Diary of An Edinbugh Sales Assistant

The Beginning of the End??

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:48:52 +0100

I have just finished filling out an application form to be a "Health Care Assistant" (a nurse that doesn't have a degree LOL). I fit the criteria, perfectly. The only thing I can see that they might not like so much is my availability. It is quite limited due to school. But not to worry, my friend is giving me the number for NHS Lothian tomorrow, they will take anybody and availability doesn't matter as they have a very very very big bank of Care Assistants!!

Woohoo!!!! This is my ticket out of the hell hole I call work!!!!!

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This totally sucks!!!

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:09:46 +0100

OK, so I was at work yesterday and it was Suzanne in and she was lovely as usual. I felt pretty much OK for the whole day, I was on the till for a quite a lot of the day, the kids department was fairly quiet.

So we get to the end of the day, and one of my friends, J had mentioned that he'd had his salary raised. He now gets £5.75 an hour. All the other staff who've been with the store have had this raise and I have not. Firstly I would like to know why they feel I do not deserve this raise and secondly I just found out that one of the new girls is earning £5.70 an hour!!!! Now I know it is only an extra 25p an hour...but over a year that gives me £78 extra!! Not huge, but for a student definitely significant!!

It's also just the principle of it, I'm not a bad worker. I'm really really not. I'm not lazy, I don't skive, I've never ever had a duvet day and I've always volunteered to do more hours if they need me and things like that. I am an extremely hard worker and all my work goes unnoticed!! I mean, as shoppers you probably don't realise how much work sales assistants have to do...at least at my workplace we have to work our butts off!! We are constantly under pressure to approach customers, keep selling them accessories and add ons, yet all at the same time keeping the store tidy, keeping our conversion rates high and "using our own initiative and treating the store like our own business and wanting it to succeed." Now, I don't need to be the manger's favourite worker or anything like that. But having the work you do acknowledged is the minimum they can give me. LOL I know I sound like such a cry baby but this did bring me to tears yesterday. I just feel that the managers really push me down and keep me down every step of the way. As my boyfriend put it yesterday It's like everybody else is getting goodies and you're not, but on top of that they're beating you up as well. (To put a very childish playground analogy on it).

TBH, there will be plenty of other jobs I have to do where I'll be treated like crap...for example....as a junior doctor....(lol i am very dedicated to being a doctor, can you tell?) But at least everybody will be treated like crap.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm gonna go find a new job. My exams end on Tuesday, I'll go out and distribute CVs and things after that I'm totally sick of this place. I don't want to have to cry like that every single week. I am worth something and I do not deserve to feel this badly about myself!!

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title-1618718

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:37:59 +0100

Hey, sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been busy...what with it being my mum's birthday and my exams starting!!

Things at work are now looking suprisingly good. Over the next couple of weeks it will only be Suzanne in on a Sunday, so thats good for me!! I mean the favouritism is still very evident and I still don't like it, but I've got the more important thing, being treated better and with some respect!!!

Lemme tell you a (kind of) funny story. Two weeks ago (14th Jan) I was at work, lunch time, I go to reach for a glass to get a drink of water. Only there aren't any glasses I can reach (I'm really short....only 5"1!!). So, I climb up on a chair to reach one higher up. The chairs we have in the staff room are all pretty cheap and nasty...ykno the ones you get from Ikea or something. The back of the chair is basically to pieces of metal held together in the middle by several more pieces of metal, spray painted to a nice silver colour. Well anyways, as I'm stepping down off my chair I slip and manage to fall onto one of the bits of ,metal sticking up at the top of the chair....ha ha. One more inch to the right and it would have been a rectal exam I would never forget ha ha. So, my entire body weight on the chair...ouchies. LOL. I had to be sent home from work (thank god it was Suzanne in that day, she was so lovely to me.) and my bum has been bruised for two weeks. In the first week I couldn't even sit on the toilet properly LOL. On the plus side, I got to show my ass to a hot guy at work.....that wasn't really much fun...

LOL don't laugh too hard at me...it was actually a very painful experience. But hope that brightened your day a little bit. My friends are all still peeing themselves laughing at me.

