Working in retail with SA?

[dave81uk]

Have you done it? I'm seriously thinking about this route, it'll either make or break me I reckon, Something in the lines of PC World, Currys, CPW I think would suit me nicely. I've only ever worked in small factories and while the work itself isn't that bad the politics/backstabing/brown nosing is shocking and they have always been full of cliques which I never fitted, Not to mention the general attitude of the employers themselves, the general if you don't like it go home attitude, I don't think this would be the case in a big retail chain, sure dealing with customers may be awkward at first but like anything else it has to be learn't

Any opinions?

[sjsuk]

Originally Posted by dave81uk

Have you done it? I'm seriously thinking about this route, it'll either make or break me I reckon, Something in the lines of PC World, Currys, CPW I think would suit me nicely. I've only ever worked in small factories and while the work itself isn't that bad the politics/backstabing/brown nosing is shocking and they have always been full of cliques which I never fitted, Not to mention the general attitude of the employers themselves, the general if you don't like it go home attitude, I don't think this would be the case in a big retail chain, sure dealing with customers may be awkward at first but like anything else it has to be learn't

Any opinions?

Depends what your position will be......
In my opinion, I do not like this sort of job.
Customers are not a problem for me, even the difficult ones.

I despise the hanging about mostly, waiting for customers, trying to look busy, and having to stand about and chat to your colleagues most of the time...just can't do it.
Week days never seem to be very busy....

You will have a supervisor, who generally loves lording it and telling you what to do, and most of the work force will be young teens. And you know what they can be like in a group.

There are parts of the job I dont like, like using the til, or the tannoy

[dave81uk]

Originally Posted by sjsuk

Depends what your position will be......
In my opinion, I do not like this sort of job.
Customers are not a problem for me, even the difficult ones.

I despise the hanging about mostly, waiting for customers, trying to look busy, and having to stand about and chat to your colleagues most of the time...just can't do it.
Week days never seem to be very busy....

You will have a supervisor, who generally loves lording it and telling you what to do, and most of the work force will be young teens. And you know what they can be like in a group.

There are parts of the job I dont like, like using the til, or the tannoy

Yeah never thought of the teens. But are they not evenings and weekend workers?

[Defiance]

i have done it although i didn't often have to deal with customers as i tended to work "behind the scenes", at first it can be quite challenging but you soon desensitize to it, probably after a few days or a week you'll be ok

[dave81uk]

Originally Posted by Defiance

i have done it although i didn't often have to deal with customers as i tended to work "behind the scenes", at first it can be quite challenging but you soon desensitize to it, probably after a few days or a week you'll be ok

Yeah behind the scenes would suit me.

[Insert Name Here]

I worked in retail for five and a half years, and in the last year of it, i was ready to commit suicide as my SA got worse.

Even though i had known the staff for a good few years i was finding it increasingly difficult to chat to them, and would wander around the store trying to find things to do. Boredom can quickly set in once the work is done and there is little else to do to occupy your mind, and you end up focusing inwards as opposed to focusing on your work, which only makes you feel worse.

One of the major factors affecting my SA in retail was the pressure put on us to sell sell sell. We had to record everything we sold, and competition between the staff grew heated as we all had targets to meet, this caused a lot of friction amongst the staff, and even some arguments of who wasnt pulling their weight, and who was doing best. Not a nice scenario to be in or around.

Customers are another story altogether. The last few months before i left, i avoided them as much as possible and tried to look busy so they wouldnt approach me.

In the end i negotiated a redundancy on medical grounds with the company, and got the hell out of there!

Give it a go if you think you can manage it, hope you have a better time of it than i did.

[mossieman]

have a good think about it first & make sure its what you want.
everybody is different so please dont take this as a negative but i went the same way from the same thinking after leaving school. i spent 30yrs in retail & hospitality but it ground me down until i had the total confidence collaps that i now find myself in. i did manage to work my way up to management, which i did for the last 8yrs & maybe that was a push to far who knows.
there were other factors involved as well tho (divorce, moving citys) but the final straw was the shop closure, telling staff they were being made redundent, being made redundent myself but the one which supprised me the most was watching the vultures (bargin sale shoppers) distroying the shop which myself & my staff had put so much work into.
if you have a feeling for the products you are selling it is a lot easier & even better if you have knowlage of said products.
good luck & hope all goes well.

[sjsuk]

Originally Posted by dave81uk

Yeah never thought of the teens. But are they not evenings and weekend workers?

Not in my experience no. They are cheap labour.

[sjsuk]

Originally Posted by Insert Name Here

Even though i had known the staff for a good few years i was finding it increasingly difficult to chat to them, and would wander around the store trying to find things to do. Boredom can quickly set in once the work is done and there is little else to do to occupy your mind, and you end up focusing inwards as opposed to focusing on your work..

Yeah, I know what you mean exactly.

[scratch]

I have worked in a betting shop before, not exactly retail but it was an interesting experience SA wise.

A lot of the punters were regular ones so you soon got to know them on first name terms and the banter was quite good

On the negative side there were some not so nice punters who would get angry if you were slow processing their bets etc.. but that was pretty rare. Also Grand National day is a completely nightmare

I now work in a pretty boring office environment and I kind of miss that day to day buzz of working with customers and working with a small friendly team. But I think it helped a lot that it was just a small betting shop with regular customers rather than a big supermarket/store with more customers & staff to worry about.

[wlien]

I used to work in Boots and I miss it, working in retail was hard to start with but once you get used to it its great for confidence and I found it easy to talk to people about business. Since I moved to working in an office I've slipped back down again and hate meeting people. I'd say go for it

[britman]

i worked at tesco extra. I didnt like the hours but would do it again on small amount of hours. I tried trollies, tills, bakery, bread and cakes isle, stock control, general multi skilled. The managers were full of it but some were ok. It is full on at times esp tills as never geta break from people and is pretty stressfull where as isle sjobs can slink off and have breaks often as long as done the work. I did like chatting to random staff as was big store and in canteen was good to have a routine and do something that wasnt very demanding.