Friends who say they "easy" jobs

[sheworkshardforthemoney]

3 separate friends have said to me this week that they want b and m/ supermarket jobs.

I have never worked in retail but do work as (low paid) manager in a position to hire staff at minimum wage positions (skills needed)

AIBU to think these friends are disrespectful to think that they could easily do these jobs/ be hired?

I think tbh they were just saying it in a half hearted way. But I've heard it before from friends with careers in management/ finance/ HR.
They think minimum wage jobs are easy work/ easy to get and stress free!

If they applied for a vacancy with me they wouldn't get hired! I look for CV's with job history where I know they've had to 'graft' turn in everyday and perform. It's bloody hard work!!

Stick to your office jobs! Minimum wage=maximum effort! Worked to the bone! No spare minutes in the day! True for my site anyway!

@Tigger03

I’ve done both and they’re hard in different ways.

Supermarkets are tough - being on your feet, not knowing your rota, struggling on low wages, the general public. But, I never thought about work outside of work, nor felt any pressure to carry a mental load - eg coming up with ways to improve client experience, appraisals etc etc.

Office job - day to day nicer environment, being able to plan your diary, drink coffee when you want, all very nice. But I’m regularly stressed outside of work and can’t switch off mentally, so I can see the appeal of ditching the mental load.

Totally agree with this. My jon has a heavy mental load, things going through my head at all hours, hard to switch off etc. Some days I would love a job where I can just clock off & forget. OP maybe that's what they meant by 'easier'?

Ive worked in retail and hospitality through uni in very busy environments. I like being busy and really enjoyed those jobs.

I became a midwife 20 years ago and I have found it to be relentless. It has the rushing around of retail/hospitality but will literally life/death responsibility. It also what feels like thousands of guidelines and policies that are ever changing. Even after a 2 week annual leave break - I have to review what has altered as I am out of sync.

I'm now in a management post and have taken things to another level where I manage people who are rushing around, stressed and making decisions that can impact morbidity and mortality.

Therefore, I think YABVU to think retail is easier than my office job.

If it’s my local b&m then they would be fine. I stood Looking at some cleaning products and overheard a group (5 atleast) workers discussing how bored they were. Every second word a swear word but that’s a separate issue.
So who knows.
I worked in JD sports before and have never ever been so mind numbingly bored in my whole life. Yes I got paid MW, but I literally done nothing, except fold clothes and hide in the loos.

Supermarket jobs are easier (not in the physical sense) as someone else does all the thinking, planning, decisions, planning etc. At the end of your shift you forget about it all till next time. In a professional role, you have the added mental workload, decision making etc making it a harder job.

Id say shopfloor roles are physically more demanding, I've worked both in retail and office at varying levels throughout my career and always work hard. The main thing I think back and wish I had sometimes was that my job in retail shopfloor was done at the end of my shift whereas now my workload is all my own responsibility (even though I work as a larger team) which sometimes takes a greater toll mentally and makes it harder to switch off/have a work life balance, perhaps thats what your friends seek but they didnt phrase it right, I would not say its an easy job (certainly not when involved with customer service/returns) but Id happily go back to it if I needed to.

I often say I’ve had enough and I’m off to get a cleaning job or something in retail. I’ve previously worked in retail for many years and done cleaning jobs so I know exactly what they entail and there’s no way in reality I’d want to do them again because physically they are hard work with very little autonomy.

But yes when I’m stressed I long for a job where I can just deal with a problem without having to write several lengthy lots case notes and risk assessments about it and then take the worry home with me that I missed something, or to just have a chat with someone without knowing you have to document the entire thing afterwards

Well I've worked both retail and office jobs and it depends on the individual job. But generally the big benefit of retail is when you clock out of your shift that's it until the next shift, don't need to think about work, can relax completely. In the last couple of office jobs I've had I've been worried sick about work 24/7, especially when having a holiday and worrying about all the work piling up waiting for you when you get back

I've found a happy medium in my current office job though, I find the bigger the company you work for the better it gets.

