[PHOTOSTORY 4: WORK SHIFT] Sole Statesboro

By: Cate Kearby

Sole is a locally owned women's clothing boutique in Statesboro. Their focus is on trendy, affordable fashion with a fun and welcoming vibe. 

Ava Aulls is a senior at Georgia Southern University majoring in Marketing. She works part-time at Sole. 

Ava clocks in and begins working at the boutique. One of her tasks consists of opening boxes of women's jeans. 

Ava hangs up the brand-new jeans and begins tagging them before putting them onto the floor to be sold to customers. 

Sole offers a warm, pink vibe behind the counter. Dressing room keys hang up behind the wall for customers who may want to try on clothes before buying. 

At Sole Statesboro, little details like the quote inside of the dressing room add a personal touch. This reminds customers of the little things the employees do for their audience. 

Ava prepares the dressing room with the customers clothes they want to try on. A selection of a colorful dress and jeans hang neatly on the rack. 

The customer waits for his partner while she trys on the different clothes in the dressing room. He stares down at his phone patiently waiting. 

The customer waits near the register for Ava to check her out for the items she purchased. She holds her phone looking afar. 

Ava neatly packages the clothes with colorful filling paper to add a personable touch to the puchase. 

Other customers begin to exit the doors after gandering around the store. After window shopping, they decided not to purchase anything. 

Ava continues printing tags to apply to clothes before they hit the floor. This is a tedious part of her job to ensure each item of clothing has the right tag on it. 

Ava continues tagging the other jeans she unpackaged. This task helps keeps inventory organized and ready for customers. 

Rows of neatly arranged hangers line the sales floor at Sole Statesboro. Ava continues working in the background organizing the register. 

Ava walks to the back room to take out an empty box from the jeans. This ensures that the store stays clean and in order. 

Ava arranges the racks to make sure the merchandise is neatly in order. This keeps the sales floor tidy and ready for new customers. 

Ava updates the inventory live from the computer screen. This process maintains accurate stock levels for the website and in store purchases. 

Ava continues tagging the jeans before putting on the sales floor. 

Ava moves back to the computer to update the newly arrived jeans keeping records of the inventory correctly. This part of working at a boutique keeps her busy during the dead hours. 

A view of the Sole Statesboro storefront as seen from outside. The outside of the storefront welcomes customers in. 

 

[Photostory 4: Work Shift] Brooke Temple at Salon Seven

By William McCranie

Salon Seven is a salon located in Perry, Georgia. Brooke Temple opened the salon over 10 years ago and has been running the business and cutting hair ever since.

The walkway up to the door has a little smoking area for the customers and workers. Many of Salon Seven's customers are older, with many of them still smoking.

Brooke is in the middle of her first appointment of the day. Pamela Noble is the lucky customer who also works at Mercer University.

Brooke is blowing and brushing Pamela's wet hair. Brooke has been cutting hair for over 20 years and running her own business for over 10.

Pamela is busy explaining why Mercer was out of school for Good Friday and why she was able to get her hair done during the week at mid-morning. Brooke said she wished her daughter's college were off so she could come early for Easter.

Brooke is done drying Pamela's hair and is now using hairspray to style it. She sells this same hairspray and said it is her best seller for the entire salon.

Brooke is mixing colors for her next appointment. A big part of working in a salon is knowing how to mix colors and dye hair.

To be able to mix colors and offer hair dyeing as a service, you have to have a cosmetology license. This is because of how dangerous the chemicals can be if the person doesn't know what they are doing.

While waiting for her next appointment to show up, Brooke is putting out and pricing some products that she sells. She explained that she still likes doing everything manually, including writing down the prices.

Some of the products that Brooke is selling. She only sells products that she uses herself or that her workers use.

Brooke also sells beauty and makeup products inside the salon and online. She has become a mini makeup influencer, with a Facebook group with around 1,000 people that she runs to give advice and sell products.

While preparing for her next customer, someone came in to buy some of Brooke's merchandise. His wife sent him to buy more hairspray, which is the same hairspray Brooke uses while she works.

