Luxury Boutique Employee in $4,000 Suit Has Not Seen a Customer Since 2019, Continues Standing Perfectly Still in Case One Appears

SCHAUMBURG, IL — Sales associate Julian Marchetti, 44, completed his 1,800th consecutive shift Tuesday at the Maison Verlaine boutique inside the Woodfield Crossing mall, having not interacted with a single customer since November 2019, and remains fully prepared in the event that one ever walks in.

"I stand here," Marchetti said, positioned exactly three feet inside the store's entrance, hands clasped in front of him, chin raised at precisely 12 degrees. "That is the job. Someday someone will need me. When they do, I will be ready."

Marchetti, who wears a charcoal wool suit tailored to within a millimeter of his body, a silk tie, and shoes polished so thoroughly that mall maintenance workers have used them to check their teeth, arrives at 9:45 every morning, sets out a single leather briefcase on a marble pedestal, and assumes his position. He does not move again until 9 p.m.

"I used to sit sometimes," he said. "In 2021, I sat on the display ottoman for ninety seconds. I felt like I had betrayed the brand. I have not sat since."

Woodfield Crossing, once one of the busiest shopping centers in the Midwest, has seen its occupancy fall to 19%. Maison Verlaine's neighbors now include a vacant Gap, a vacant Sears, a vacant Abercrombie, and a kiosk selling phone cases that is staffed only on alternate Thursdays.

Despite the conditions, Marchetti remains optimistic. "Last month a man looked in the window," he said. "He was wearing a backpack. He paused. I raised my eyebrows very slightly in welcome. Then he kept walking. But he paused. That's something."

According to company records, Maison Verlaine's Woodfield Crossing location has not completed a sale in more than six years, yet it continues to receive weekly shipments of fresh inventory, a daily delivery of white orchids, and a corporate-issued playlist of ambient piano music, which plays at a volume Marchetti describes as "loud enough to fill the silence, but not so loud as to suggest the silence exists."

"Corporate checks in quarterly," Marchetti said. "They ask how foot traffic is. I tell them it's quiet. They tell me quiet is elegant."

Mall security guard Ray Dobbins said he has grown fond of Marchetti over the years. "Sometimes I walk by just so he has someone to nod at," Dobbins said. "He nods back every time. Real formal. Like a butler in a movie. One time I nodded twice and he looked confused for the rest of the day."

Marchetti said he does not allow himself to dwell on the possibility that no customer will ever come.

"A lighthouse does not ask whether ships still sail," he said. "It shines."

At press time, the mall's last remaining escalator had been shut down for "indefinite maintenance," and Marchetti had adjusted his posture slightly to face the stairs.