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Best/Worst Place to Work in Retail

If you could work for one company but purely as a customer assistant/shop assistant/retail mule job, where would it be?

Remember about Job perks/looks on CV for future jobs.

According to the Job Crowd These were some of the best

ASDA
John Lewis
Boots
Sainsburys
Morrisons
Waitrose
TK Maxx
Next

Or if you've had some unexpected awful experiences with companies (not customers!) please tell all here :wink:

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Reply 1
Avatar for Jjj90
Jjj90
19
It's a charity shop so maybe it doesn't count but working at a British Heart Foundation furniture shop was abysmal. I'm no prude but they were sexist, ignorant, over staffed, rude and patronizing. I'm not saying they're all like that, my town is a hole, but yeah, it was terrible.
BHS is one of the worst retail stores to work for.
I know from previous experience and the fact that my parents work there now who argue over how they are treated by customers and other members of staff on a daily basis.
No one really lasts there longer than 2 years in my knowledge, in Birmingham that is.
I start at Asda tomorrow, but I always found Greggs to be a nice place to work. And you get 50% discount. :yy:
Reply 4
Avatar for ForgetMe
ForgetMe
21
My cousin who works at Next as a manager told that Next is not that good company to work for :erm:
No wonder Next are always recruiting. They keep losing staff lol


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The Range, absolutely diabolical with the way they treat the staff and I am not just on about myself, at the Lincoln branch they dont care about the workers health, happiness or well being, they even refused a girl a chair to work the tills when she had to use a walking stick and had several issues with back and knee. Myself I was re issued a Final written warning for having 3.5 days off for the death of a family member, 2 days off sick and 1 day off when my back went and I couldnt make it in and as for the wages, well who has 2 fork lift licences and gets minimum wage, ridiculous.
Reply 7
Avatar for Randomized
Randomized
8
Avoid Next like the plague. I've finally got out of there after 3 years and I honestly don't know why I worked there for so long. I made some wonderful friends from working there, but I could write an essay on how poorly the managers treat their staff. I'm pretty sure some of their methods were illegal too - e.g not honoring breaks or contracts.
Used to work at Sainsbury's. Hated it.
I loved working at Martin McColls. It was 5 years ago that I worked there and I was only 16/17 so the pay was abysmal (£3.53ph) but the manager was lovely, the other staff were all nice, the hours were good and you hardly ever get rude, demanding customers.
I work at Debenhams, and I like it! The pay isn't bad, and most of the staff and manager's are lovely (there are a few pains, but isn't there always?). The only downside is the pressure to open accounts - the managers 'pledge' to open a certain number per day, and then they literally stand over you mithering you to get more. It's annoying because if somebody doesn't want a credit card, it's hardly my fault! But never mind, eh?
I've heard good things about Lidl and Aldi. You are expected to be a lot more productive but the wage are high to reflect that. Plus two of my mates have gone through a trainee management programme with them after having been with them for a while as regular workers.

I've heard mixed things about Tesco and bad things about Asda.
It all depends on the individual stores and their managers. Mainly because retail store managers are just people who know what things need to be done each day but don't know the first thing about management.
Worked as a Christmas temp for Next. Started off alright at first... but towards the end of my contract I started getting really rude customers and overall I really started to dislike it. Got a nice coat out of it though.
Reply 14
Avatar for amy2311
amy2311
I worked at boots for 8 months, my last day will be this Friday, and everyday for the last 2 or so weeks I've found more and more reasons why leaving is going to be a good option. During their review process managers have to have a set number of employees that are under performing. Moreover they don't tell you how to become legendary so you have no chance to get better. I had nearly every ounce of my confidence sapped from me. The majority of staff on evening fill at my store are people with lots of potential but have given up hope which makes it a very horrible place to work. Some of the staff just constantly bemoan how much they hate it there but make no effort to leave. Most stores have people leaving every five minutes and no one is hired to replace them. For example in my store sales plan a is a 4 person job it was just me and someone who had never done it before doing it. Needless to say I got a b@&&"£!^g for it not being finished. Team working doesn't exist. I've been so tempted to walk out on many occasion. However in will give one good point and that is they allowed both me and my mum (who works as a driver for boots) paid time off when my grandma fell gravely ill last month and not all companies do that. I got 2 days paid my mum got a week (I had used my holiday my mum hadn't)... I don't think crying down the phone to three different assistant managers had anything to do with it!! :colondollar::colondollar::colondollar::rolleyes:
(edited 9 years ago)
I work at Wilkos. Manager locks himself in office, assistant manager is a b*tch always spying on us to make sure we do things, they have favourite employees who grass you up and get away with the same,
Constantly going on about sales, giving you overtime and not paying you, always threatening to sack you if you aren't perfect at everything.
Exactly how i feel amy.
Mcdonalds is a decent place to work.
Ive worked there for 6 years now. Sure, you have to work hard, but you have to do that everywhere. The people i work with are great, mainly due to the fact the people come from all walks of life. The managers are pretty good.
The pay is decent as well. I get paid more an hour at mcdonalds on a sunday than i do at the nursery i work at in the week.
Original post by Beatlemania
Used to work at Sainsbury's. Hated it.


I always thought sainsburys was decent for some reason.
What was wrong with working there?
Original post by Emma:-)
I always thought sainsburys was decent for some reason.
What was wrong with working there?


Nothing really wrong with it, I think I was just too young at the time. I think now I'd probably enjoy it more, especially considering I could do with a job now, but back then I was quite shy etc. Never really got anywhere with it.

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