Corporate retail was worse. I had like 30 minutes of assigned work a day, and for the other 7.5 hours I had to pretend to be busy. It was awful.
I did get really good at balancing stuff on my fingertips, though. And I had the location and price of every item in the store memorized.
Food service was harder work, but shifts went by much faster. I mostly washed dishes and did prep, but subbed for wait staff when needed, and all of it was better than retail. Plus, everyone was high or drunk and management didn’t give a shit.
Why was downtime at the retail gig so bad? Couldn’t you just doodle or mess around on your phone? Seems like you could come up with a creative way to appear busy.
Nope, you had to appear to be busy doing retail like things. Mostly that involved doing the assigned work for others and fronting (straightening up rows of products and bringing them to the front of The shelf).
I wasn’t even allowed to wander around looking for customers to help.
When I worked in retail, you were not allowed to be on your phone or even sit, even if the store was completely empty. You were expected to pretty much stare at the door and manifest customers.
Corporate retail was worse. I had like 30 minutes of assigned work a day, and for the other 7.5 hours I had to pretend to be busy. It was awful.
I did get really good at balancing stuff on my fingertips, though. And I had the location and price of every item in the store memorized.
Food service was harder work, but shifts went by much faster. I mostly washed dishes and did prep, but subbed for wait staff when needed, and all of it was better than retail. Plus, everyone was high or drunk and management didn’t give a shit.
Why was downtime at the retail gig so bad? Couldn’t you just doodle or mess around on your phone? Seems like you could come up with a creative way to appear busy.
Nope, you had to appear to be busy doing retail like things. Mostly that involved doing the assigned work for others and fronting (straightening up rows of products and bringing them to the front of The shelf).
I wasn’t even allowed to wander around looking for customers to help.
When I worked in retail, you were not allowed to be on your phone or even sit, even if the store was completely empty. You were expected to pretty much stare at the door and manifest customers.
If there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean! /S
It has been 17 fucking years since i worked fast food and even just reading this phrase still makes me scream internally every time