I Was a Retail Salesperson: An Examination of Two Memoirs About Working in Retail

Abstract

This article considers Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed (originally published in 2001) and Caitlin Kelly’s Malled (2011) as representational narratives of working-class retail workers. The display of working-class experience in each work is considered in the context of the authors’ lives and experiences, considering use of language, events and broader expectations of the working life of retail salespeople. Using Stuart Hall’s concept of the ‘Other’ (2013) as a theoretical key point, the article also considers, for an American perspective specifically, how these workers are constructed in the broader ideology of the nation state.