to sell this or if like Dylan had said like if it was just strictly our store or not.

Dylan

I mean, everybody if it was like a snack that I didn’t have to cook, you’re basically donating to Dylan because I would eat it. Potato Chips, not like a can of beans, but if like you donated fruit roll ups you bet I ate them.

Amanda

People donated fruit roll ups?

Ryan

Tortilla chips, Bush’s Baked beans,

Amanda

I mean, I do love Bush’s baked beans, but, wow. Yeah, I mean, it was it doesn’t surprise me would get you to would tell me stories that were pretty, pretty upsetting because I just think it comes back to people kind of being lazy, kinda not wanting to think things through kind of, ultimately not wanting to bear the responsibility of the stuff in their lives. But not like taking a moment to say like, oh, you know, maybe I shouldn’t have had all this stuff in the first place. If all I’m going to do is ditch it on someone else. Make it someone else’s problem. Okay, so let’s say you know, some stuff arrives. And you know, it’s not guns or dildos or food and it’s not broken or moldy or poopy, which I know you guys get a lot of to yeah, um, what happens next, like, in your opinion, what percentage of stuff that comes through that door that’s not gross or unsellable. Like because it’s dangerous or just not like something you can carry? What percent of that other like decent stuff actually gets out onto the sales floor?

Dylan

Um, I would say the majority of that stuff 80 to 90% of it. The main things that they didn’t want us putting out not because it was unsafe, or any logical reason was things like cassette tapes and books with yellow pages. For some reason they didn’t want that out. Occasionally, it would just be like, oh, there’s a small piece of paint missing on this ceramic figure, therefore, you can’t put it out. The rules kind of changed a lot. They varied all the time. So one thing that wouldn’t, you wouldn’t be able to put out one day, you could put out the next just depending on who was putting your bin out on the floor. It was really irritating. Um, plus, we had incentives that we were supposed to me. So we tried to get everything out that we possibly could to fill a bin even if it was not really supposed to go out.

Ryan

Yeah, with those incentives it like it ran the risk of potentially losing your position as like a sorter, whether it be like wares, or textile sorting. So you like Dylan had said, you just want to put out as much of anything that you could, especially if it looked good to get your bend to the past.

Amanda

And what happened to things that didn’t pass?

Dylan

So there would just be these giant gaylords, I would say they were probably like six by six by six, something like that. That will be placed in between the sorters desks. And then we would just literally throw things in there. Like anything, it could be complete trash, I would try to if it was Trash Trash, I would try to throw it in the trash can next me but because they wanted us to work so fast, I couldn’t do things like empty my trash all the time, because it would take up my time for making and filling bins. So usually we would just throw it in the gaylords.

Ryan

and then where would the gaylords go, that would be something that I would take care of as a DSR. So we had a lot of shitheads that we worked with, as sorters mainly really just one he would just throw anything and everything into the gaylords which there is some sort of like a sort sorting thing that you have to do with that as well. You cannot throw glass of any kind in those because it runs the risk of getting hurt for people that deal with the gaylords after

Dylan

there was a second quote unquote second sort, which is what we call it

Ryan

Yeah, that would also be something that I would there was supposed to sort and deal with as well but any other sharps that you had like, even down to forks and butter knives you weren’t allowed to throw into the second sort there was a sharps container or just literally it was a box, a cardboard box that we would put our trash bag into and what sack up for you would let me or the other DSR on shift know to get that tape it up and throw it towards the back near the truck which had our sharp second sword but we would have to you could not allow the second sword to get to full because we also had to put like one of those plastic skids on top for whenever we took it and did our truck because then that would just go to pretty much I guess that would be where they would dump the rest of it for the outlets that they would like that’s where the it would go

Dylan

that’s where it would go but I’m pretty sure that they do other things with it I’m just not really sure I’m all they would say is that they would send it to the outlet center but there’s no way that they were sending it all there.

Ryan

There was definitely some sorting going on in the back of those outlet centers with some of that stuff further

Amanda

Yeah. So in the gaylord would you divide? Would you separate out textiles?

Dylan

yeah, that is a completely different section in the back room. So all clothing is going to be in a separate second sort from the wares. And of course people would oftentimes donate trash bags, I had both textiles and wares in them. So DSRs, if they had time would try to go through and separate the wares from the textile to make it easier on the wares daughters. But depending on how busy and the volume of stuff that we were getting that day, that wasn’t always possible. Plus, you know, you sometimes miss it. So either way, whether were sorter or DSR had to sort through them if there was textile in the warehouse, we would have to walk it back to the second sort or just give it to whoever is a clothing sorter back there to sort through them because they weren’t supposed to be in the same gaylord,

Amanda

I will say having been to the bins for various different thrift stores that operate that way. I have noticed so much trash in there like straight up trash, not things that got broken in transit or feel valueless to me like literally trash

Ryan

Yeah, like wrappers. Yeah, like crumbled up papers because that’s exactly what it would be like, like Dylan had said earlier, you as a sorter, like we’re sort of you don’t have time to really go through and do all of it because you have to price things and you have to get it in your bin you have to like even just simply turning around or bending down takes so much time even if you don’t think so it could be a millisecond but it takes a lot of time off of looking through your spring bin to put into the plastic rolling cart that goes out on the floor to be processed

Dylan

and you have to take a lot of time to typically clean stuff because you’re gonna have stuff is sellable. It is donated to us in the worst condition, I believe and they only give us like an off brand new windex to clean everything. Give us our own rags. In fact, all of our rags are donated. So if people would donate wash cloths, and you look like your wash cloth supply was getting low, you would take some of those for your own supply. And it’s not like we had a washing machine. So once once a wash cloth was too dirty, we would just throw it in the trash or the for the second. Yeah, because there was nothing else that we could do with it.

Amanda

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I mean, that doesn’t surprise me there. I will say, I think that the location that you have you’re working in was like a little bit of a tighter ship. Even though I know it was really dysfunctional and chaotic because the location near our house. Everything was so filthy. Like I’m a big fan of the whole Where’s section like that’s where I go first. So I’m looking for glassware and kitchen stuff and what have you and like things would be filthy. Yeah, like the kind of filthy that they get because they’ve been sitting in storage for really long in someone’s basement

Dylan

Yeah, wash your thrifted glasswares.

Amanda

Anything of that ilk

Ryan

Even if it looks clean. It’s not

Dylan

It literally has windex residue

Amanda

So anyway, I thought it was really interesting that the two of you were cleaning stuff, because I that’s definitely not been my universal experience.

