Breaks are routinely given 2-3 hours into a 10-hour shift
Wanted you to give your holiday requests for the whole year all at once, not taking into account how events could/would pop up where this would be needed
If you wanted holiday at your own request you had to pester them
Unless you brownnose you'll always be working 1pm-11:00pm/12am instead of finishing at 10:30pm as specified on the rota. By extension, there are no opportunities for morning shifts unless you schmooze with management/two specific supervisors or make up some fantabulous lie and stick with it as if your life depended on it
Management are extremely fake and pretend they care about your welfare but don't give a flying **** . I needed Tuesday afternoons off for NHS-mandated therapy sessions. I didn't disclose this as it as personal to me but said I couldn't work at that time. I was only given two Tuesday afternoons off before I started being scheduled in at that time again without notice. The manager I spoke to in particular about this was gay and was more accommodating with a trans staff member than me which, although I didn't have an issue with said staff member, I didn't like
If something significant happened (male customer tried to fight me - I'm female) as it did to me, they expect you to gather yourself after after 10-15 minutes and continue working. Said if I wanted to press charges I could but didn't ask me later on if I wanted to follow up with this action, how I was feeling, etc.
A couple of people were casually racist and another's behaviour towards me amounted to misconduct and was seen by other staff who were visibly uncomfortable. I didn't bother reporting it as the store manager is also racist (as confirmed by someone else that used to work in another branch with him) and wouldn't care
They gave leftover snacks from meetings with higher-ups to the sales assistants as if we were dogs (I never accepted)
There is an air of looking down on and treating staff as if they're stupid or won't amount to much. I particularly felt the lowkey shock of me leaving from the store manager when I handed in my resignation and one of the supervisors on my last day
Instead of giving you a guaranteed amount of hours, they'd give you a low-hours contract and then schedule the rest in as and when they need you, erring very much on the side of the zero-hours model and then cheer you on when your contract increases from 10hrs to 20 as if that's something to be happy about
If you came up to the office to speak with someone from management (which would obviously mean it was important) and the store manager was also there they'd shoo you out as quickly as possible
Expected us to also keep an eye on the Gold Label area right by the exit with items priced up to £1000 and approach suspicious individuals with no security training even though there was already security whose job it was to do that
The nature of the job is just non-stop and ongoing. It's unnecessarily physically and mentally tiring and soul-destroying, even more so than other retail jobs I've had. Bar breaktime, you're on your feet all day and it's worse when they give you your break earlier on in the shift
