An Illawarra author has drawn on her own job experiences to provide a satirical survival guide for stressed retail workers this Christmas.
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East Corrimal's Mem Davis spent more than 20 years working in retail - from fashion and homewares to furniture - while closely analysing the conduct of people in that environment.
Her new book, A Field Guide to Retail: Identifying Customers in the Wild World of Shopping will be released later this month.
Taking inspiration from the satirical travel guidebook Phaic Tan and the encyclopedic structure of a bird-watching handbook, Davis has created a guide to the most common identities and scenarios encountered in retail.
Davis said writing the book "was probably 50 per cent therapy for me".
"I left retail in 2018, and spent many years working in a job that for me wasn't my end career goal.
"A lot of people work in retail because they genuinely enjoy it, but for me it was more a means to an end."
Davis, 37, said retail staff are typically the ultimate people-watchers.
"What I did learn was how to talk to a whole heap of different types of people, and I realised there was a consistent pattern between different types of people," she told the Mercury.
"When you speak to other retailers they'll all be like, 'yeah, I served somebody like that'.
"So it was a humourous way for me for categorising people from people-watching for so many years."
Davis also works as a copywriter, editor and musician.
Self-published A Field Guide... is her first book.
Davis said it was largely aimed at people working in retail.
"There's a lot of stuff out there about the over-bearing retail assistant who's trying to force you into making a purchase," she said.
"But from my own experience and from talking to other retailers, there's not a lot of recognition of the fact that we're still human.
"It's a way of relating to other people in the industry, and hopefully giving them a laugh too."
The book will be released on November 25.
It's available for pre-purchase via the www.afieldguidetoretail.com website, and as a paperback through Amazon.