Dylan

Also, yeah, there’s also some guidelines, and you can’t just put anything in your bins. So somebody, someone else then puts out the bin on the floor for you. And then they have to sign off on it. And you can’t have more than like two defective even though the definition of defective in this case is very broad. You can have more than two defective items. Otherwise, your bin fails and it doesn’t count towards the amount of bins that you did that day. So say that you got 10 bins out but one of your bins have three defective items in it, they would only be counted as nine bins.

Amanda

So what would qualify something in the ware section as being defective?

Ryan

So something that would qualify that way would be anything like that, like cracking or breaking already and then like Beans to be put out on the floor. Something in your bin that like literally has shattered, whether it be glass or like some form of like plastic item

Amanda

That would be out of your control. Like if that happened as the person was rolling it out on the floor.

Ryan

Well, something like that wouldn’t be like bad. Like, you wouldn’t get in trouble for that. Or like if it was somebody’s fault, like putting it out, I mean, associate but

Dylan

It was very much so dependent on who was putting out your bed. Because something like I said earlier, like the pages of a book being yellow. You never knew when the pages were considered yellow, because I mean, to me, even if the pages are extremely yellow, you can still read the book, who cares?

Ryan

You should be fine. But

Amanda

especially if it’s a cool vintage book

Ryan

I mean, people are suckers for that

Dylan

we had a co worker who would come back and bring back all the slightly yellow books. And he can Yeah, he Yeah, and he would be like next time I’m gonna fail your cart. If you put any more in these bins

Ryan

Meanwhile somebody across from me puts out everything that’s like dirty and disgusting and only has four large objects in his bin, which is not allowed.

Amanda

Okay, so let’s the bin thing is really, really stressful. But I do want to put a pin in defective, we’re going to come back to that because You’ve told Dustin some stories that make him tear up over So let’s talk about the bins. Because this is like something that clearly is like, I don’t know, it’s at the center of everything you do every day on this job. And it seems like to be it’s a wild source of anxiety, like I’m feeling anxious to sitting here talking to you about it. So okay. You’ve made it pretty clear that there’s sort of like, I don’t know, like a quota, a productivity target, you have to hit how many? How many of these would you have to get out every day?

Dylan

technically, we would have to get out at least 10 a day. But even somebody like me, or Ryan, who typically excel in any of the jobs we have, we’re unable to meet that goal, especially because it was very dependent on how many wares we were getting a day. And even if you got a ton of wares to the door, that doesn’t mean that they’re not trash. And we’re able bodied people. And this place is known for hiring people who have disabilities. So I just feel like it was a really unfair quota for people to reach. And then they also had another thing put in place called an incentive where you could get a small bonus if you were continually making this amount every day. So at the beginning, that was 12 bins, and then they actually upped it to 14, which I can’t even fathom because there has not been a single day where I have ever even gotten close to 14. And we oftentimes actually would resort to faking the tags and signing each other’s tags. So it would look like we were getting 10 bins a day, because no matter how hard you would work some days, you just couldn’t even get seven. Yeah,

Ryan

and the thing with that is the reason of not being able to get those meeting those goals was like Dylan said about not getting wares that were even remotely good enough. We’re just not getting them at all. We were also forced to do everybody else’s job. Like before we were before I was a DSR, I was aware sorter and some of them would just be gone with the wind. And our second sort would be too full for both stations for the wares. And somebody has to deal with that. Or else it’s just going to overflow and you can’t get rid of your basically what they would consider trash, you know, you need to get all the good stuff out and you can’t get the bad you can’t sort through the bad without or sort through the good without sorting through the bad. So it made it hard even meeting that. We were also told that we had to pick up the production associate slack and take out a lot of the bins for each other, or just rearrange the floor.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, I’m gonna tell you, and we’ll talk about this a little bit more in a few. But I last year, I want to say I did a little bit of an episode about this company, not an episode really like a segment. And I read all of their Glassdoor reviews, which I don’t know if you to know what Glassdoor is, but

Dylan

I have read them.

Amanda

I mean, like, they were horrible, and like extremely horrible. Whereas like I’ve worked, I was specifically thinking of one company I worked for that is really, really terrible. And their score was still higher because they were at least having the wherewithal to bully their employees into writing fake positive reviews. Whereas the company where the two of you worked was like, we don’t even give a fuck like we’re just, we don’t care and I mean, they were they were terrible. Nothing about them surprise me, especially after hearing from the two of you. So you have to get 10 bins 12, 14, whatever. If you don’t get the 10 which doesn’t give you like an incentive, what happens to you?

Ryan

It would run the possibility of losing your position there. And whether you even just lose your job altogether, but you just lose that position, or just be targeted by management. Really, that’s exactly what we were fine. We were there.

Dylan

I’ve never seen somebody actually truly lose their position. I don’t know if that’s a real thing. Or they just held that over our heads all the time, which is really messed up. But yeah, you would get oftentimes targeted by management. Like, for example, if you would be talking while you were working, and they felt that you weren’t being productive enough, you definitely would have somebody come up to you and complain about to simply talking, even though there was never a stated rule about talking to your co workers. So that that was not fun.

Amanda

I mean, as soon as I hear about a job where you get in trouble for talking to your coworkers, I mean, I’ve I’ve had that job, too, I’m like that’s a shitty place to work, like trying to control human behavior of doubles as if they’re children is always, it’s always a hallmark of a toxic work combo work culture that treats you all as I don’t know, just like automatons and not actual people.

Dylan

Speaking of treating us like children, we would have to write on our timesheet, because they would give us a timesheet, when we would leave to go and use the bathroom, we would have to talk that specific amount of time. So wouldn’t count towards the amount of time spent sorting and our bins per hour

Ryan

Yeah, with bathroom breaks, it would be break like 15 or 30s, where it would just even be like, like I how I said earlier, we would be taken away from arts or stations, where we will be sorting to do production associates jobs, or to do whatever busy work our manager would make us do instead of herself or anybody else.

Dylan

I mean, I slowly started hating being a ware sorter to the point where I would be glad when they would pull me to do something else. Just because being a ware sorter was so stressful, because I never knew if I was going to reach 10 a day, and I was always really anxious that they would find out that we were faking our tags. So I would be happy to go and do something like hang clothes on rack for the day, because I wouldn’t have to worry about that quota.

Amanda

Yeah, I know, it sounds really, really stressful, and like how big are these bins?

Ryan

Um, I’d say they’re probably like, I don’t know, probably like two feet by one and a half. And then it’s just pretty deep. So I’m like it, I’d say again, like another two feet deep.

