Clerks in Unending Battle to Keep Store Shelves Neat : Retailing: It’s no holiday for employees working at a store that’s having one of its best seasons ever.

Gloria Torres was fighting a losing war in men’s underwear.

In the three hours the 65-year-old saleswoman had spent restocking and tidying her section of the Sears department store in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, customers had nearly depleted the supply of thermal underwear, abandoned a dart-board set on the Fruit-of-the-Loom shelf and ripped open numerous plastic packs of briefs and shirts. “Those little devils,” said the 35-year store veteran as she examined packets of Brut-label low rise briefs. “They opened two (packs) and took two briefs--even when I Scotch-taped it. It’s a mess.”

On Thursday, the fifth shopping day before Christmas, the more than 350 employees at the Sears store known simply as “Boyle” held their ground against and endless--albeit sometimes thin--flow of holiday shoppers. It was a constant battle to keep shelves stocked and in order, the floors free from spilled soda and littered popcorn, and, oh yes, wait on customers.

For nearly 60 years, the landmark store and catalogue complex at Soto Street and Olympic Boulevard has served the city’s predominately Latino Eastside. The store is about 50% larger than a typical mall outlet and its selling floor--which boasts the chain’s biggest childrens’ department on the West Coast--stretches longer than a football field.

“It’s 147,000 square feet of selling,” said Al Tapia, the 48-year-old store manager who, like many of his employees, grew up within a few miles of the store and recalls childhood visits.

Thanks to a recent remodeling and advertising inserts in a Spanish-language newspaper, the store is ending one of its best years in memory. But the holiday season has proved one of the toughest ever, said Tapia, who has been forced to cut prices up to 40% on such items as flannel shirts and sweaters, which normally go without markdowns.

“It’s one of the most competitive Christmases I have ever seen,” said Tapia, who had not taken a day off in the previous two weeks. The recession and threat of war in the Persian Gulf “have scared a lot of people.”

Upon his arrival at 7 a.m., Tapia and his sales managers “walk the floor” and stock rooms to check for gaps in inventory that need to be filled and messy areas that need to be cleaned up.

Much of the day is spent restocking shelves and racks and picking up after customers and their children. “The kids end up running through the racks thinking it’s Disneyland,” said Maria Otero, who manages the women’s fashions department. “People just come in here and tear it apart.”

In the shoe department, supervisor Cindy Garcia hunted for the mate of a misplaced tennis shoe. “It’s like we pay them to make a mess; that’s how we feel,” said Garcia, shortly after two small girls attempted to scale a rack of slippers.

To handle the holiday crowds, the ranks of employees had been beefed up by 50 people. However, even the extra help was not enough in spots to handle the approximately 6,000 people who walked through the store Thursday.

Saleswoman Norma Torres and a partner worked hurriedly over chirping cash registers as nearly a dozen shoppers loaded with bathrobes, shirts and jeans waited in line in the men’s department. A long curl of cash register tape had fallen to the floor, and a small pile of returned apparel had built up behind the two workers.

Torres purposefully avoided looking at the line of customers. “If I look at it I get nervous,” said the 19-year-old clerk. “You end up not paying attention to the customer you are helping.”

While the customers kept clerks and salespeople busy, managers took up tasks they would normally assign to underlings. Children’s department sales manager Blanca Fernandez found herself on her hands and knees, ripping open cardboard boxes filled with video game cartridges that she arranged in a glass-enclosed display case.

“We do everything. We do what is necessary,” said Fernandez. “Christmas is a one-time deal. When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Apparel, jewelry and home electronics have seen the largest throngs of shoppers. But the holiday commotion spills over into other departments as well.

In hardware, where floppy red bows adorned $500 table-saws, salesman Ray Dorado found himself playing surrogate boyfriend and husband. “We have a lot of girlfriends and wives buying tools for their boyfriends and husbands,” said Dorado. “They ask me if that is the kind of drill I would like.”

With few exceptions, Dorado’s answer is always “yes.”

Unlike the hubbub of other departments, the appliance section--which is usually slow during the holidays but even more so this year--was bereft of customers. “There is not much we can do,” said salesman Louis Henderson, who chatted with his equally idle peers. “We find ways to keep busy. We go over inventory.” Or, chirped in a fellow salesman, “try to figure how the Lakers are going to do.”

In the pause before the evening rush, Tapia took a break. “I think we will have a small sales increase,” he said, counting on a busy weekend and an extra shopping day Monday. “Considering what I’ve been hearing and reading about, I’ll be happy with that.”

STORE FACTS Name: Sears’ Boyle 1008

Location: Soto Street and Olympic Boulevard in East Los Angeles

Opened: 1927

Size: 147,000 square feet, 50% larger than typical mall outlet

Employees: 300

Holiday employment: 350