Second day at a retail job today... feeling worried about training

Hi,

So yesterday was my first day at a large retailer and so I was told to watch and read like 7 pages worth of training stuff, of which I did the first compulsory section which tbh nothing sunk in and then another employee said if I'd watched those ones I could go downstairs, so I went downstairs with no idea what to do but luckily found the manager and I asked her. She put me on the till so another employee could train me on it, she did a few and then I did one while she watched and then I was doing the refunds on the till which after a while I got used to. Every now and then customers came to the till to buy stuff but typical for my first day they all wanted refunds or exchanges as well! The employee that I shadowed earlier was on call to help me when I needed it but I did feel bad to keep stopping her to ask questions in the middle of her serving another customer. I felt a bit thrown in the deep end, which was good I guess to learn and the manager herself did come over occasionally to help so yeahh.
The thing is I think I'm contracted to is the home department but I have no product knowledge of like furniture and stuff and so I am worried that today I'll be put there but with no idea how to sell stuff and no one specifically to train me because the training seems a bit unorganised at the minute and yeah, although one of the employees that gave me a tour I think said he would teach me because he is also in the home department but he isn't in today so yeah I am a bit worried that they put me in home today and I have no idea what to do and look a fool in front of the customers.
I don't know whether I'm being silly or anything, but like even today I have no idea of what I am supposed to actually do, like surely I'm supposed to have some idea of what specifically I am supposed to do when I get in, I don't know, this is my first retail job so I literally have so many questions but I don't want to look incapable to the managers so yeahh

I work fridays and saturdays, 4.5 hours on fridays and 3.5 hours on saturdays: don't know if that is relevant but yeahh 😅

Sorry for such a long post , does anyone have any advice or anything please 😅?
Thanks🙂

Hi,

I work in retail as well, not in the home department but am sure a lot of the departments work the same ways or similar retail companies work similar as well, if you were assigned the home department and put on the tills or customer service desk, that isnt something that should have really happened if u werent working for that department i dont believe, when i started in retail i went to the customer service desk on the first day and asked to speak to the department manager that i was gonna be working in (fresh department) and then the manager took me and introduced me, and gave me a mentor buddy for the first 1-2 days and then was set free and at the retailer i work for, working at tills and working in any other department is different and ur generally only trained/hired into one specific department unless staff shortages or uve got specific training elsewhere in the store.

ano im a bit late but did u find out what to do yesterday/today at work? if your still confused after working the shift, feel free to message again and ill explain more

Hey,
Thanks for your response, so yesterday as I came in I found out that I think I am definitely contracted to the home department because another employee noticed on the rota that I'm in zone 3 or something which is home. So I went to the department and the manager of that department was supposed to let me shadow her I think but she sent me off to the stockroom to pick up any items that weren't in the sale and fill the shelves where there were spaces. So tbh I was fine doing this but afterwards I came around the corner after I had done it and saw her and the main store manager looking at what I had done and sort of rearranging a few things and taking stuff off that didn't belong. I had like filled the shelve and rearranged stuff which I don't think I was supposed to because this is a department store and not just some charity shop volunteering that I had done before😅, I felt a bit silly after but hey ho I'm still learning😅and then the department manager took out thos zebra things with images of how the displays are supposed to look and I couldn't help thinking that would've been helpful before😅and she told me to basically make sure everything was in the right place (after I had just moved everything to definintely where it was not supposed to go🤦🏻*♀️) so then I organised a wedding section which was an absolute mess and when I asked her to check it she seemed pleased so that was good. Then I went on the tills for a bit which I hadn't been specifically asked to do but a queue was building so I kinda felt I had to, and considering it was only my second time I served all of them without needing help which was good.
But yeah at the end the main store manager mentioned that I need to watch more of those training video things so I think they are going to set me up with that for next shift and hopefully that means more training but to me the whole thing has felt a little messy like surely from the start they should have outlined like my training or given me like you had a mentor. But yeah I don't know whether I am thinking too far ahead and panicking unnecesarily but like customers always come up to me asking to buy furniture and I have no idea how to do that yet because they haven't shown me and they always get like ipads out and do ordering and other stuff to do with finance because obviously some of the furniture are big investments. So I'm hoping that is what will be covered in the training next week or that I'll be able to shadow someone.
Sorry for another long post, thanks so much 🙂