Amanda

And you were saying that there were a lot of rules, like you couldn’t just fill it up with large objects,

Ryan

if you did, it would have, you would have to have it full from the bottom up. So of course, you would have to have like a bunch of like your smaller items. And you can have like a couple of books and things like that to fill it up. And then any of your larger items, you can have like I’d say it was probably like two or three larger items per bin, maybe even less, depending on how big but like they would have to be at the top, you cannot have them start at the bottom. Everything else has to be smaller at the bottom, Midway medium size, and then everything large would have to be at the top. Just because you cannot have like it taking the bulk at the bottom and making it seem like it’s like a false.

Amanda

This is like you’re all being treated like children all the time. It’s upsetting me

Dylan

spending more energy playing the stalking Olympics, like how can I stack these objects on top of each other to make it seem like it’s fuller than it is then actually getting stuff out? Because it? I mean, like I said, it really depends on who was putting your bin out and God forbid the manager put your bin out because you would be held with some high scrutiny there.

Amanda

yeah, it seems. It seems I mean, it’s unfair and like a wide variety of ways as jobs like this always are right. It’s unfair, because you can’t control what’s coming your way. If it was a slow day, and no one dropped anything off, which could happen right like if times then what would happen?

Ryan

basically she she had this ordering thing she would do her order, which would be like she would order raw textile for people who are doing the like clothes sorting, which honestly didn’t need to happen, we got more clothes and we did Where’s always and all she would do would just order textile and it would really take up too much space in the back area like in the back back area where we weren’t sorting where it would just literally be gaylords of raw wares or whatever raw textile and things. It just like took up too much space so she would order and then we would get this like we would have a really slow day. So it’d be going through the raw gaylords and the thing with that is like if the DSR is aren’t getting The bins for the there were sorters fast enough, it would be a game like it would be a competition for the warehouse orders to run back quickly to get a good bin, or to go through a good raw Where’s gaylord and the thing with that is they would just kind of leave it in disarray. And our manager would get mad if we didn’t go through it all, which would be a waste of time, because of the at the bottom of the barrel is just garbage.

Dylan

once again, this is supposed to be an environment for people who aren’t able to work other jobs. And yet we were expected to lift really heavy items sort through broken glass, compete with each other, essentially, like how can you literally grab things out of a toll gaylord and sometimes have to jump in. And that’s not something that everybody can do or should be expected to do, especially at a place that promises something else.

Ryan

And then with it, then out of the next day, it could be a very heavy day. So we should while we would get this truck and I would unload the truck, everything would be in the back, I would go through it try to unload these gaylords as fast as possible, because we reuse them for our second sort once they’re all unloaded. And so if we’re having a really busy day, the next day, our back room is full of raw textile that we just got from I don’t know, DC or something. And then our stuff that would be coming in from donations, because the next day, of course, we’re, we’re thirsty for donations, then it’s just dropped off all the way to the street like and then we have no say, as the DSRs or as the soldiers to say like, Hey, we have no room for this, can we stop taking these donations we need to get like approval from management, even though we have no room to walk

Dylan

to clarify, they can send their excess donations to other stores in the chain. So the stuff could be shipped off. But it just never was a really great CIP system, because like he was saying, we would have a ton of donations one day, so management would decide that we wouldn’t need to order any raw textile or wares for the following week, especially wares, and then we would be dry.

Amanda

So where were these raw textiles? And wares meaning unsorted, right?

Ryan

Well, they would, they would kind of be sorted from like these, like bigger, like, like much larger donation centers, but not sorted to the point because you’d still get garbage in them, they would just put like, basically, when we would have an excess of donations from our door, we would put everything in these gaylords and write raw wares or raw textile on them. So we could get them out of the way. And not like if we didn’t have room to put them for people to sort through, like we say had only like two sorters that day, of course, you’re not going to be able to go through all of it. And at that time. Whereas like if we had the for like on a full shift, you know what I mean? So we would put them in these gaylords and then get them ready to go on the truck to ship to other like don’t sell to other stores. So that’s basically what they would do. They would ship them like that in excess that week, they would ship them to other stores, which would be like us that week or something like that.

Amanda

It’s really interesting because I think this is something that the average person would not know. I think that they think when they’re dropping stuff off at one of these stores, that it’s going to be sold back to someone in the community. But the reality is it’s being moved around all over the place to kind of maximize sales

Ryan

it can really reach anywhere in the Keystone where we were, or even other states

Dylan

Another thing Is, is that even if something goes out on the floor, if it’s not sold, usually within a week or two based on the color of the tag, we then have to go out and take it off the floor and throw it into second store and then it will no longer be sold at the store. And it is typically sent off to the outlet center as far as I know. But I also know that there’s a bunch of textile ways with this company. And this goes for both wares and textile. If it’s not sold, we take it in off the floor in like two weeks or less sometimes. I mean, if the shelves are or the racks are really cool, we’ll just take stuff off.

Ryan

Yeah, that’s another thing. She’ll take us away from our task to just go throw stuff in these carts to take the second sort now back.

Amanda

I mean, this isn’t surprised me at all. You know, I’m sure that the two of you see a lot of this rhetoric on social media that is like, thanks to thrifting being more popular, there’s nothing good left to buy. There were like, there’s this implication that like the stores are running out of stuff, because people are going shopping there or reselling. But the reality is, it’s like a steady flow and stuff.

Dylan

And the majority of our customers, I would say, Aren’t resellers, there are people who would come every day, sometimes multiple times a day, who we know are resellers. But for the most part, it’s just regular people shopping.

Ryan

Yeah, and a lot of them are regulars. But they just really like to frequent frequent the store because they know, I mean, where we were working, it was like a pretty upper upper class area, a lot of people have really decent things, whether it be clothes, or just wares in general. So obviously, it’s a spot to be. And a lot of these people were just kind of hoarders they would just like to buy like a cart full of stuff and just like throw it in their van. And when we just stay there really like it wasn’t like all of them were reselling genuinely.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, the reality is, I have a lot of friends who are resellers, right? There are a lot of people who’ve been on this show who are part of the community who are resellers, and very few of them go to thrift stores, especially the one where the two of you worked to buy stuff for resale. They go to the bins for sure which I am, like good for you. Because you know what that stuff’s out going off to the landfill or overseas

Dylan

I think it’s almost a talent to sort through that stuff and find something that you can repair.

Amanda

And just the idea that you would be stuff that had been there for a week or two weeks, or that way less than either of those timeframes would be pulled and sent off to the bins because you needed room for new stuff that came in is just one more indicator of like, there’s so much stuff and I know you were obviously being trained to be really picky with the wares. They’re super picky about the clothing, too.

