Job Description

USC Bookstore Student Supervisor

Oh no, the football season is starting and you don't have anything to wear to the next game! No need to worry, just stop by the USC Bookstore! We have everything that you'll need to show off your Trojan spirit. That's right, I'm one of the many student workers you can find at the USC Bookstore. Upon starting college, one of the many things I was excited about was getting my first job. That's how I found myself working at the Bookstore within a couple months of my first semester at USC. Just after a year, the head manager promoted me to become one of the few student supervisors. 

While working in college isn't always exciting, the past two years I've spent at the Bookstore have proved to be otherwise. Finding out when new products come in and getting discounts are some perks of the job. But what exactly does a student supervisor do besides working the cash registers?

There are three responsibilities that help to describe my role as a student supervisor at the USC Bookstore:

• Overseer
• Waiter/Waitress
• Interior Designer

I'll explain these using examples of what I do on a typical day. 

Overseer

While the store managers do most of the behind-the-scenes work to run the Bookstore, the student supervisors are the ones you see working mostly with the customers. Along with that, is also overseeing the work of the other student workers. We accomplish this in these ways:

• Assigning positions to the student workers and ensuring they complete their duties
• Keeping track of the schedule of student workers for the day
• Solving any problems that the student workers may have

This is essentially the main duty of all student supervisors. Usually what happens is that I'll come in for my shift and there will be about four to five other student supervisors there as well. We'll divide among the three main floors of the Bookstore and have a small group of two to three other student workers on each of the floors with us. Depending on which floor I'm on, I'll assign the student workers different tasks for them to do during their shift. If the student workers happen to run into a problem with a customer, then they'll come to me or the other student supervisors so that we can resolve the issue. 

Waiter/Waitress

In this role, the student supervisors act as a waiter/waitress and provide service to the customers by doing the following:

• Greeting customers with a smile and asking if they need any assistance
• Attending to any of the customer's need
• Providing the best in-store shopping experience

Most customers come to the USC Bookstore in hopes of being able to buy a nice souvenir of some kind, such as a sweatshirt, hat, mug, etc. And of course, we want them to get their money's worth by providing an exceptional customer experience. In order to do this, I always greet the customers when they come to the floor I'm supervising and ask if they need help finding anything. Normally, most customers are just looking around and don't need any help. For those that do need assistance, I do my best to attend to their needs whether that be finding a clothing item in a certain size, giving recommendations on what to buy, or even just giving out the code to the restroom. I try to provide all customers with the best in-store experience in hopes that they will want to buy more things and want to come back in the future. 

Interior Designer

The USC Bookstore isn't just a place where students go to get their basic college needs. There's actually so much more merchandise. If there's something you need, then there are chances you can find it at the USC Bookstore. That's why we need to make sure to display all of our items in an easy-to-find and appealing way. Thus, as a student supervisor part of our responsibilities is to be an interior designer by:

• Creating visually appealing displays
• Changing the furniture layout and space arrangement

The layout of the USC Bookstore is constantly changing, depending on the seasons (weather and sport) and events occurring. It's our job to help bring in various USC merchandise and organize them in an attractive way. I have actually spent hours folding shirts on our large T-shirt wall on the second floor just so that everything would look neat and aligned. The more visually appealing the displays, the more desirable the merchandise will be to the customers.