There are so many part-time workers in retailing, and we’ve always had second-class status, with more unstable schedules and no benefits. Like a third of the hourly workers in the service sector, I was stuck with part-time work even though I wanted more hours.

The kinds of people who are most likely to be underemployed are Latinas, people paid hourly, people with variable work schedules, people working in sales and retailing and people with low household incomes — all of which describe me. And those of us stuck in part-time jobs are paid 30 percent less per hour than full-timers doing the same thing. That means we face a double penalty: not enough hours, and lower pay for each hour we do work. No wonder I had zero savings when I lost my job.

The times and lengths of my shifts changed all the time, and sometimes we got our schedules only two days before the week started. I needed as many hours as I could get, so I would always pick up shifts if my co-workers were unavailable. Sometimes I’d work close to 40 hours, but then I’d be cut back, because the manager would get in trouble with corporate if I got too close to full time.

During my time at Sephora, I had several conversations with my manager about how I could get promoted to full time, and I was told it would happen. But now I think I was just being promised something I was never going to get. I was hired as a cashier, and my manager told me that I was “99 percent ready” to be a lead cashier, but then she hired someone else.

I worked pretty often in “color matching,” which is helping customers select the right shades of makeup for their skin tone. I was earning $13 an hour, my cashier rate, even when I worked in color matching. I believe my full time co-workers with that job make $15 or $16 per hour, but I’m not sure because the company discouraged us from talking about our wages. One day I got so frustrated I started crying, because I was doing all the work without the benefits that color consultants get, like training and free products.