Ryan

Oh, without a doubt. Yeah, anything even if it had like, one like whole, like, you know, you can get away with a single stain. Yeah, and I I’m somebody who is either if it’s a really cool print, or just a really cool t shirt or hoodie or anything like, I will buy it because I can still make it work. You know, like, I don’t care if it has a stain, I can come out with some shout or even if you just rock it with the stain or the hole, it doesn’t really matter. It’s it shows its its history. And just it’s where it’s it’s awesome

Dylan

you get to like a lot of vintage t-shirts that if they were just given a good wash, they would be great, but because we don’t have that ability, we would just second sort them, which is why the bins you often will find a lot of those.

Amanda

It’s true. What’s the thing that you were forced to send off for a second sort that just like broke your heart?

Dylan

Um, one time I found this vintage Slayer t shirt, and it was just it was really disgusting. But I know that if it had a good soak and then wash it would have been perfectly fine. But it made me so sad because I knew I was never going to see that T shirt.

Amanda

I know that one really broke Dustin’s heart.

Ryan

that one hurt me. I was just like, I mean, you could have easily just still think about it. Yeah, you could have easily just like figured out a way to get away with that one. Really?

Amanda

What about you anything you’ve encountered that you had to reject? That made you sad?

Ryan

it was honestly just like a lot of like, really cool animal like, like animal figures? Because like if we were we weren’t allowed to keep them on our desks because it’s property of the store that we were working at despite it being for free given given to them for free. So we weren’t able to just like have them chill there. And so we found, like, sets connected with or just anything to because we weren’t also allowed to put anything out for lower than $1 or 99 cents. So like it wouldn’t be able to be like 50 cents or 25. Like apparently there’s no value in that.

Amanda

So let’s talk about the pricing. Because this is another one when when people are getting riled up on social media I want to escape goat someone said resellers or new second hand shoppers are scapegoated for rising through store cost. And I’ve already like debunked that here on the show has nothing to do with inventory availability, which I know you too, will agree with. There’s ample some others there’s not a shortage. So who determines the prices of the things as they go on the floor? Did you do that as well?

Dylan

Yeah, that was our job. However, we were continually pushed by management to raise the prices and it wasn’t for the sake of resellers. I, overall, we were told to just up the prices in general, and there were times where if you would price something, and whoever was putting out your cart felt that that price was too low, they would bring it back to you, and have you priced it higher?

Amanda

And are we giving guidelines around it?

Ryan

I mean, we were, it was literally two laminated papers of just like it would be like it’d say, mugs. Yeah, it was very 199 to 299 I get was a very raw like brought, like Dylan said brought in it’s like you as a person, as somebody who thrifts, you obviously would know, like, what you’re willing to spend on something like, that’s kind of what I would base my pricing off of, I would just say hello to the, to the paper. Because like, I mean, like, I’m not going to price something that’s not even worth 599, you know, like to be 699 or more, you know, right. So and that’s what they would force us to do. And it’s just like, disgusting, because it’s all all about profit.

Dylan

it’s not like we had a long period of time to ponder upon each item. It’s worth, like, you have to slap that sticker on there real quick and voted. Yeah. So I mean, whatever you felt in the moment, that’s gonna be the price

Amanda

especially if you’re being forced to work so fast. Yeah, it’s interesting, because I know for a fact that they didn’t pay you very well for this job or anyone else. Right. But this is like kind of to do it well, is highly skilled work is yeah,

Ryan

the only way you got paid a decent amount was if you met those incentives. So if you worked yourself like a dog,

Dylan

not to mention, like they wanted you to be knowledgeable on the items, because you want to know what is considered valuable. So you can price it higher. But how do they expect us to just know these things?

Ryan

Yeah, I would just kind of stand around and like, Google it like if it looked like pretty old, and like something that like looked valuable, which was kind of jumping to something but like they would make us keep anything valuable and put it off to the side like yeah, be it would be like anything that was instrument related, like anything that was like

Dylan

I am so mad abou those Littlest Pet Shops!

Ryan

you weren’t even allowed to put a bag of Legos out just because they would take send it to the shop, and they would be auctioned, it wouldn’t be like a regular sale on the shelf.

Dylan

And we are the individual stores also had a goal for the amount that you were supposed to be selling online. So it’s not like we really had a choice. Plus, even if you wanted to put something out on the floor, if somebody else noticed it, they would go and put it over in that section in the back.

Amanda

you had a goal of how much you had to pull aside to send to the website?

Dylan

Yeah, and I’m pretty sure that the company also offered incentives to we never know, the store manager. Something definitely for the amount that was sold on the web.

Amanda

I mean, that’s really interesting to me, too, because I will say, as a longtime thrifter, I have seen specifically with that chain, the amount of I mean, I hate to say valuable because value is all in the eye of the beholder. But of I guess valuable is the only adjective I can think of right now. That kind of product no longer being found in those stores. Unless like, for me, just as a regular Thrifter I would be like someone missed this and store it like I could tell. Whereas I could go to other especially when we were living out in Lancaster County go to all the other Mennonite owned thrift stores and you would find all the coolest shit all the time. Right? But like I wasn’t seeing that, at that place, right?

Dylan

They didn’t want you to raise it for the same for a high price to put it in the store. But they would rather auction it off. So you

Ryan

can get a much more like value off of that, you know, because they’re just everybody’s competing online. It’s and it’s time so like, they’ll do these drops, like live drops out of nowhere. And if you get it you get it if you don’t like Sorry.

Amanda

Yes, so interesting. So once again, this is a company that is technically a nonprofit, but well, well I know I mean, we’ve debunked that quite a bit here. But this company is technically by law a nonprofit but operates just like a big corporation really does prioritize profits over people in many different regards all the time and does a lot of sort of like charity washing to its own business. So Another thing that I’ve heard a lot about this company specifically, and not from the two of you, actually from other people who work in the reselling space who have heard stories or had interactions is that this company is obsessed with loss prevention.

Ryan

Oh, yeah. There were more cameras on the employees than there were on the floor. I swear to you

Dylan

100%. And there was definitely more concern about employees stealing than customers stealing.

Amanda

I’m sure I’m sure. I’ve heard stories about like, like they, I mean, listen, I worked for a really evil retail company for a long time when you were little Dylan and every cut, every employee there was just a potential criminal. Yeah. Right. But at least you could say like, Okay, well, this company like actually paid to have this product made everything in the store they paid for, right. So like, if someone steals it, like they lose money, but we’re talking about a thrift store, they get their inventory for free.

