love/hate - debwa goes inside benefit

I recently 'auditioned' for a job at the benefit cosmetics counter in selfridges on oxford street. Prior to this experience I had been enamored with the company's simple-retro styling and their pin-up esque packaging. Benefit seemed to be a good company for the 'tweens' group - not full of age defying make-up for forty-somethings like clarins or lancome, but not bubble gum sweet or poor quality like teen lines seen in drug stores.



At my job audition myself and three other girls were showed four products:

-Dr. Feel Good - a mattifying moisturizer

-You Rebel - a tinted moisturizer offered in one color that "adjusts to any skintone"

-Benetint - a liquid lip and cheek tint

-Highbeam - a liquid highlighter

we were brieftly taught about each one and how to apply it. Then we had to apply them on each other while reciting all the details we had just learned. After finishing, the supervisor put us on the floor in the main make-up department and we were told to traffic customers, or reel them in, the most important part of our job. I found this part extremely difficult, mostly because I absolutely hate it when people bombard me with new products and perfumes, it makes me not want to buy anything from them - ever! In the end I got about 5 people to sit down for me and i chatted with them and showed them my 4 'favorite products'. No one really bought anything, but I met a very nice woman from italy, two young asian girls, a little old lady, and a woman who never wore make-up ever, not even to her wedding! I had been working the floor for about 3 hours when the supervisor approached me and told me I wasn't putting enough emphasis on the company and the cosmetics and that i needed to be more pushy with people. She said I spent too much time putting the make-up on and talking to the customer, which is bad for business because i could be using that time getting more people to buy more things. Then she said the didn't think this job was for me.

I'm really disappointed in benefit. I thought they were a laid-back, anti-establishment sort of cosmetics company, a lot friendlier than the people at chanel or MAC, whom I often find to be a bit lofty. It didn't matter to them how well I could do make-up - most of the other girls at the interview had no make-up experience at all! The items they gave us to use required hardly any skill at all. Even the supervisor was wearing badly blended blush and took little or no care applying products to the clients faces. No one seemed to really care about what they were doing or the people they were serving, just about making money. I do love benefit's cosmetics, but it may be a while now before I shop there again.