Working in Retail

I worked in retail for 16 years before I got out and saw what a job was like where you got weekends off.

When I originally joined Tesco all the way back in 1990, I received a Saturday premium for working on Saturdays and even got double time for working on Sunday’s.  When I did my training taking up online IT courses to become a manager, my weekends off became less and less and my hours got longer and longer! These days weekend and bank holiday working is expected with no extra reward as consumers demand that shops now open 7 days a week and until late at night too – not just at Christmas.

But what does this mean for the employee?

Gone are the days of having a job in school hours – unless you are extremely lucky.

Employees are expected to not just to work weekends, but late nights and even nights too, even if childcare is virtually impossible to find.

Sadly hubby is not so lucky and has worked in retail pretty much since he left school.  It has never bothered me, him working weekends, as it has always been a fact of life and we knew no different.  Thankfully in his last role the only late nights he ever had to do were the Thursday before a sale end, and that was only a handful of times in a year and he used to get the odd weekend day off here and there.

Now hubby has a new job, which is fantastic after being made redundant, but – and it is a HUGE GLARING BUT!!!!!

He is expected to work 9am until 8pm 3 days per week AND work every weekend.

I don’t like to moan as at least he has a job, but that means I have to get the kids fed, bathed and into bed all by myself and they won’t get to see him before they go to sleep.  They adore their Daddy time and I know this transition is going to be painful.

So next time you go shopping after standard office hours – be thankful for the staff that are there to man the ship, as I am sure most would rather be a home!  (Unless of course it is a ruse to get out of bedtime……MMmmmmmmmm)