Ryan

If you were to buy something on the clock, so even if you’re on your 15 minute break, that doesn’t count, you’d have to be on your 30 because you’d have to be clocked out. If you bought something you wouldn’t be immediately fired for stealing in their eyes, even though you paid for it? Yeah, it’s even. It’s also great for them.

Dylan

even if you’re on your break. If it’s not a clocked outbreak, you cannot buy something

Ryan

There was also for workers, there also had to be we tried to get around it as much as possible, just because like, there were a lot of things that like we knew people would probably buy, but at the same time, it was really like something that like we really had an eye for, you know, so we would like really hope that it would still be there. So something that we would do was like if we saw that there was something coming in, and we were friends with the sorter, which would be like, Hey, can you like put this off to the side? And whenever I’m going on break, would you mind putting, like getting somebody to actually put it out,

Dylan

which wasn’t allowed?

Ryan

Yeah, but we did it anyway. Because we weren’t allowed to just buy these things. And we just like we said be considered stealing.

Dylan

And for everyone concerned, most likely the stuff that we had our eyes on was not something that you would want anyway. So that’s why I said very nice at the thought of employees buying things as well.

Ryan

it’s a very niche thing that nobody else.

Amanda

hat’s the incentive to work at a thrift store where you’re going to be paid very little and work like a dog if you can’t at least get first dibs on cool shit?

Dylan

which we still didn’t

Ryan

we had to wait or it would be taken from us literally be taken from A to B given to a stupid shop.

Amanda

It’s so interesting, because that’s another thing that I’ll hear. I mean, every time I post about secondhand shopping and the value of living a secondhand first lifestyle, it’s like the same predictable arguments come my way the same different trolls same arguments come right that there’s nothing less than thrift stores because of resellers. There’s nothing left in thrift stores because people who have money to shop somewhere else or thrifting as if that’s not the point of secondhand first lifestyle anyway. And the third thing that I always hear is Well, it’s because the people who work there take all the good stuff

Ryan

We would be like looked at disgustingly if we were still in our work uniform chopping off the clock.

Dylan

I mean, do you think that every employee here is like a hipster? Exactly think that everyone here is like whoo, I love this 1970s vase like no like most people there are like, oh great a book

Ryan

or like some like we had a coworker that was just obsessed with DVDs like good for him. But like, a lot of these people don’t like what you like, like they’re not going to jump on that night. That 90s Nike hoodie, man, you know what I mean? Like it’s just other cool things.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, that’s like a really valuable thing to point out too. I do think that people think that the back house of all these different thrift stores is just filled with hipsters

Ryan

this isn’t like also like some of the stuff like that we weren’t allowed to put out like like we said we had to like kind of throw in second sort or like we had like any jewelry. There we weren’t allowed to put out that has been on the website and they had to go on the website. So what they would do was they force you to ruin this jewelry because it would just be thrown into once again a cardboard box with other jewelry. So it’s just tangled like whether it be necklaces, chains or just like anything like they don’t even know the value of it at that point and you wouldn’t even know that it’s like going to turn your finger green you know, but even still, you’re unable to put it out or make it like in the like glass casing that they have in the front. It just had to be thrown.

Amanda

I have noticed that that chain specifically it has far less jewelry than they had when I was a teenager

Dylan

Now they sell this weird cheap brand new jewelry.

Amanda

so that’s interesting too because something that I was not always the case with this place but that I saw slowly creeping into a bigger and bigger thing is that they sell a lot of brand new stuff.

Dylan

Oh yeah at the checkout area it’s stuff that you could basically buy at the Dollar Tree. And to my knowledge they spent a lot of money on these goods

Ryan

and it’s stuff that we will get through the door, you know, and it’s still in brand new condition.

Amanda

When you were ringing people up did you find a lot of people purchasing that stuff?

Dylan

Honestly, yeah, yeah. Especially because it was at the checkout location. It was convenient for a lot of people and it wouldn’t be really random stuff like it would be like tongs.

Amanda

It’s always tongs!

Dylan

random kitchen stuff like really bad personal care items like wash rags, makeup wipes and chips. People love the chips. Well, they open a bag before leaving.

Amanda

Like a big day of thrifting you get really hungry along the way. I don’t know if your location did this. But you know how a lot of locations in this chain now get a lot of stuff from Target. That’s like brand new. Did you guys ever get that?

Dylan

Um, I haven’t seen us get a lot of stuff from Target or like Zara like some other chains do. However, I do know that’s the thing at other stores.

Amanda

Yeah, I mean, when we went to that, remember we went to that Salvation Army and yester and it was like two aisles of just Zara

Ryan

Even the one that we go to in that same area where we worked. They had a ton of Zara like a lot of Zara up priced it. Oh, totally. It was like $100 for this one Zara jacket. It was all like extremely flawed. Yeah, like Yeah, it was already pilling or something. I know what I mean.

Amanda

And it was interesting to me is that I know that that stuff at both the Salvation Army in Lancaster and the one in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, that’s what we’re talking about. That was being shipped in from somewhere because there are no Zara’s in Central PA that I’m aware of that I know of. Right. I mean, just to think about how many Salvation Army stores there are in the United States, for all of them to have enough Zara, Overstock markdowns, whatever it was to fill 234 aisles. Crows gross. It’s really gross, because I said to Wiles that Lancaster, but that was in the women’s section, you go over the men’s and we’re like two more aisles.

Ryan

Yeah there was like four sections for the men’s It was insane. I had no idea that that was even a thing.

Amanda

Right? I mean, for one that’s taking up space that could be for like quality, secondhand goods, right? And to its Zara and these other fast fashion chains, using thrift stores as a dumping ground as well. Yeah. And I mean, maybe these thrift stores are paying a little bit for that stuff. Or maybe they’re getting it for free. But it’s pretty, pretty ridiculous.

Ryan

But even the thing with that is like we would go like, on a good month, maybe we’ll go like twice or three times, you know, to a thrift store and we’ll see the same is like things of Zara. Like, every time we would go. Yeah, so it’s like it’s ripped apart. I

Dylan

I don’t know anybody who would buy any of that, especially because it’s being sold at retail price. More dollars, not much higher for things that the threads are all coming loose their stains they’re already killing it’s paper thin, like it’s, it’s awful. And it’s still in the thrift store. It’s not even in the Zara.

