Kat
Appearances
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
And I was definitely the only person who didn't own anything by the brand. And I remember there was this one lady who had just quit her corporate job to come work at Lululemon because she was so obsessed with the brand and so obsessed with product. And she was wearing head to toe Lululemon and knew everything about it. And she really wanted that job.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
But hilariously, I got it because at the time they were introducing running clothes and I was a runner. And so they wanted to hire someone who could product test the running clothes and like sell them in the store, which I did, which was pretty sweet because then they would pay me to go on runs and stuff. So it was actually pretty great.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
So we would have these workshops and in staff meetings there would be dedicated time to goal setting where you would set your goals for like six months, a year.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
I wanted to be a writer and they helped me set all these goals around writing and most of the people in my store were all aspiring to be on Broadway or musical theater actors and performers and so often their goals revolved around that and even though it's Für einen basic retail job with a high turnover of employees, this was pretty deep personal stuff.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
I'm a novelist now, so I am a writer now. And I guess I should probably thank the goal-setting skills I learned at Lululemon for that.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Das ist eine Frau namens Kat. Sie arbeitete früher bei einem Lululemon-Store. Und es gibt bei Lululemon diese Kultur von Intensität. Du gehst in deine Workout-Klassen und du trägst die Kleider. Und du setzt deine Ziele und du wirst deine Ziele erreichen. Und ich kann sehen, wie... Es gibt nicht viele lackadaisische, Laissez-faire-Kind-der-Personalität.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 1
Damals hatte sie gerade die Schule gegründet. Sie war eine ausreichende Schriftstellerin, neu in der Stadt, in Bedrohung von einem Job. Kat wusste nicht, dass die Firma-Kultur und einige der Leute da ein bisschen intensiv wären. So I went to my interview, which looking back on was fully crazy. Like it was a group interview and they sat us down on the floor in a circle.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
I think we've all seen the type of person who gets super into exercise generally because there's darkness lurking and there's anger there. And there is at Lululemon this culture – or there was when I worked there. I don't know what it's like anymore.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
But this culture of intensity, like you're going to your workout classes and you're wearing the clothes and you are setting your goals and you're going to achieve your goals. And I can see how it's not a lot of lackadaisical laissez-faire kind of personalities.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
I worked at Lululemon from the fall of 2016 to the spring of 2017. So it was a kind of short but meaningful six to eight months. I worked at a store called Soho Women's in Soho in New York. It was only women's clothes and men's clothes were sold across the street. But I picked up shifts at stores all over the city during that time. And I was just a part-time educator.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Educator is the term for just like sales associate, but it's Lululemon, so it can't just be called that. It has to be called educator. Can you describe what the store looks like inside? Yes. So Soho Women's was very, I mean, like a lot of stores in Soho. It was small. It was long and narrow. And it was only women's clothes, which created a very fun vibe.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And also because it was Soho, I remember it was like all black everything inside. In a lot of other stores, they would put in more colors. But because it was Soho, it was like women here wear black. Something from the way the store looked that is truly funny is that there was this window and it had like a window seat.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And sometimes they would let slash encourage slash ask one of us to go do yoga in the window. And I barely knew how to do yoga, but it was amazing because you didn't have to talk to anyone, you know, because sometimes in retail, you just can't like you just can't do it. So we would alternate just going in the window and doing like a flow as if it was like Cirque du Soleil or something.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And it was wild. That's why I feel like I've never seen that. I've never seen people. No, I've never seen anyone at any other store do it. So I don't know if that was just something that went on at our store or what the thought behind it. But people would stop and take pictures of you and stuff. And I would be like, this is – I hope that I never have to see any picture of myself doing this.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
I'm just doing this so that I don't have to talk about sports bras for two minutes.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Yes. So at my store, it was a lot of tourists because it was in Soho. But also it was just a lot of really chic, thin women who were pretty intense and kind of weren't in there to chat. You know, a lot of them probably had pretty high-powered jobs and were hitting SoulCycle at 5 a.m. and just needed their clothes to do that in. But something that was interesting about Lululemon was –
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Every store had kind of a tailored approach to their clientele based on where they were. On the Upper East Side, they took a personal shopper approach, which we did not do in SoHo. So you just kind of waited by the door and then someone came in and you were their personal shopper for their whole experience, which I did not enjoy. I think for some reason, I think it was called POP.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And their personal shopper or something was worked in there. But we never did it at SoHo Women's. The thing, the job that I often took at my store and the first job I ever had there was called DOFI, which stands for Director of First Impressions. So that was just being a greeter, but it was called Dopey.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
I absolutely can. So there was this practice there called clearing where the thought behind that was before you start a shift like clear the air and set an intention for your shift or maybe just let something go that's going to bother you and hold you back from being the best possible educator that you could be that day.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And, you know, I remember one time a coworker of mine had come from a funeral. So she needed to clear that she had been at a funeral and like just let the energy from that go so that she could get out there and, you know, be a good Lululemon employee. And.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
A big part of working there as well, and this was actually really positive for me, was that Lululemon was this company that was very much based around goals and helping you achieve your goals and helping you set your goals. Because the thing about working retail, especially in a city like New York, is that most people who are working there are not wanting to work there long term.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And Lululemon was very aware of that. So we would have these workshops and in staff meetings, there would be dedicated time to goal setting where you would set your goals for like six months, a year, I think even five and ten years sometimes.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And it wasn't necessarily that those goals had to be personal, but they were encouraged to be personal and they were encouraging us to be realistic about what we wanted to do. Manifesting out loud, that was a big thing too, which is very cheesy and a strange thing to do at work, but I have actually found to be really helpful.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Like, it would make us go around. I mean, make sounds severe, but we would go around and read our cards. We would write them on these cards and say our goals out loud because there's allegedly science, and I believe this. I'm sure that they weren't lying about it, hopefully, but around how much more likely you are to achieve your goals if you say them out loud.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And have people holding you accountable to doing them. And so, you know, I would go around and say, you know, I'm going to write 5000 words this week. And someone would say, I'm going to go to X number of dance classes, which is in service of my goal to get equity by October or whatever. It can feel really serious.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And I mean, I don't know, because there's something to be said for when you're living your life and things are maybe going on in your life. And then you go into this store and it becomes this almost magnifying glass or microcosmic thing. This one time, my coworkers used to give me so much shit about this.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
Like there was this woman who came into the store and she wanted this, an energy sports bra for her daughter. And her daughter was a size six. This was eight years ago. And I remember these details. And I it was Christmas time and we didn't have it in the store. And I went down to the basement and we didn't we just didn't have it in that size. And it was really easy to order them online.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
This was not a big deal. The woman was super nice. And for some reason, when I went to tell her that we didn't have it, I just burst into tears and was crying to this woman was like, we don't have the size. I'm so sorry. And she was like, it's fine. Fine. And I, to this day, don't know why I got so emotional about that. It's just a lot. It's just a lot.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
And because they ask you to bring your full self, but also don't. It can create an environment of dissonance, I guess. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.
Infamous
Murder at Lululemon | Part 4
No, there were definitely other times. There was definitely more than one breakdown. I didn't kill anyone, but there was more than one breakdown. Okay.
The Lore Lads
The Lore Lads Invite You To Ask Us Anything | Podcast Episode 167
Imagine if we did a video on Kanye.
The Lore Lads
The Lore Lads Invite You To Ask Us Anything | Podcast Episode 167
1989 Western. Oh, it's a show.
The Lore Lads
The Lore Lads Invite You To Ask Us Anything | Podcast Episode 167
What reasons would you not be able to get in though? I thought you just have to be like, believe in God and it's still the rest of the lodge's decision.