Denise
Store manager
Runs this store and the one in Fairhaven, twenty minutes away, and is visibly stretched thin between them. She wants things done properly but is rarely there to say what that means.
Rise & Co. Homeware · Northgate Rise
Rise & Co. Homeware
Rise & Co. opened on Northgate Parade eight months ago, and it still feels half-finished: the shelving plan changes, the returns policy is a laminated sheet someone amended in pen, and the register system does something new every couple of weeks. The team is young and mostly part-time, the manager splits her week between this store and one across town, and most days you are working out the process while you're doing it, in front of customers who assume you already know it. Nobody has been here long enough to have seen it all.
- Northgate Rise
- Retail — home goods
- 3 connected Workdays
Team size
6–8 people across shifts
Store age
Open 8 months
Manager
Split across two store locations
Who you work with
The same people, shift after shift. Nobody here is the villain and nobody is always right.
Marcus
Senior sales associate
Been here since the store opened, which at Rise & Co. counts as an old hand. Confident about how things work, even when he's guessing, because someone has to sound sure.
Aaliyah
Coworker
Working two jobs while she finishes a certificate at night. Sharp when she's here and present, but her attention is often somewhere else, and lately her shifts have felt lighter than everyone else's workload.
Toby
New hire
Started two weeks ago, eager and a little overwhelmed, still asking which drawer the register floats live in. Wants to get it right and doesn't yet know what right looks like here.
The Workdays
In order. What you decide early comes back later. Judgment under ambiguity · Boundaries · Speaking up
- 01The ReturnPlayableSaturday · 11:40 AMA customer wants to return something the policy doesn't cover, in front of a line of other customers, and Denise isn't answering her phone.Boundary settingJudgment under pressureCommunication
- 02An Ordinary TuesdayPlayableTuesday · 8:55 AMRestocking, a schedule change texted at 9pm last night, and Aaliyah's section looking untouched again. Nothing here is a crisis. It still adds up.ReliabilityNoticing patternsSpeaking up
- 03Teaching What You Weren't TaughtPlayableThursday · 1:10 PMDenise wants you to train Toby on damaged-stock write-offs. You've done it exactly once, badly, and nobody ever checked your work.Honesty about limitsTeaching under uncertaintySelf-advocacy