Amanda

Yeah, I know. i The Zara one is really interesting to me, because when we’d go to the Salvation Army in Lancaster, I would see like 20, 30, 40 of the same dress or pair of pants or whatever. And some of it I kind of recognized from Zara from like previous years. And I haven’t bought anything from Zara in a really long time. But I as I talked about on the show a lot like back when I was at my last job for the pandemic, I was thoroughly depressed all the time and it would constantly scroll Zara to make myself I don’t know, distracted. And I specifically remember this pair of pants that I ordered, and that I couldn’t even get my foot in the leg a hole because they were so poorly made. And Dustin was like, well, maybe they’re children’s and I was like, no, they’re adults. But then I was sort of like gaslighting myself when I went back on the site, like no, they were adult pants. I remember seeing those pants that had been from Zara at this point, like three or four years ago at that Salvation Army like 20 pairs of them that you cannot get your foot through the leg hole.

Dylan

They were like, remember me Amanda.

Amanda

Yeah it was really traumatizing, very triggering of time in my life in which I wondered if my feet were too big for pants.

Dylan

I felt that

Amanda

but yeah, I mean, I have noticed like more and more of that and in the place that the two of you work as well specifically with Target stuff like in the wares section. I would just see so much like stuff still in the package with a Target price tags on, sometimes with the thrift store price tag of being higher.

Ryan

Yeah, that was something that we were told to do as well. Just like, like we said earlier, like just a price, a price a price, even if we were told to take like, try our best to take off the old price tags of things, especially if they’re brand new, because we would get a lot of brand new in the box stuff. And a lot of it would be like, just actually donations not like from like raw wares, you know. So like, people are just over buying a lot of stuff. So like, and not using it. And we were told to scrape off the price tags and up price to them, even though it’s retail pricing. So it’s already up priced.

Amanda

Right. And once again, it’s not because there was a shortage of stuff to put out there that you were like, oh, we need to mark this up because we have too little to sell. It’s because our manager told us. Right? Yeah, right because of greed. Right. So okay, let’s talk about what it’s like to work there. Because as as I mentioned, I read the Glassdoor reviews, nothing surprised me. Honestly, it reminded me so much of the horrible retail job I worked when Dylan was was a baby that I was like, oh, good to know that this place is like an asshole convention as well. Were you paid a lot of money for this job?

Dylan

No. What did you start doing was I started at $9.75 I believe in one cashiers, and the highest I was ever paid, there was $11.

Ryan

I started at $10 as a ware sorter. And then once I finally was able to get my promised position in my interview, I was up to $11.25 to do pretty hard labor in the summer months. And with very minimal air conditioning in a very humid state.

Dylan

I was told that they thought that I was incapable of doing the DSR position even though what you did. Yeah, even though I did it, I just didn’t have the title or the pay. And I also believe this was because all of our DSLRs were male. Yeah. But they were like, No, you can’t. Why would you want to do that? Dylan? You can’t do that. Like, yeah, I think for the $1 raise

Ryan

it was stupid. Also. Not really, with our pay, but our PPE that we were given was very minimal as well.

Amanda

That’s a really important call out because like, the two of you work there. I mean, it’s still the pandemic, but like when it was like, even scarier when we didn’t have vaccines

Ryan

like there was a pretty big shortage on that.

Dylan

yeah, they, for awhile weren’t giving us masks, we would have to bring our own. Yeah, you the one thing that they would supply pretty readily is the gloves that they would make us wear. But because the price tag stickers would stick so badly to the gloves as well as the tape, we would oftentimes cut holes in the fingers of the gloves to make it easier. So we can be more efficient in our work, which of course kind of defeats the purpose of the gloves, which are supposed to protect us from stuff like broken glass, among other things. Anything to meet that quota.

Ryan

Yeah, but they were all about the productivity more than the safety and efficiency of everything. So, you know, there goes that. And the gloves that they gave us were just like those fabric rubber dipped gloves. They weren’t even really thick or durable to get like, I was still getting cut from glass and broken glass. And I had to deal with in these gaylords of raw wares. Because people when they would get them shipped to us, they would just kind of throw these boxes of things in and not really realize, yeah, hey, man, there’s a whole set of glass in here or something, you know,

Dylan

I mean, we would go through gloves really, really fast. There was a lot of waste with the gloves because once again, once the gloves were done, you throw them away.

Amanda

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s shocked. I guess it doesn’t shock me. But like, once again, this thrift corporation is not in the business of environmentalism, right. This is not about sustainability at all. And so of course, they’re not giving you reusable cloths to clean things of course, like the same thing. They’re not giving you reusable reusable gloves. Of course, they’re not cleaning these things on site like in a washing machine.

There are a lot of myths, especially for people who are not avid for shoppers that you have actually helped me debunk a little bit like one. This is like a really obvious one. But sometimes people are shocked to hear this. You do not wash the clothing before you sell it.

Dylan

We don’t know why it smells like that. Weird.

Amanda

Yeah, I know that smell. It’s universal. Right?

Dylan

We don’t spray it with anything.

Ryan

The only thing where we would use spray, I’m like people might think like some thrift stores might spray. They’re like plush, like stuffed animals. But we don’t even do that. It’s literally only certain pillows that aren’t deemed plushies. In couches or chairs, but we weren’t even putting out many couches at our location, because we had no room, you know.

Amanda

I have noticed that that chain specifically almost never has furniture anymore.

Dylan

It’s because when you get furniture, and you have to spray it with this solution for bedbugs. And we were told that we couldn’t take big items like that, because of the amount of that solution that it would use. So I’m guessing that this company just doesn’t really want to pay for us to have more of that. Because that, to my knowledge was the biggest reason well, and

Ryan

this company is just known for cutting corners. So if they can cut costs, obviously they will.

Amanda

I mean, it bums me out, because I think probably a lot of totally decent furniture ends up in the landfill then or abandoned and a lot is and then goes to landfill.

Ryan

And a lot of these furnitures or like furniture pieces that we were like refusing was like, nice vintage pieces, you know, like, whether it be chairs or small love seats, that we were just kind of forced to throw out, you know,

Amanda

a lot of stuff just like is ending up being trashed, because they won’t accept it. Like, I know, they won’t accept televisions, either.

Ryan

there’s a certain like, kind that like, we’ll take like plasma or like, like nice nice TVs, but like, I mean, like we would if we would kind of get a good amount of those. Like, there was a day where we actually got like three TVs, which was really surprising. But like, who is donating their plasma TVs that often you know what I mean?

Amanda

I hope that people could use a TV for more than a couple years. Um, another thing is like holiday decorations. Did you guys see a lot of those?

Dylan

Oh my gosh, I mean, there was a packaway specifically for Christmas decorations. We would do that with Halloween and other holidays. But for the most part, there was such an extreme amount of Christmas stuff to the point where like, pretty much every day we would receive Christmas stuff and it was really really irritating when half the wares you got that day we’re all Christmas decorations. Well, when we’re thinking about they don’t count then, you know, we can’t put them out until the Christmas

Ryan

was something that we if we got I thought what it what was it? Four boxes of packaway gave you an equation to a bin?

