{"id":35382,"date":"2019-12-06T16:00:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=35382"},"modified":"2019-12-06T16:00:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T16:00:32","slug":"working-in-retail-over-christmas-a-unique-type-of-hell-you-can-relate-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/working-in-retail-over-christmas-a-unique-type-of-hell-you-can-relate-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Working in retail over Christmas: A unique type of hell you can relate to"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your time at school, college or university has come to a halt at the end of the year, and now you have nothing to do. You need extra money desperately.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

What do most of us do when we\u2019re at our wit\u2019s end? We don\u2019t hesitate and get a job at the first available retail place.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been there and done that, and yes, you probably have too. If you haven\u2019t worked in retail, let me tell you, over the festive period, it\u2019s a different kind of universe that frankly, none of want to be at, but we need that money.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If most of your Christmas holidays are going to be spent on the shop floor or behind the dreaded till with a dozen raging customers demanding refunds and exchanges one after the other, this post is dedicated to you. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some honest truths, directly from personal experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Call in sick? Time off? Don\u2019t be silly, your manager knows you\u2019re lying<\/h3>\n

You know there\u2019s not going to be a nice Christmas break for you, don\u2019t lie to yourself. You\u2019ll have to hold tears back and grit your teeth when people ask you how your holidays going. And it\u2019s alright to block people online who post Xmas vacation selfies from Barbados or Cancun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The shop floor hell-hole<\/span><\/h3>\n

CHRISTMAS IS NOT A TIME FOR WALKING SLOWLY AND BROWSING LIKE YOU HAVE ALL DAY, PEOPLE! It seems like rummaging and chucking things on the floor furiously is the best way to shop during Xmas. And oh, the kissing of the teeth and tutting of that one person who gets annoyed when you try to tidy up in front of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everyone is awful, no joke<\/span><\/h3>\n

Tell a man with two screaming kids tugging at him an item is out of stock across ALL locations in London? \u201cCan you get your manager to check, that can\u2019t be true!”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know the customer is always right, right?\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

To you, who invented that goddamn phrase, I hope you\u2019re happy!<\/span><\/p>\n

Boyfriends\u2026 please ask for female staff members\u2019 help when shopping for your girlfriends\u2019 make-up and lingerie gifts<\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure there are many funny moments at Victoria Secret around Christmas, with clueless boyfriends and husbands in a rush to buy their other half something nice, but seem to lack basic critical information\u2026 such as their bra or pajama size. Oh, the joy.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll not want to get out of bed on Christmas Day<\/span><\/h3>\n

FINALLY! THE DAY OFF HAS COME AT LAST! After all that struggle, it\u2019s finally here! You\u2019ll seriously want to sleep all day. Dinner may just be the only thing you\u2019ll get up for, but there\u2019s nothing else worth getting out of bed for that day. Trust me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second round of hell has arrived, and it\u2019s even deeper: Boxing Day<\/span><\/h3>\n

5am shift? No problem. By 7am, you\u2019ll feel like you\u2019ve done a 12 hour shift, and you\u2019ve probably cried at least five times by now. The only good thing is how quickly the day goes by.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Words: Simona Dimitrova<\/p>\n

Images and GIFS: giphy,\u00a0Alexandre Godreau\u00a0on Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your time at school, college or university has come to a halt at the end of the year, and now you have nothing to do. You need extra money desperately. What do most of us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":35393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}