The Pastor Goes to Ann Taylor (Part 2)

I reread what I posted yesterday and realized that my reflections were of a particularly serious nature, so I wanted to lighten up the mood today while remaining on the same topic.

So, what else does the pastor find in common with the church and Ann Taylor?

1. Both do “outreach” mailings.
Let me take you back to the days of my Southern Baptist upbringing for those of you who don’t do this in your faith community. Every Monday night we had an activity on the church calendar called Contact night. This meant that the dedicated types would come to the church and write cards or make phone calls to recent visitors or members of the church who were inactive. (I can’t tell you how many postcards I wrote during this period of my life). All of this seems pretty standard for the church, right?

But, actually this week, I was asked to do the exact same thing at AT. Part of the Ann Taylor protocol is that every sales associate keeps a client book. This book contains the address and phone numbers of clients you have had significant contact with via helping them with their shopping. On Tuesday, I wrote cards to my clients (with coupons in them) telling them about an upcoming sale. I invited them to call for a personal wardrobe appointment with me (isn’t this scary?) about our newest fall fashions. I feel like I needed to go find an offering envelope to be able to report how many contacts I’d made this week . . .

2. Both value the personal greeting.
A week ago our district manager came into the store to view the newest store layout and evaluate us on our job performance. While she was observing my customer service, I happened to say, “Welcome to Ann Taylor, I’m glad you are here.” No one taught me to say that because actually, a more appropriate thing I should have said to the woman was: “Welcome to Ann Taylor. Would you like to me to show you some of the newest hot items we just got in?” But, in fact the district manager loved the statement I made and complemented me individually later.

In that moment I realized that the church “meet and greet” Elizabeth had come out. “I’m glad you are here” or “I’m glad you came today” is totally something I would say while greeting parishioners at the door coming in our out of the church. So for now, I guess I’m leading people to come to know about a personal relationship with Ann. . .

3. Both environments contain people who are in desperate need of a conversation.
I met a man a couple weeks ago who was waiting patiently on a stool in the shoe section of the store while his wife tried on yet another black pant suit. I went over to tell him that I thought he was being a patient husband. He thanked me for noticing him and then proceeded to engage me in conversation all about his hometown in West Virginia, why he and his wife were in D.C. for the weekend, and what he thought about women’s clothing stores in general. “She can sure spend a lot of money in her’e,” he said. I found myself wanting to continue to talk to him and realized that was in fact not my job. My focus according to the corporation was talking his wife into buying more clothes than she wanted. I had to get back to work. . . . But, I sure did wish this man's his wife would come of the dressing room soon as I saw that he was about to go into fashion overload.
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So even though I am ready for things to come, I am encouraged by the fact that there is God to be found where I am, and that my pastor brain continues to be on even when I’m stuck in uncomfortable shoes of the retail life for a while.