Lessons from the Kmart shoe department

If you frequented the Kmart store in Cudahy, Wisc., in the late 1970s, Julie Beck may have been the voice urging you to check out the blue-light specials in the shoe department.

Nearly four decades later, she can still rattle off the script that she read over the store loudspeaker while a bright blue light flashed above the shoe racks: “Attention Kmart shoppers! For the next five minutes...”

After delivering those opening lines — familiar to anyone who shopped the discount department store chain in its heyday — Ms. Beck would provide details of the temporary deals available on sneakers, high-heels or loafers.

“I had to do one blue-light every hour. It was fantastic for public speaking,” said Ms. Beck, now the chief financial officer at Nova Chemicals in Moon.

Ms. Beck didn’t pursue a career in retail. But her first job as a high school student in her hometown in suburban Milwaukee provided an early education in some basic business principles.

“It certainly taught you about customer service, about inventory and about logistics,” she said. “And it taught me the importance of the store’s appearance.”

She also learned the significance of low pricing because, “People waited for the sales,”

Unlike many harried retail workers who dread the holiday rush, Ms. Beck said she “loved working Christmas Eve.”

“And I still like to shop on Christmas Eve. Everyone is so happy and excited.”

Despite the buzz she got from holiday crowds, Ms. Beck admits there were irritations to the Kmart job.

Shoes in each pair were connected with a piece of string that held the price tag. Sales clerks were instructed to make sure the tags were displayed “in a certain way,” she said.

But keeping them in order wasn’t easy, as customers