Guilty - I (mid range manager in an office) have said in the past ‘if anything happens in my job I’ll just get a job stacking shelves in a supermarket’ .... I really didn’t think about what I said and I did find myself at the next visit thinking ‘goodness, 8 hours on my feet stacking shelves and dealing with the public is actually hard work’ ..... so I take back what I say. However, the thought of much less responsibility and being able to walk away at the end of the day does appeal! (Walk away = albeit with blisters after being in feet all day 🤣)

@sheworkshardforthemoney

Those were the only positives I could see *@Tigger03* no work to take home/ no endless meetings/ no pressure to 'fix' the business

That is a blooming big positive for many people. Yes the work can be hard but I see many older/retired people working in supermarkets so I imagine you don't exactly need superhuman stamina.

I did loads of retail and waitressing work in my yout to my mid 20s. I I fist started helping my mother serve food in her cafe (with 5am starts on Saturday) when I was 13 and had several jobs in shops and cafes at the weekends and after school until I went to university at the age of 20 so I know how hard a lot of physical jobs can be.

However I'd trade in my office job in an instant for one of these jobs if the pay were in any way comparable

The minimum wage jobs I have had were a lot less pressure, not target driven, able to clock off mentally at the end of shift, no emotional attachment really.
Yes there were elements that were not easy and tasks were generally quite repetitive BUT yes, an awful lot easier than management positions I have had. Where I have been responsible for several people, had unattainable targets, people in other departments to answer to, never stopped worrying about work, had to be mentally'on the ball' at all times.

I'm in a somewhere in-between position at the moment. No desire to climb the ladder again any time soon!

I’ve done both and I think that retail is easier - you clock off, you are constantly busy/distracted, I like customer interaction. It is exhausting in a good way though.
Now I am never off the clock, thoughts flood me constantly with cases I’m on, it’s high pressure corporate bullshit. But I am mentally fulfilled.

You're being just as disrespectful of these people's jobs as you claim they are of yours. Can you not see that?

Jobs are different from each other. It's always easy to look at someone else's job and see the bits that seem easier or less stressful than your own. But equally those jobs will have downsides and stressors that yours doesn't.

Retail work is really hard!

I think your friends just don't realise how difficult it is, it also can be stressful to deal with rude customers.

@Newmumatlast I agree that retail is what you make it.

The people I worked with who hated retail were the ones who never made an effort to smile at customers, would blatantly lie about things being out of stock just so they didn't have to go and find them, would hide in stockrooms doing sweet FA and couldn't be arsed to learn the processes properly so they were always slow and getting things wrong.

They were also the ones where the managers "picked on them". Funny that.

On a more general and philosophical note, I think all of us sometimes look at other peoples' jobs and think....."that looks cushy - I could do that", without having any idea what it entails, or what you don't see. The absolute ideal must be to do what you love/love what you do, but I guess that would be a whole new thread!

Colleague of mine took early retirement and moved to Scotland. Got a job at a Tesco just moving stock, stacking shelves 15 hrs a week. He really enjoyed it. Didn't have to think about it. He'd done enough of that over the years. But he said it was hard work.

I think it is a similar situation with nursing and carers. There is little doubt that on the whole carers work is physically harder, but nursing is mentally harder, your the one making the decisions and carry the responsibility.

They're BU but so are you. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about people with professional jobs. Why do you think they don't turn up and perform every day?
The "experience" thing makes me laugh. I had various minimum wage jobs in my youth, yes they were hard work and stressful but I learned the job in a week max, it doesn't take years of experience to learn how to stack a shelf or serve a customer. Also if every hiring manager thought like you then how are people meant to get the experience in the first place?

I did the whole working at Waitrose (convenient shifts) whilst studying.

Overall the job was fine (ok put on a stone with staff discount ) and some good laughs! It’s a great conversation starter at parties.

Agree about mental load etc. I’d definitely do it again if it made sense.

But there was quite a lot of “chip on shoulder attitude” from some managers as there’s (unfortunately) the perception that a career shopfloor retail manager isn’t quite a normal middle class professional role?

Or it’s the role you end up doing if you couldn’t get a normal graduate job.