Love lots xx

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Understanding?

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:11:29 +0100

Let me confide in you something that Suzanne told me...

"Yes, Glinda does have a problem with you, I personally don't know what it is. I think you work very hard, but yeah she has mentioned it once or twice. I think it might be because you work so few hours a week. She doesn't think you're committed enough to the store; she was fine with you when you worked full time in the summer wasn't she and the problems started when you went back to school..."

Now if this is true, then I am really very angry, since she is not meant to be looking at how many hours I am working, but the quality of my work. However, over the Christmas break I have been working extra shifts and things to earn a bit extra basically. She has been really lovely towards me, treating me like everybody else and like I would expect to be. This really adds credibility to what Suzanne has told me. However, I found out recently that St Andrew's University are offering me an unconditional offer to study there. So, perhaps Glinda is in a better mood because she knows if I were to accept the offer I would only be with them a max. of 6 more months?

Another theory I have, is that, of course, Glinda has been under a lot of pressure recently, this being the store's first Christmas; so we are expected to do very well. However, should she not be professional despite that? You would think she wants to keep experienced members of staff at a busy time of year!! But she was really worried her boyfriend would leave her due to her working long hours at the shop (shows how secure she is and how much she really trusts him eh??) anyway, he actually proposed!! From what I hear he's a lovely guy and I'm very happy for her, so maybe this has been a big relief for her? So she is just more cheerful in general?

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Pay Issues!

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 23:48:13 +0100

Ok, according to my contract, I will be paid on the 28th of each month, however if the 28th falls on a weekend then pay will be received on the last week day before the 28th. I.e. if the 28th falls on a Saturday I will be paid on the 27th.

Most companies pay earlier in December...obvious reasons of Christmas and banks being shut an awful lot. Not where I work, we have been told for about 3 months now that pay will be on the normal payment date. Which is fine by me, thats what my contract says and thats what we should adhere to...but looking at my nice calendar on the wall....I see that today is in fact....the 28th!! I go to check my bank balance...lo and behold....there is no pay.

I know working around Christmas time is hard, especially co-ordinating with the banks and such, but it is irritating! If they couldn't manage it after Christmas, with X'mas eve being a Sunday and therefore only one manager in and Boxing Day being one of our busiest days...perhaps they could have paid us earlier????

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A Little Background Info...

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:09:22 +0100

Hi, I am a 17 year old student living in Edinburgh. I have applied to study medicine and have a part time job at a newly opened store on Edinburgh's Princes Street.

I am a Sales Assistant at this store and work 6 hours a week, (on a Sunday) and earn £5.50 an hour. Now, no one writes about something they are completely happy with; so of course I have some issues with my job. Now I am under no pretenses that any job is easy, yet as a hard worker (at a recent assessment of my progress I got 80% which was the highest score) a little respect wouldn't be too much to ask for? I mean, I didn't expect to be treated like royalty, but I did not expect to be treated worse than the dirt on somebody's shoe, made to feel small, unimportant and unvalued. I can see that although I am only a part time sales assistant, to the managers I am probably dispensible. Its hardly unheard of for students to be looking for a job now is it?!

There are three managers and a superviser at the store, the Shop Manager is Glinda, Assistant Manager, Lucy and the Shop Floor Manager, Suzanna. (Please note that I have changed names to protect their privacy and to cover my own ass!!). Now, I do not need these people to be my friend, it would be lovely if our relationship was friendly, but at the end of the day, I will only see these people once a week, so all I need from these, or expect rather, is a professional relationship. My relationship with Suzanna is lovely, I feel I get along best with her. I talk to her about the way the other managers treat me when it really gets to me. She is an absolutely lovely person and our relationship is very positive and when I am working with her I feel very valued, comfortable and really just happy. Lucy, our relationship can be frosty at times, however it is professional and she makes me feel valued and a part of the team. My main issue is with Glinda. She is rude, makes me feel like crap and frankly is extremely unprofessional and unpleasant. As the shop manager, I feel it is her job to keep the team gelled together and working well; and NOT creating problems.