Dylan

Yeah, like you had to have like a ton of them to count that da

Ryan

You have to get four boxes of Christmas pack away not wasting your time.

Dylan

And you have to get a manager to sign off on it. And they’re always hard to find

Ryan

and something else you had to ask your manager for was gloves, tape, anything of that sort because guess they locked it all up, of course, for whatever reason. So that would inhibit your productivity for that day as well. And it would take like seven times to ask the same manager for said glove or tape.

Amanda

I mean, in my experience, a company that treats you like children or criminals or both. is always rotten. It’s like they’re showing who they really are. Which are like rotten distrustful people Yeah, you know, who would do who would do nefarious things if given the chance like that’s basically what they were revealing who they are.

Ryan

Yeah, and I mean, like they were doing some nefarious things with with those chances, honestly. Yeah.

Amanda

Well, do you have anything to say to people about like one we’ll start with this, what gets donated and how they could do better as people?

Ryan

please go through your garbage do not just donate your torn up papers. There was literally a time where I had to help this woman whose first language was not English, which is okay but she just literally brought boxes and boxes of paperwork. And it all just got thrown out but like please don’t do that.

Amanda

Throw it out. Get it shredded Dustin bought a bag of a computer bag at one of these stores. And it was filled with like I like I think Dustin could have stolen This guy’s identity, his like, Mercedes Benz payment, like lease bills. And there were a bunch of medical bills.

Dylan

check for personal belongings, please

Ryan

don’t donate your boxes of shit that has mold spores. It’s very hard for us to breathe to begin with in the back, let alone when you have literal mold in your donations and rat poop and pee everywhere.

Dylan

If you can take the time to wash your donations before sending them in. That would be amazing. Like if it’s textile, please throw it through the washer. If you have super dusty dishes or something that you want to donate, please just take the time to rinse them off. Because there are times where it’s so busy and we feel so rushed that even if it’s good stuff, if it’s super dusty, we do not have time to clean it and it’s not gonna go out on the floor.

Amanda

I mean, I think that’s a really good call out to I think that. I mean, like a lot of things I talk about on clothes horse. People forget that there are people involved, right? Like, much like we always talk about how like, you know, your clothes aren’t made by robots. They’re literally made by other humans. When you drop stuff off at a thrift store in a donation bin. It’s not going to be sorted by machines or robots. It’s sorted by human beings and disgusting stuff that you wouldn’t want to find it as a surprise in a box or a bag. Neither does anyone else.

Ryan

I mean, I found quite the surprise and a vase that I still had to put out.

Dylan

I mean, if you wouldn’t buy it, don’t donate

Ryan

Yeah, that’s the that’s the golden rule. I mean, I touch it. Don’t donate it. Yeah, if you think that it should go in the garbage. It probably should. It just takes up too much of our time to just kind of go and sort it and then just throw it away. Like it’s all just garbage.

Amanda

it’s not a garbage bin.

Ryan

Yeah, we’re not a landfill. I mean, it goes to eventually but we’re not the landfill.

Dylan

I think that both of us have also been injured from people donating like broken glass.

Ryan

Yeah, I’ve been cut multiple times with broken glass and not really given proper with gloves on. It really forced me to go to Walmart to get five like, packs of just gloves for myself, like just thicker gloves to just go through, you know, because like, I can’t trust these gloves in even doubling up wasn’t enough.

Amanda

Yeah, I think that’s a great call out like, don’t throw this stuff in bags and boxes like it’s trash unless you think it is trash. In that case, put it in the trash. But if it’s legit, something that you think has value to other people, pack it up as if you were packing it to move yourself.

Ryan

Pack it safely and don’t put everything together your clothes wares, and glass items don’t need to go together. Yeah, it takes no time to just grab some recycled paper or even paper towels. If you want to use paper towels or something anything newspaper, wrap it up, please your clothes don’t need to be the wrapper for your glass.

Dylan

Separating those two is really great. It’s a really huge help gives us a lot of time to not do that. Um, but yeah, if you if you wouldn’t want to touch some of this stuff, why why would you donate it?

Ryan

Also another thing if an employee working or like a DSR is working on on that day and telling you that this is something that we cannot accept because it is hazardous or we just really cannot put it out as something that will go to the garbage so could you please just do that on your own? Please do that. Do not just put it in the dock behind the store or just leave it pull around and leave it after we walk in? It’s very rude and it just takes more time for us to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with this item.

Dylan

If your child had explosive diarrhea in their underwear please do not donate because I have come across so many poopy underwear and I’m not just talking about skid marks like it’s they’ve been through something just throw it away like I don’t know if like people feel better that they’re just donating it to their store but guess what, it’s gonna go in the trash when you could have just done it

Amanda

and possibly putting people at health risk.

Ryan

Yeah, we’re already putting such a risk whenever we’re dealing with i mean i i literally pulled out a dead mouse out of something that I then also put onto the floor so whoever bought that vase, I hope that you clean that one out.

Dylan

Why would I want to go through some soiled Scooby Doo underwear?

Amanda

I knew they were Scooby Doo

Dylan

or spider man typically. Sometimes Dora

Amanda

I mean yeah, once again like people sort this stuff and sorry poopy underwear are garbage unless you want to try to clean them at home yourself. Go f or read but like, don’t pass the problem on to someone else that becomes a health risk. And it’s just, it’s like passing your trash on to someone else.

Dylan

Yeah. I mean, I just don’t understand why people donate stuff that is so soiled. I mean, I get there might be some kind of misconception that we have washing machines or something. But even if we did, why would you donate stuff? Like would you think another child should aware that?

Amanda

I mean, it’s a hazmat situation?

Dylan

We do not get paid enough to deal with hazmat situations on top of having to clean the public bathrooms all the time

Ryan

Yeah. And like, just please just don’t donate underwear to begin with. Unless they’re in a brand new pack. It is really just not something that sells often it honestly just gets thrown away anyway. Like, it might go out onto the floor for a day a couple of days. But it’s not something that gets bought. It just sits there. So just don’t do that.

Dylan

Same with socks, please do not donate the nastiest socks. Yeah, if your socks were white, or now black, your husband’s Hanes socks that he’s worn for 20 years, like they’ve had enough life. Just throw them away.

Ryan

Yeah, not everything needs to be donated. If it looks like you’re not gonna wear it, then somebody else probably won’t either.