(I’m immigrant so the class system means nothing to me - I’ve always wanted an early morning cleaning job somewhere as it would make sense with timing for me)

My own manager started after I did and made life a nightmare for all us student types

She gave the impression she thought as she’d got a “John Lewis manager job title” she’d got a “professional job in John Lewis head office buying fancy posh goods” .

but actually she was doing manual labour, stacking shelves and working crazy shifts and mopping vomit from babies and wiping counters.

Plus no-one really wanted to do the roles as team leader/junior manager (basically they got offered to everyone vaguely hardworking - me included - when the store opened)

But we all thought it was too much commitment for not much pay increase and a slightly shit shiny suit (comes down to mental load again).

So I think the shop managers have the worst deal in a way.

Even though I personally completely respected the work they did, it was like they were doing a job that no-one else wanted (or so they felt) and it kind of rankled?

I have worked in retail, bar and waitressing jobs when I was young, and later on as an accountant. Accountancy was far less stressful, easier work, and I didn't have to deal with the public.

Lots of the public are absolute fucking arseholes to people working in retail and service industries, though I also had lot more fun at work while working retail and bar work than in an office.

I worked on a beauty counter in a department store as a student and I sometimes miss how easy that was! Working in a supermarket looks a lot busier and more physical.

Middle management civil servant now working from home, I find it easy to switch off after work.

I worked in retail fresh out of uni. It was hard but wasn't stressful in the way my office job is. In my job now I could make a small mistake and cost the firm thousands, I wake up at 3am and think about things I need to do. In retail there was no risk of making big mistakes and I left it behind the second I walked out the door. The lack of responsibility does seem appealing some days.

I work in an office job (well WFH...) and I've been sat here since 730am - it's 9pm now and I am yet to finish. I am expected to be available virtually round the clock, including weekends. The buck stops with me, so whatever problem there is - it's my job to fix it (that included dealing with Covid impact in my sector!). I have worked in retail / customer service when I was younger and whilst it was hard work, it it was in no way comparable to the stress / pressure / demands I have to deal with today.

I get held accountable for anything in my area / repeatedly expected to cancel personal plans because of an ''urgent issue'' / called in for a 'crisis' during annual leave / contacted at anti-social hours.. I miss leaving work behind at the end of my shift. Jobs I had when younger where I could do that were easy / stress free with no responsibility by comparison, but paid significantly less.

I don't think it's reasonable to equate min. salary with hard work, you can't hope to draw a fair comparison stacking technical / retail/ managerial / professional / manufacturing etc roles side by side - they are all too different. Different skills, different responsibility / skills, different types of pressure. Different pay. There is however an undeniable work life balance difference between different types of roles, and those which pay less provide a better balance in favor of the worker in my experience.

I don't assume anyone has it easy...nor would I sneer at anyone who does a hard days work.

It’s a different type of stress
I worked in hospitality as a student, as a bar staff/waitress/(later on) mainly supervisory role/(occasionally via a rota) duty manager role. Stressful on shift but once I got home I’d forget all about it. Also paid OT.

Now in financial services I’m salaried and have a great deal more accountability and often thinking about work when I’m not working. Also work 10 days an hour at least as well as some (most) weekends at least 5 hours.

Not complaining, I’m passionate about what I do and it’s likely my own conscientiousness that causes me to spend as much time as I do, but there’s a lot more expected of you in terms of independent decision making, responsibility and as I said accountability as well as much higher stakes.

It’s unfair to compare the two IMO. Some make the choice and some are forced to live with the former. In many cases individuals in lower paid roles would perform much better than those in higher paid roles but have unfortunately not had those opportunities. Both are hard work but in different ways.

Higher up in management, a mistake can cost your career, so there’s also that risk which weighs in there as well, imagine having a family and that pressure.

I've worked in a pub, shop, as a waitress and am now a senior finance manager.

All of these were hard in one way or another. The retail jobs were far more physically draining and had the stress of dealing with the general public, but at the end of my shift I could leave it all behind.

The job I'm in now may be an office job, but it's tough - 11 hours with virtually no breaks today, lots of pressure and accountability building a team and getting results in a growing company.

You sound very scathing about your friends - they may just be meaning that they want a job with less responsibility, and aren't being critical.

You aren't more 'noble' for working in a minimum wage area, just like they aren't for working in an office - all jobs are important.