Of course, as dirty as it is, there’s a little thing called incentives, and in this case, every time I got someone to fill out an application (“It only takes two minutes! I just need your social security number, a driver’s license, and a urine sample, but the bathroom is right there!”), I’d get two whole dollars. And sure, it seemed like a lot of begging for only two dollars, but when you make eight dollars an hour, an extra two dollars every hour is nothing to piss at. Plus, every time you scored an application, you got to pick up the store intercom phone and announce “Code 4-7,” which was a signal to all the other store employees that you’d gotten a credit card application and were therefore better than them. Besides, you were helping the less fortunate by saving them 15 percent off their entire purchase!

But mixing together competition, credit scores, and adolescent stupidity isn’t the greatest idea in the world. Before long, I got into a daily “Code 4-7” battle with Rose, the jewelry counter cashier who nabbed a few applicants every hour. I couldn’t lose to an old woman hawking 15 percent off tawdry bracelets under the jewelry-counter lights.

The most common refrain from customers was “I don’t think I’d get approved,” which is a perfectly normal and responsible thing to say. If you know your credit score is bad, trying to sign up for a new credit card is probably not the greatest idea. But I found out that we could still give customers the 15 percent discount even if their application wasn’t approved. Which seems like a terrible business decision, but I didn’t question it. After I found that out, I’d start telling customers, “Look. It doesn’t hurt to fill out an application. Even if you don’t get approved, you’ll still get 15 percent off!”

In my defense, I was seventeen, I had never had a credit card, and I didn’t know what the fuck a credit score actually was. To be perfectly honest, I’m still not even sure what a credit score is, and I have no idea what makes it go up or down, besides making monthly sacrifices at the tomb of J. P. Morgan. So seventeen-year-old me, in those tight khakis and that ill-fitting black polo shirt, had no clue I was doing a bad thing, that I was exploiting the terrible financial choices of unsuspecting consumers. I just wanted two extra dollars and the satisfaction of hearing my voice reverberate throughout the store over Jewelry Counter Rose’s cries.