I've found as I grown older I have less tolerance towards crowds and noise in stores. While I mostly shop on Amazon, quite a few times I'd had to return things either because they arrived damaged or defective (not working). On the rare occasion I do visit a store, weekday mornings tend to be the quietest times to go.  

One thing I do miss from my childhood, the "ding, ding, ding..." in department stores. Who would had thought those were coded messages for the staff?

How well I remember those paging tones from my very early department store days when I worked on the sales floor (very happy times to be sure). As a supervisor they'd assign a number to you for the day or evening like 24 and you'd listen...ding ding...ding ding ding ding. You'd pick up the nearest phone and ask what you were needed for. Long numbers made you "dingy". The old Emporium in San Francisco had no paging or sound system...too old and too big. There were several colored light bulbs at various locations on the sales floors. You were assigned a color and supposed to keep an eye on these bulbs. They were funky, regular full-size colored bulbs you'd buy in a drug store in white ceramic sockets screwed to the walls. Fortunately I never worked on the sales floor in that big place. 

When voice paging became popular stores discovered paging "SECURITY" helped to cut down on shoplifting, even if the loss prevention people weren't needed. I miss those department store paging tones. They went along nicely with the "quality smell" the stores used to have.

Maintenance guys would polish these bronze plaques every day. 

Playing the Grocery Store Music video & that has me wondering: Is it "Shopping Spree"????

-- Dave

For me the best time to go shopping is 2AM!  No one in Walmart or Kroger except the stockers (except at Christmas when you will see a couple with their 1yr old child out at 2AM).

When greedy Macy's (worked for the California division for 5 years when they were at the top of the heap and it wasn't pleasant) took over Federated it was rumored that Marshall Field's would become a Macy's. Many people didn't believe it since Field's was much more than a fine store, it was an institution. My Chicago friends still shake their heads in disgust. Lunch in The Walnut Room doesn't taste the same. Neither do the Frango Mints.

Mechanical registers were fun stuff. One of the first things you learned was what to do if the power went out (there was limited emergency lighting). You opened a hole in the side of the register, inserted a crank and cranked your transaction through. There were flashlights at all the registers to help you see the correct keys. Like the high-wire artist that falls at the circus with a SPLAT!..."The show must go on". 

I was very young when I went to work for The Emporium as an executive trainee just out of San Jose State. It was the tail-end of department store quality and service. I should have been born 25 years earlier but then I'd be dead now. Department stores tried to be all things to all people, but times change. I could see the writing on the wall. Areas with low margins and pricey returns like major appliances vanished. TV/Stereo and Electronics held on for awhile due to technology but they were doomed too. The money-makers like women's ready-to-wear (where the department made big profits even at 50% off) and cosmetics where the vendors paid the salespeople's salary were safe until recently. The history of America's great department stores makes for fascinating reading. 

This cover looks a little like the San Francisco Big E's dome. By the time I started the openings to the upper floors were long covered up. Merchandise on the first floor was kept in glass cases during the time horses pulled street cars and the like. There was a lot of dust...and no, I'm not that old. The store kept a lot of old fixtures in a huge area called the Lincoln Building. You could sneak in there and look around, spooky and creepy.

I remember the cash registers were so old in the San Francisco store they had the receipt tape mounted outside above the top and it fed down inside. These were still being used when Macy's up the street (Union Square) installed flashy POS terminals which allowed the company to monitor the salespeople's productivity on an hourly basis and patrol the floor with a whip. They were so very kind .

The Emporium also sounded royal-like trumpets at opening and at closing sort of like "The Queen Approaches!" They never announced the store was closed. It remained open until the last customer was finished shopping. There were no wall clocks either. No customer was supposed to feel rushed.