Workplace 35 - Luscious

Lush is lushtastic. Is fantastic and bombastic and enthusiastic and amazing and other words that you use when you are way too excited.

Before I worked there I was a fan but after working there I’m like the new guy in the cult – everything is the most amazing ever!! So please forgive me if this comes off as preachy, or worse, like being spammed with junk mail. If it helps you can replace every ‘Lush’ reference with a word of your own choosing. (eg. Pants.)

While I was working at Hexters (see previous post – why aren’t you reading these in order?!) I started looking for somewhere else to pay me, as minimum wage in Canada is really really minimum. I handed out a bunch of resumes at the local shopping centre, Market Mall, but didn’t hear back from most. Darn foreigners, out to steal jobs I assume was the response. But I walked into Lush, found the manager and told her “Hi, I need to work here, this place is amazing. Here’s my resume so you can call me when you get a minute” Sassy as. A few days later they did call me, but they said that they were doing a group job interview session in two weeks’ time and did I want to go. I said yes, thanks, end of conversation. Then I thought, that’s rubbish – another two weeks?! So I drove down there and told them that I would prefer starting tomorrow and would that work for them? Ten minutes of interview later and I started the next day – yay!

A week after that and I was made a keyholder so that I could do the opening and closing and pretty much worked every single day for the next few months for them. If I had a day off and it got to midday I’d start to worry coz I hadn’t been called in yet, but it never got to 1pm without my little flip phone going off. Also, Lush paid me $12 an hour which kicked butt over the bars $8! Woo!

Basically, Lush is a dream place to work. The girls were so fun and energetic, I genuinely believe in the product and we could make our own mix tapes to play in the store. I know it sounds minor but a place that lets you play your own music has the right idea. 
Happy staff –> happy store –> sales.

Working at Lush requires a lot of product knowledge. Staff need to be able to say 3 things about every product, ideally a few of the ingredients and what makes it unique over something else in the range. Also we had to be able to diagnose skin issues/types and recommend products for it that could help or work well. I learnt heaps about different oils/fruits/nuts/ organic products and what they do. Fortunately I found it fascinating so it was easy to learn and I was always hitting the other girls up for more info. We’d talk shop a lot, alternative uses for the products and why certain things work so well or what works best with what. (For instance, if you buy a bath bubble bar and put a little bit of it in with your washing it cleans your clothes and they smell amazing!)

We’d always have shop demonstrations going on and we’d regularly being trying the face masks or foot scrubs or even the shampoo’s/conditioners while we were working so that we knew more about them. Demonstrating the bubble bars was so much fun coz kids would always lose their minds over the giant sparkling bubbles. The other thing we'd do was decorating the store in themes and dressing up for holidays or new product launches. Like when Halloween  happened and it was so crazy! The mall got totally decked out, all the stores went overboard with it and people were walking around in costumes the entire week. Little kids go trick or treating all along the shops and they were so ADORABLE! In my opinion kids who are too little to walk should always be in costumes. 

Management team meeting

We had a shop digital camera and would do crazy photo shoots while we were working as well as taking it to nights out as we all hung out together outside of work as well. My favourite goodbye party when I left Canada was when all the Lush crew got together and we went to a Mexican restaurant - so much tequila!

And the managers would organise closed store parties for the staff and our favourite regulars where we could just go nuts with all the products. We'd give each other facials and spa treatment - just use everything hey! 

Best of all we got to take home heaps of the product, any testers that were too low, any broken stuff or nearly out of date stuff - we used it all! Or if you made big sales  or hit targets you got Lush money to spend so you could get more stuff, AND on top of that there was the 50% staff discount! Oh how I miss the staff discount! It was so clever tho because the more we used the products the more we loved them. Amazing.

But seriously, I miss the 50% discount.

In store staff massage line

Mucking around during Halloween week

Aislinn dressing the window for a new product

I made the Sydney Opera House out of soap!

My best friend in Canada, Jade was our beautiful store fairy this day!

Our fearless store managers =)

Basically it was great fun, great product, great people – I have never come across a better retail job. There were sales targets and competitions but they were easy to hit, you never got told off for not reaching them, there were just prizes if you did. Super motivating. Honestly I would go back to working at Lush in a heartbeat. (If Lush ever open a Toowoomba store I'm just going to send them this as my resume!)

*End of crazy raving cult lady*