By now, it's really no secret that I have a mixed relationship with the Goodwill retail outlets. As a working adult with a disability, I greatly admire the Goodwill mission and appreciate that most of the time when you enter a Goodwill Store you're going to see people with disabilities working.
However, I also can't deny that I'm frequently troubled by the Goodwill retail experience. If you're training people to enter the workforce, then it seems a reasonable expectation that you train them to do the job well and professionally and in a friendly manner. Otherwise, you're simply setting them up to fail and/or ensuring they'll always be stuck in low-end paying jobs. Quite reasonably, most people with disabilities are not going to give up the security of life on disability for a low-wage paying job.
To be fair, across the organization, things have improved. Kiosks set-up for applicants have become more accessible (though far from perfectly accessible) and interior lay-outs have become increasingly accessible. Employees are, in fact, becoming more friendly.
It's also potentially unfair to judge a Goodwill on the basis of its busiest day of the month - the monthly 50% Saturday that arrives on the first Saturday of the month.
It's chaos.
As you pull up to this location in Fishers, you immediately notice their rather large parking lot. In fact, my immediate thought was that the place seemed surprisingly not that busy. The more I looked, however, the more I realized the parking lot is simply rather huge. They were quite busy.
This Goodwill features some of the basics that are common at most locations - accessible parking is fairly plentiful, curb cuts are ADA compliant, and they do have automatic doors (which is not true of all locations, but seems to be standard with each new location opened).
The store was crowded, but I also noticed the clientele seemed friendlier here. While there was chaos, it seemed more controlled than many locations during this monthly sale. I am still getting used to mobility after my recent limb loss - so, I'm a little more bumpy than usual and people were mostly cool with my near misses and generally bad wheeling. The store layout is fairly similar to most - books to the right as you enter followed by rows of clothing and most housewares, etc. toward the back. They have dressing rooms, including an accessible one.
The lines were fairly long, though they went fairly smoothly. I found it weird that they seemed to have 2 different lines with no clear division at the registers. In my neighborhood, that would cause fights. In this neighborhood, people seemed fairly courteous.
Employees were friendly if not particularly outgoing. I did like the fact that in my line the cashier was obviously training someone and was doing so quite nicely with solid instructions.
I was able to find clothing in my sizes, sometimes difficult, as I'm a bulky guy with a curved spine who sits in a wheelchair. At some locations, it almost feels like they put away the nice stuff on this particular day but I didn't get that sense here.
Overall, I would consider to experience to be "just fine." This was neither the best Goodwill in Central Indiana nor anywhere near the worst. I'd easily return when in the area. However, it was plagued by the usual Goodwill issues - poorly labeled clothing (EXAMPLE - one shirt I picked up was labeled as a XXL, yet the label on the item clearly said 16 1/2 which is not even an XL). The employees seemed to all be working, though I also seem to always have issues with oblivious employees - employees who block aisles because they have work to do and can't be bothered to move for actual paying customers.
However, for the most part this was a solid experience - I was in/out with my friend in a surprisingly short amount of time for this particular day and was able to get on my way to our next stop.
PS: I just have to get this off my chest. Nearly every Goodwill posts large photos on their walls of individuals I'm assuming are either employees (past or present) or people who've gone through their programs - I understand this concept, but have to admit that some of these photos just strike me as incredibly disrespectful. They're just not well done photos. Can't you find a photographer who will donate some time to create some quality photos? If these people are working hard to enter the workforce, they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
Okay, I'm off my soapbox now. read more
