Mary Lebron (picture above) has been working at this store on 457 Broadway in Newburgh, NY, for 12 years now. The other two stores also on Broadway (at 226 Broadway and 364 Broadway) and a fourth at Newburgh Mall are all owned by the same person and has the same manager. Although she started working for minimum wage, her wage has since climbed up for how long she has worked. Stability pays dividends.
Boost Mobile phones are pre-paid. You don't need an ID. You just need to pay. Works great for immigrants. It also targets the low-end of the market. You can get a phone plan for $15 per month but it will not have data, only voice and text. For $25 you can also get data.
Boost Mobile does not have its own nationwide network. It runs on the AT&T network.
Weekends and the first of the month are relatively busy. People drop by after they get paid for the month.
On an average day she might have five to 10 people enter the store. Some days that number is zero.
"So what do you do all day?"
"I spend time on my phone."
She also cleans the store when there are no customers. But that does not take a whole lot of time.
On a busy day, though, that number might as well be 30.
Boost Mobile was also around in the Blackberry era. Today it offers iPhones and Galaxy phones.
The store is open from 10 AM to 6:30 PM. It takes payments in cash. Because credit card companies charge too much money. In her 12 years she has never been robbed. Neither have been any of the other three stores that she knows of. Even though Newburgh, and this part of Newburgh in particular, has a bad reputation.
There are security cameras in the store.
The store is open all seven days. She works five days. She switches from store to store as necessary.
She says her onboarding was easy and simple. The training was not hard at all. You just scan the phone the customer picks and the computer does all the bookkeeping.
The manager is always only about five minutes away and drops by about once a day.
The hardest part of the job is when a difficult customer returns a phone. Most don't. And most that do are fine. But some start arguing. And she opts to call in the manager when that happens. There is a return policy but that does not allow for damanged phones.
Photo Album: Boost Mobile, Broadway, Newburgh, NY
Customers can also shop directly at the Boost Mobile store online. But the appeal of the physical store is enduring.
