Malled

One woman''s midcareer misadventures in the absurd world of American retail. . After losing her job as a journalist and the security of a good salary Caitlin Kelly was hard up for cash. When she saw that The North Face-an upscale outdoor clothing company-was hiring at her local mall she went for an interview almost on a whim. . Suddenly she found herself middle-aged and mid-career thrown headfirst into the bizarre alternate reality of the American mall: a world of low-wage workers selling overpriced goods to well-to-do customers. At first Kelly found her part-time job fun and reaffirming a way to maintain her sanity and sense of self-worth. But she describes how the unexpected physical pressures the unreasonable dictates of a remote corporate bureaucracy and the dead-end career path eventually took their toll. As she struggled through more than two years at the mall despite surgeries customer abuse and corporate inanity Kelly gained a deeper understanding of the plight of the retail worker. . In the tradition of Nickel and Dimed Malled challenges our assumptions about the world of retail documenting one woman''s struggle to find meaningful work in a broken system.