Amanda

I mean, I think that’s a great call out like, ask yourself why you’re donating? This is because feel better. Yeah. But if you actually look at like, it’s about being thoughtful, right? Like, does this item actually appear to be something that other people would find desirable, and not just one person, but like a lot, go for it, if it’s something that you’re donating, because it’s trash, or because you are disgusted by or wouldn’t use, because of like, the condition that it’s in, don’t donate it, if you are donating it, because like you’re in a different place in your life, or doesn’t fit you anymore, or you’ve just changed as a person fine.

Ryan

Also stopped donating printers to thrift stores, a lot of them like just don’t work. And it’s really hard. Yeah, and computers, the the stuff that like, I’m not a technology, like, I’m not really advanced in that, but like the stuff that’s within it is really hard to recycle for us that work in these thrift stores. It’s it’s an in printers, especially like, the glass breaks so easy. And I have that is one thing that caught me really bad. And I just, I have PTSD from that. So please do not donate those. And the majority of the time they don’t even work. If you know it doesn’t work. Why would you donate it for somebody to buy for to not work? That’s just rude.

Amanda

Yeah, totally. And I would say most places at this point have like a technology donation center where like these things are actually like refurbished or harvested for parts or whatever. go that route. Once again, like, I think that a lot of people use donation as just a means of getting rid of shit in a really efficient fast way. Just like throwing stuff in the trash. And ultimately, like being mindful and thoughtful about what’s going to happen to the things you don’t want any more. You know what it takes more effort than once one stop dumping.

Dylan

I mean, we would always say at some point you’re not donating because you’re ditching, yeah, you’re ditching, like you don’t get to like relish in the feelings of donating to needy people when you’re donating trash.

Ryan

Well, the dumping trash thing with a lot of these customers or donors within this company, especially, especially, they will ask for the notorious paper so that they can use it as a tax write off, but the things that they’re donating to you anymore. Yeah, the things that you’re donating don’t even equal the $300 minimum. Honestly, it’s all like I said garbage.

Dylan

So you don’t get to have a complex for donating things. I hate when people think that because they’re donating anything. They’re amazing person but really it doesn’t mean anything like thank you, but you eat up most here’s a pat on the back. Yeah, do not deserve an award for donating something through a thrift store. Exactly. Because we have come across a lot of donors who seem to have that kind of complex and then in turn, think that we should treat them like God because

Ryan

they are always wearing that specific outfit to honestly just, you know who you are.

Amanda

one thing that didn’t surprise me per se, as a person who’s worked a lot of retail but was still really disheartening to hear is how terrible donors as you would call them, people who are dropping off their stuff. Yeah, treat the workers with respect.

Ryan

As DSR like like being like that face for them like and I would like when we were really overrun when there would be nothing in the back like you can’t like you can’t see like the person that works beside you because it is all just gaylords that are full of raw wares because we have no room to bring these carts in, even to just walk like it. There’s not even a foot distance of a wall. Rockway in, you’re telling them we cannot accept any more donations and they’re still a line of cars, and they’re already cussing you out. But it’s like, this comes down to a matter of safety. Like we cannot even walk. Like if we had a drill at a fire. How would we even efficiently and safely get out of there? I mean, they’re you’re angry at me

Dylan

The backroom was so packed that it was very hard to move back there. And you couldn’t do a little scooch in between the

Ryan

it was that small, like it would be like a six inch opening like and like, the majority of people couldn’t even walk through that. Like it’s, it’s unsafe, and for people to just expect that we should take their garbage because that’s exactly what it would be. Like, it’s just unfathomable. Like we can’t even walk in you expect me to say okay, yeah, you know what, you’re the exception. I’ll take it. And there’s still stuff sitting on the concrete stoop that I still have to bring in, let alone the shit that you want to drop off or dump. No.

Amanda

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I just think this company itself is really terrible. But also people need to take responsibility for their behavior today.

Ryan

And they think that we’re just being lazy when we say we can’t accept these anymore. It’s it’s literally like I was I mean, if I’m there Leslie’s yeah for if I’m there stuff, I’m working 24/7 I do not stop you know, if I’m on shift I don’t stop in like, that could just be me, but at the same time, it’s what you have to do in that job. You cannot stop because you’re you’re documented you know what I mean? With what you do. So like, I other people are relying on me in that DSR position for their wares and their stuff. So I have to always keep working like I’m not being lazy it’s literally the fact that we have no room we cannot continue to take this stuff if you want I can I will direct them to other stores or other places. I will gladly take their their things. Why already just drove all this way. What’s another two minutes out of? That’s not good for me.

Amanda

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like working retail to me. Um, well, do you have anything else to add that you would like people to know? Or to think about before they pack up that trash bag full of their unwanted things?

Dylan

Um, I would just say, it is completely possible to over consume at the thrift store. Don’t keep doing this cycle where you buy a bunch of stuff and then you re-donated a month later, that isn’t helping anything.

Ryan

You’re just giving giving it right back to the source and it’s not going where you think it’s not going to a good cause the cause with that company is never good.

Amanda

Alright, well, thank you too, so much.

Amanda

Thank you again to Dylan and Ryan for taking the time to share their stories. And also, for being all-around great guests. I know I’m a little biased here, but…wasn’t that great? If you’ve worked in the thrift industry and want to talk about it, please reach out to me!

Thank you again to Dylan and Ryan for taking the time to share their stories. And also, for being all-around great guests. I know I’m a little biased here, but…wasn’t that great? If you’ve worked in the thrift industry and want to talk about it, please reach out to me!

Stuff comes in and out of our lives. Our circumstances change. Our sizes change. Where we live and what we need changes. No one is expecting you to keep the same things for your whole life…but we have to revisit the lifespan of our belongings, because ultimately both the creation and the disposal of these items impacts so many people. SO MANY PEOPLE. Next week’s episode will be all about how we can more mindfully rehome our unwanted items.

One last thing: just a reminder that the two year anniversary of Clotheshorse is coming up! And I have a special episode planned to commemorate this auspicious occasion: I’m going to share my own path from fast fashion to Clotheshorse, my own journey if you will! I receive a lot of requests for that! So here you go! And guess what? I want to hear more about your journey, too!

What made you start to care more about sustainability, particularly in regards to things you wear?

What changes were most difficult? What were the easiest?

How do you think slow fashion could be more accessible to others?

And how do you find yourself making changes on a regular basis? Do you have any tips for others?

You can learn more about how to record, where to send it, etc in the show notes.

But the deadline is rapidly approaching: it’s Friday, July 1. And so far I have only received one submission. You know, for my 10th birthday, I planned a slumber party at my house. And no one showed up. I’m still feeling that pain, so please submit an audio essay! Was that pitiful enough?