Appalling behaviour by staff at a charity shop

[OooohAhhhh]

I was in a charity shop today browsing at items near the till and I heard the manager and staff member having a conversation about how desperate people must be to be browsing on the £1 and £2 clothes rails. They was referring to 2 women who had been there for quite a while going through it all and they were saying how desperate they are, in a malicious, slagging off manner.
I then went to the till and had to pay for my £1 cardigan, not because I'm "desperate" but because I love a good bargain, just like so many other people do, and is that not the point of a charity shop? It made me feel a bit awkward paying for it. Surely this can't be the common attitude of staff in charity shops?
Just wondering if I should send a formal complaint higher up maybe?

You overhear 2 rude people and then cast aspersions on every volunteer and charity shop worker in the country?

YABVU

That's more than I was getting for 37.5 hours as an administrator i

What a load of made up ageist nonsense.

Why assume everything in a charity shop is near the end of its life? Lots of people donate new or nearly new stuff. I know one shop which used to take stock from a business which disposed of confiscated stock which was all brand new.

i dont support high street charitys like bhf for example, they are very greedy and money hungry
most of the items you give them will end up in the bin, even if they are good condition ,unless they are name brand items and will make them money

i know because ive worked there and i always felt bad about throwing away perfectly good items

next time you have clothes , shoes and other items that you want to rehome, give them for free on things like facebook
or see if there are womens shelters, churches mosques, hospitals , emergency accomodations that are in need of items

Yes I would write to head office with their descriptions.

Apart from being a load of bollocks, charity shops are there to provide a service to those in need, not judge them.

Lots of charity shops have brand new things with tags still on , I donate new and used things and buy both.

It depends how they were saying it. It could have been that they think it’s really bad that people are living in a world where they can only afford stuff on the pound rails not necessarily mocking them for looking on those rails

i shop in charity shops as kids grow like stalks, it’s good for the environment, and I love a bargain.. just as well our town has 3

I manage a charity shop and whilst I would hope none of my volunteers are rude to customers you would be shocked at the quality of most of the donations we are given: I am probably guilty of saying something like 'there's not a duvet in there is there?' - although I would hope I would always be polite but less than 50% of the donations we receive are actually fit to sell .. more like 25%. Everyone always says 'my donations are lovely and surely someone will want to buy them'. The majority of my job is sorting stuff and trying and often failing to responsibly recycle unsuitable, filthy, broken and unwanted donations.

Clearly we do get some lovely donations .. otherwise we would go out of business but as everyone who volunteers in a charity shop know .. we are frequently used as a dumping ground.

Yeah I find BHF & Scope particularity expensive.
Good shout for the recommendation. I'm about to get rid of a load of baby clothes, and I've done my research & there is a baby bank nearby.

I've bought a second hand car and house, plus most of my clothes from charity shops, eBay and Jumble Sales in the day.
My house has had at least 4 owners, probably some of them died in it but it's not at the end of its life yet.
Yellow sticker food is to save landfill.
I am attaching a photo of an old bloke in an end of life jacket.
He's also fond of second hand sparkly hats.

Of COURSE they are.

@OooohAhhhh YANBU they were very rude.

Surely this can't be the common attitude of staff in charity shops?

Yup, we're all trained to be as rude as humanly possible to everyone who sets foot in the door. We have to get rid of the customers you see, as that gives us freedom to steal all the "good stuff" and diddle the charity out of the money. 🙄

Few points. Not staff. Volunteers.

Most shops don't have "many" paid staff, ours (one of many in a big chain) has one paid member of staff, and he is not employed for as many hours as the shop is open. So it's entirely possible that at some point during hte week the shop is entirely volunteer run. Some volunteers have additional needs. Some are just rude - volunteers are no different from anyone else.

Most of my fellow volunteers are the shop's best customers. We do get first dibs - at full price - and everything bought by volunteers is written down. We don't stand around slagging off stock/customers because we're the ones who have priced it, sorted it, steamed it. And we're the ones who are often buying it.

