Disadvantages about working in retail.

[Brad]

Hey.
I really didn't know which category this goes in but I wanted to kind of rant/talk about my experience working in retail.
As most of you know I work at Home Depot, and It is a big box retail store and over this winter in Canada, it has sucked.
If you don't really know about retail, I will give you a little blurb about it.
Retail, is all based upon what they can sell. Their hours that they can give out to their employees are based upon whether or not they sell stuff. With Home Depot they do this as well. So there are a set amount of hours and the hours first go to the people who are full time. So if there are not enough hours to overflow and give to the part time people (like me), then they cannot give you hours.

Another situation is if they give you hours and then they projected too much for that certain day, unfortunately they start cutting people like crazy to try to level out the amount of sales and the amount of hours given out.

Today I got a call saying that my shift was cut, and it is really disheartening. I don't know if anyone else is in Retail that can understand how I am feeling. What is your experience with being in Retail? Was it good, or bad?

Edited by Sian (Trialist Forum Moderator): Moved from 'Discuss Anything' to 'Education and Employment' as it is better suited her :).

[Amberr]

Oh the joys of retail. How I'm glad I no longer do work like that anymore. I used to work at primark and then left for sainsburys. in short, the hours were crap, customers treat you like ****, awful uniform, rubbish holidays, repetitive boring work, stupid colleagues and managers wanting to put there nose in your business. yeah i don't miss it.

[-Moniquee.]

Oh wow I work in retail and I always get paid the same whether on how many things I up sell. At the moment, my work has a friends club thing where the customer joins and then gets 25% off full priced items once they've joined. We have to try and sign as many people up as we can. We also have to try and sell as many enviro bags as we can. If we sell a lot then the whole store will get rewarded.

[Yawn]

blah customers can be so awful

[Sian]

Sainsbury's is so bad. It is quite literally a mentality of the customer is always right (when they aren't always) and if you don't kiss my arse you won't get anywhere, in the store I worked anyway.

Retail is soul destroying.

[Zak]

Sainsbury's is so bad. It is quite literally a mentality of the customer is always right (when they aren't always) and if you don't kiss my arse you won't get anywhere, in the store I worked anyway.

Retail is soul destroying.

It's the same as Morrisons then. Our managers were know-it-alls who thought they ruled over a Kingdom or something.. There's no thanks for your hard work and they try and take advantage of you every chance they get. I stopped working overtime for my boss after he kept fiddling hours.

[Charz777]

Wow, when I used to work in retail it was nothing like that! You had your contracted hours (set shifts the same each week) but then could take on some overtime if you wished. (Around Christmas they used to line us up and force us to take overtime and if you were at the back of the line you got what was left. I never liked doing overtime, I earned enough and did enough contract hours between school, I didn't need nor want any overtime, but sometimes got forced into it!)

The supervisors were always so rude, thinking that the sun shone out of their backsides because they were in charge (when realistically there were at least 3 levels of people working above them). One of my supervisors literally threw a pen at me when I filled a form in in blue ink (the pen she gave me!) and it was supposed to be black. The same supervisor also caused a scene with me in front of customers that almost left me crying when I had people to serve! She was such a cow!

The customers were okay. I did have one woman who stuck in my mind. She filled two trolleys of groceries (also some home cleaning, clothes etc we were a big superstore that sold a bit of everything). Anyways, I was busy putting all of her stuff through and packing it while her and her little girl kept on piling everything on the counter. Anyways, I put a DS game through thinking everything was fine, blah blah, I didn't think anything of it. She was looking through her bags that I'd packed and was being all lovely and polite, saying thank you for doing such a nice job etc. Then suddenly like the demons erupted in her she started yelling that I've charged her for a £20 game that she didn't want and 'how did you manage to slip that in!' etc etc. Then she went to complain about me. The supervisor on at the time (a nice one, for once) had to explain that we don't keep DS games on the counter so it would be impossible for me to 'slip it in'. Then, after she's yelled at me and my supervisor, she finally realised and turned to her daughter and asked if she had put the game on the counter. The daughter nodded. Of course! Who else would have put some pink princess game on the counter!? The woman didn't apologise to me or the supervisor, she just grabbed her kid by the wrist and stormed off.

[Matt]

Hated working, so glad I've left. Although i'll probably have to get a similar job soon as I need the money and it's the only type of job i'd be able to get at this age

[Ozzinator$]

Worked in retail a few times, most recent was paid work at M&S in London Bridge station. The pay was very bad and as it was franchised under a company called SSP there was hardly any perks. We didn't get discount or anything, whereas people working in proper M&S were allowed to come in and use their discount cards. It was always very busy especially the hours I worked. If you've ever worked in retail over Christmas, or even been in a store at Christmas, it was generally that busy every single day during rush hour, from 4-7. It got boring quickly and having to travel one and a half hours to work then two hours home again after 8 hours standing up all day, it was not any good so I had to quit :(. It was pointless me working because of the terrible pay and having to pay out so much each month.