Brooke is starting on her next client, who will be getting their hair dyed and a little trim. This is Jillinda Falen, who is a local real estate agent.

Brooke is putting on the color with a brush and layering it with tinfoil. The tinfoil helps target specific hair strands and helps trap heat into the scalp to speed up the process.

Brooke and Jillinda are laughing about their conversation. Brooke gets along great with her customers, with many of them being friends or turning into friends after cutting and styling their hair for 20 years.

Brooke is putting Jillinda under the hooded dryers. These are used along with the tinfoil to provide gentle heat that helps the color treatment to work quickly and evenly.

Brooke is washing Jillinda's hair out. She needs to make sure all the excess chemicals get washed out.

Brooke is using shampoo to wash Jillinda's hair. When dyeing hair at home, you might not shampoo right after, but at the salon, it is used to stop the chemical process.

Brooke is giving Jillinda's hair a trim after washing it. Jillinda has very long hair, and it was difficult for Brooke to make sure she got a straight cut.

Brooke is wrapping up with Jillinda's hair. She is blowing and brushing Jillinda's hair to get it just how she likes it. 

[PHOTOSTORY 4: WORK SHIFT] Smallcakes Store Manager

 By Rayne Deese 

Smallcakes in Statesboro is a bakery shop that has been here for over ten years. The shop sells cupcakes, cakes, macaroons, and frozen yogurt. 

Smallcakes store manager, Olivia Finazzo, walks in to begin her afternoon shift. Olivia has been working there for about a month. 

Before Olivia begins her shift, she has to clock in through an online schedule. Without clocking in, Olivia would not get the correct amount of hours needed. 

Olivia expresses a giggle as she puts on some plastic gloves. Gloves are required for all employees when they are baking. 

Before Olivia begins to decorate, she takes a look at the weekly flavors. Each week, some flavors will stay but many flavors will be rotated out. 

Olivia begins icing a cupcake so that it can be put on display. This white icing is made of powder sugar, sugar, and cream cheese. 

Olivia continues to ice the cupcake. This cupcake requires two different types of icing since it is called, "The Cheesecake Cupcake."

Olivia adds a jelly filling to the top of the cupcake. This jelly helps give the cupcake a "New York Style" taste to it. 

To finish off the cheesecake flavored cupcake, Olivia adds a sprinkle of graham cracker crumbles on top. The crumbles help give the cupcake the cheesecake crust factor. 

The beginning process of the cupcakes that Olivia began decorating. As part of her job, Olivia has to decorate more than 100 cupcakes per shift. 

As part of her job, Olivia has a list of different cupcakes she has to decorate before allowing customers to enter. In total, there are about three specialty cupcake flavors of the week that require prepping. 

Olivia begins icing these small cupcakes by putting a heart on the center of them. These cupcakes are "Pup-cakes," since they are for pets and are made completely out of animal-friendly ingredients. 

To finish off the Pup-cakes, Olivia adds a small dog treat in the center of the heart. Smallcakes just now added these to their menu this year.

Once Olivia finished decorating the Pup-cakes, she places them out on display for customers. There is a label in front of these cupcakes that shows customers that they are for animals. 

A few cupcakes that Olivia had just finished decorating. These two flavors are the stores most popular cupcakes. 

Once all of the cupcakes are decorated, Olivia will then put them out for display. As customers begin to buy cupcakes, she will refill them with more throughout her work shift.

As customers enter into the store, Olivia greets them with a kind greeting. The afternoon shifts tend to be the busiest around five to seven. 

Throughout her work shift, Olivia restocks the macarons in their correct section. The strawberry flavored macarons tend to be the best seller compared to the other flavors. 

Olivia restocks the fridge with more cheesecakes since customers had been buying them left and right. "Our cheesecakes are some of our best sellers and are almost always low in stock," Olivia said. 

Olivia ends her shift by cleaning the dishes. There are usually always a good amount of dishes to be cleaned since most of her job requires a lot of appliances.