Officially, all Toys-R-Us stores in the United States close Friday, June 29th, 2018. What seems like a large portion of them, though, shut down today, the 28th, if not earlier depending on how quickly their merchandise sold out.
For me, personally, the end came today when the store I not only worked at for the past few years, but also had gotten things from in my later childhood years, when the store was first built and opened in 1996-1997, closed today. At 3 P.M., Toys-R-Us 8867 in Memphis, Tennessee, for all purposes, ceased to be.
The store in question, 4 days before closing.
I had work at the other job today, so I didn’t get a chance to go by the store in those final hours. I did, however, get to go by on Sunday to capture what I could of the store, including me going into the back rooms to document the absolute barren state they were in. Of course I captured what I could of the now-barren parts of the store which, only a week before, were rather full of merchandise.
I started working at Toys-R-Us in late 2014, and made it just past the 3 year mark before I left to “take a break” in 2017, just after the initial bankruptcy announcements, well before store closings were seen as a possibility. I actually intended to come back to the store at some point, but in March when the official company closing announcements were made, I knew I had really abandoned ship at the best possible time.
Working at Toys-R-Us was, honestly, pretty awesome. While it had its share of problems it also had the best management I had worked with in, well, pretty much ever, and I also had a great group of people to work with. Slowly, though, we all found other things to do – some friends moved, others just left the company, and even I jumped at the opportunity to work where I do now, but I didn’t just leave outright – I actually worked both jobs for a while until I felt the time was right in late 2017 to shift to just working at the game store.
While the workplace itself was great, the work environment wasn’t. Some days were so frustrating given the always-understaffed nature of the store compared to how busy we were that everyone wanted to quit at once. We didn’t, of course, but it gets that way sometimes, especially given our location. Trust me, the Wolfchase area is something else…
It’s funny, I tended to take many photos while I was up there of whatever caught my eye – funny product art, areas that were super messed up or things that were otherwise worth taking a picture of (like a “Giraffe Shrine” someone made in an aisle) or other, less worth discussing things (I’ve cleaned up my fair share of body fluids. Yes, the exact kind you’re thinking about on all fronts.) and then a very great few that captured the look of the store itself. I figured I’d take the pictures just to show friends “hey, look how messed up this was, and now look how good I made it look” or maybe show what new we had gotten in to a friend who didn’t make it into the store too often. Instead, they now help remind me of what it was like up there, both the good and the mildly, but constantly, annoying aspects.
Yeah, it was a job, it was work, but it was work I enjoyed. Helping parents find the right thing for their child, seeing kids have fun, maybe getting to talk with them about games like Minecraft, or what toys I played with as a kid, it was an experience. Sure, there were annoyances – that happens with any job, and yeah, by the time I had been there 3 years, I knew I wanted to move on, but still, it was a great time, not something that was “just a job” for me. It was its own little story, a very small but nice chapter in my life. One I actually hope to share as time passes – I have stories I want to share, for whatever they are worth to those reading.
More to come, as always.
As for Toys-R-Us store 8867, it was a good time. I’ll miss it.