Now, you may be thinking that I am being biased, which would be a fair opinion, however I assure you I am not being so. Here is a quick time line if you like of the incidents that have occurred...

Summer 2006:
I was offered the position and decided to work full time during the summer to earn some extra cash. The entire team worked well together getting the store ready and Glinda was lovely, she even let me have a half day to get my exam results back and was absolutely fantastic when she heard they were more than I had hoped for.

August 2006:
Here is when the problems start, I have stopped working full time and am doing the 8 hours that my contract originally said. I am working 4 hours after school on a Thursday and then 4 hours on either a Saturday or a Sunday. However the regional manager informs us that this cannot go on any more as I would have to work both weekend days as well if I was to work Thursday night. Of course I am unhappy with this as I need a day off too!! So we manage to negotiate a 6 hour contract where I only work on a Sunday. Let it be noted that it was Glinda who offered this solution.

Soon, with absolutely no warning, Glinda starts putting me on the rota for Thursday nights again, now this is extremely difficult for me due to the fact that each rota is put up on a Monday and as I am in on a Sunday, I cannot check the rota. It may also seem foolish of me to phone in and check my hours on a Thursday, since the contract they offered me was 6 hours on a Sunday, so why should I think I am working on a Thursday? So a lot of hassle starts with this, as whichever manager is in that day expects me, but I don't turn up etc.

Eventually, I talk to Suzanne about how unhappy I am with this and she manages to sort it out for me. Time passes and I being to enjoy my work again, however whenever Glinda is in, it is an absolute nightmare. One Sunday, Suzanne tells me to go for my lunch break at 3pm, so at 3 I find Suzanne, tell her I am off for my lunch and she OKs it. However at about 3:30pm, Glinda storms in; like your mum used to when you had your music turned too loud, or whatever; and yells at me, standing at the door, where both customers and my colleagues here her. She is basically yelling at me for taking my break and not asking her about it and says that because of me she is short staffed on the shop floor and I should have asked a manager first. However, is Suzanne not a manager? I tell her immediately that I asked Suzanne first and Glinda storms out.

Another incident was with clips, there are little metal clips for hanging up children's accessories, like scarfs and hats. Some customers when they want to buy something, will take this clip with them to the till and it will get taken off there, others prefer to just pull the scarf off the clip and leave it hanging on the display, others unhang the item, take the clip off themselves and just leave it on the shop floor somewhere. Now, of course it is my job to be picking these things up and keeping my section tidy, but as I've said, I'm in that section all by myself and it counts for about one third of the shop floor. There is no way, I can possibly do everything on my own!! So Glinda, comes over to me, whilst I am serving a customer and yells at me for "leaving them around", claiming that a child could put it in their mouth. Yes, that could happen, thank you very much for pointing that out, however I was in the middle of serving somebody, now I am embarressed harrassed and unhappy. I do pick these things up when I see them, but I cannot be expected to do everything myself.

There is also a DVD player in the childrens section and it is up to me to press play on the video, one time, I was putting on the DVD player for a couple's 2 year old child and she comes over accusing me of not working.

Now, as you can imagine, children are rather messy. So at the end of the day, when it is time to clear up, the Children's department as basically been trashed. I am the busiest and whenever Glinda is in, she makes me tidy up the staffroom as well. That means, sweeping the floor, wiping the table, clearing up other people's lunches and loading the dish washer. Now I don't mind doing these things as someones got to do it and I contribute to that mess, but she never seems to ask anyone else to do it. She is also extremely rude about it, it is always a radio call out to me, "Can you go tidy the staffroom now? it is a bomb site." I will usually say OK, but I am struggling to finish in kids as it is very messy, to which she will reply "What have you been doing for the last half hour? How come you are working so slowly?" This, coming through the radio, for everybody else to hear. She never treats any of the other part timers in this way and she never talks to them like that. If I'd wanted a job as a cleaner I would have got one and probably been better paid!

So that is the basic outline of how I get treated. I have to say it is very disheartening. I just feel completely unvalued.

I am sorry this has been so long...I will try to keep it brief in the future!!

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