Ross and I have a long history and I usually don't like to talk about it; it's a sore subject.
Most people my age either malign Ross entirely or pretend they don't know Ross, but I'm not afraid. Those postmodern futuristic letters of pure azure have been a part of my life ever since my frills-are-for-families-with-functioning-fathers lower-middle-class mother gave me the choice of a) buying one thing from the brand name department store or b) buying three things from some guy who specializes in misshapen, oblong, factory rejects that are two years démodé.
I always went with option A, but somehow, my mother would always 'miss' the exit for the mall and we'd end up at Ross Dress For Less. I swear, she must have paid the liquidation costs of Generra Hypercolor alone with the amount of out-of-spec neon pink t-shirts I demanded. I was the proud owner of two Mexican Baja jackets, not just one, because Ross piled 'em high like cornhusks too gristly for ethanol.
Truly, Ross is a corporate expression of the postmodern crisis. Someone forgot to tell their design department (ha!) that Kathie Lee was dropped from the Regis masthead a decade ago, and that white horizontal stripes scream "Massengill" and not "Mossimo".
But Ross has to be loved for its American exceptionalism - the audacity of trying to line up XXXL pink lady negliges in a straight line is quite frankly a sign of madness. Yet we keep on buying. The thought of having to work there makes me almost avoid it - can you imagine what loss prevention, or inventory management, or god forbid, vendor relations must be like?
The secret to Ross' success is that they who work for Ross must cherish the madness - they know things get stolen and how people steal them, they know exactly what they're doing when they price an untagged pair of underwear lower than they really sell for, they know the staffing roster is designed to create the long lines, not eradicate them.
You see, Ross is a sham, an intentional, profitable sham, and that's why I love it. The factories make 'irregular' clothing on purpose in order to hedge their large-scale investments in raw fabric - this allows them to maintain high margins at Macy's while benefiting from the economy of scale. It also allows them to have a more flexible margin of error for quality control.
Ross is entirely complicit in its role as well - it takes these unwanted unmentionables and scatters them in a drab, outdated linear framework, with narrow aisles and awkward merchandising priorities (why are the dishes and pots and heavy things down where it's hard to bring a shopping cart?). It does this on purpose to give you the image of the last-chance bazaar, to make you feel rewarded for hunting through 8 XXXL's to find the M.
And how bazaar it is - there are a lot of freaks who hang out at the downtown location. But there are also the best finds - I have pretty much developed an entire underwear fetish based on the fact that $30 designer units often go for $5. Open my bureau drawer and you'd think "gosh this dude spends a lot of money on socks and underwear", but to them I say, "Do you love it? I love it! I got it at ROSS."
In short, Ross is about knowing the strategy, the rationale, and coming prepared to outwit them. Bring a book, bring your iPod, leave your claustrophobia and embarrassment behind, and get used to fighting with 4'9" immigrant ladies for the last pair of god knows what. It's the American way! read more