Stuff which is "nearing the end of its life" probably wouldn't even get sold where i volunteer. Because nobody wants washed out, stretched, misshapen. Straight to rags. We get so much lovely stuff still with tags on, or barely worn. Corporate donations of brand new stock from high street names which have been ordered online and returned to their warehouse as unsuitable. I am not going to price a pair of leather boots, original selling price £159, still tagged and bagged, for 2 or 3 quid.

I'm a big fan of one local charity shop, sells jigsaws for £1, love it. I have a pile to go to them and will hopefully get some more.

Just wondering if I should send a formal complaint higher up maybe?

I hate this sort of thing where people won't open their mouths at the time and politely pull people up, instead hiding behind a keyboard to make a formal complaint, or complain in the internet instead.

You would've been completely within your rights to have paid for your item, and then told them you overheard their conversation and that quite frankly it was not on.

My dsis works in a local one shes on 22k for 25 hours a week.

Which charity is this? Do tell.

Because Oxfam aren't paying that much for a manager working 36 hours a week.

https://jobs.oxfam.org.uk/vacancy/bookshop-manager-dorchester-books-trd4204/19438/description/

Cancer Research are paying a deputy about £12 per hour.

Barnardo's are looking for a store manager in Manchester, 35 hours a week, £21,768.

https://jobs.barnardos.org.uk/jobs/vacancy/store-manager-16059/17014/description/

So either your sister is telling porkie pies, or you are exaggerating.

I volunteer in one, and our £1 rail (it just means it’s been out for sale for two weeks) is very popular. We encourage customers to have a look.

What customers don’t realise is one of our donors is the wife of a famous British actor. She passes on all his suits and dresses she’s worn to awards ceremony’s. His size isn’t standard (big chest, short legs) so his suits, beautiful suits! always end up being sold separately for £1

I’ve stopped donating to a lot too.

There are a number of rude staff, but some lovely ones too.

Talking to a friend today who stopped volunteering in her local Barnardos, she complained to head office about the manager bagging all the branded designer clothes before they went on the rails and donating £5 to the till on bags of clothes that could easily raise £100s. Head office didn’t believe her because the manager had been there years. She said there was another woman who got shity if other volunteers didn’t put her favourite brand in her size to one side to check out before putting in the shop.

Im happy for staff and volunteers to get perks, they already get 50% off, but to take everything that’s going to raise a lot of money, absolutely not.

My cousin use to manage a big Barnardos, it was mainly furniture but some clothes. Furniture the volunteers could have dips once a month on something before it went on sale, clothes once a week, otherwise it all went out. They could still buy it after it had been in display for 48 hours if it hadn’t gone. Her job was to make money for the charity not give freebies out to volunteers who only wanted the job for the perks. The ones only doing it for perks didn’t last, she made short shrift of those quickly.

You would get a shock if you saw some of the prices. Bobbled up jumper £6. Trousers from a certain chain store priced at more than they sell for new in original shop.

charity attracts lots of the wrong people and the whole charity business has put me off shopping in them. My local big name now only has tat as half the staff spend their days researching the donations and selling them online so no real local bargains. Also had staff police donations we don't accept books by her!! .Hate to say that did mean a formal complaint.

The shop sets the prices.
OP didn't say she'd haggled it down to a pound.
It isn't ops responsibility to cover the electricity bill.
They're volunteers surely so you're not paying them at all.

They may be volunteering but they are representing the charity! Volunteering or not they shouldn't be so rude and should have been called out on their behaviour.

All the more reason not to put buyers off by bitching in earshot. I'm a volunteer for a charity, I still know how to do my job professionally and not be a dick.

Having worked in retail - the reason reduction hunters are spoken about poorly was actually based on their own behaviour. Which was appalling.

Once upon a time my shift supervisor was punched in the face over reduction items. The perpetrators trotting off to their Range Rover Discovery really took the human concern element away.