Your 1980s Saturday jobs

[Snooks1971]

I’m sure I’m not UR (!) to ask if you can share what your 80s Saturday jobs were.
Mine was WHSmith.The things I remember most:
nylon pencil skirt - horrendous
On the front till and selling Playboy magazine (dying having to look for the price to type in manually)
The woman who had worked there for 30 years still sniggering at the Smallholdings magazine
The designated fountain pen area - under glass 🥰

The library at Crystal Palace.
Reshelving books, stamping them out with a date stamp. Cleaning the returned LP records with a special brush.

I was thinking how much more exciting your experience of Preemark was (I’d have loved an excuse to get out for a while!) until I got to the bit about the pervy manager. Dirty oul so and so🤢

on the til in Key Markets, i was lucky to get the job
before then I cleaned for an old lady and walked her dog
also baby sitting
fruit picking

i remember a furious obviously tired woman on a friday accusing me of bashing her biscuits
a man i knew buying sanitary towels for his wife i assume and i was too embarrassed to wave and ask for assistance, there was no price on it, so i made it up
a woman coming in after christmas, furiously looking for the manager to complain about her turkey, i didnt know who the manager was , and she said Arent you allowed to tell me

I delivered magazines for a swank central London estate agent. All round Pimlico, Victoria, Chelsea, S Ken. Properties were over £1M even then. I got £6.20 for a 6 hour Saturday. I was an analogue version of Right Move.

Blimey. How times change.

Crawfords 2nd Day Baker’s Shop in a shopping centre near me. They sold all the bread and cakes that hadn’t sold on the day they were made for half price. We always opened to a long queue of old folks hoping to get a cheap cream cake or scotch pie before they sold out. There was another Saturday girl and I and we wore a brown and cream checked nylon overall. It was a unit in an indoor market type area full of stalls. There was a music stall opposite and they ran music videos all day. Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” still takes me straight back there.

Moved to Wimpy in town, red “unisex” dungarees that were made to fit 6ft3in tall blokes that we weren’t allowed to cut. Mine were turned up inside the legs almost to my knees. Working in back kitchen slicing tomatoes with a razor sharp thing that always got your fingers, rehydrating buckets of dried onions and squeezing them out…vile. Feeding the broiler with burgers and buns and trying to remember how many of each bun type you had to feed to match the burger requests coming in. Dressing up as Mr Wimpy for parties and promos outside. We did get into a spot of bother when we stood him outside the newly opened McDonalds though.

Final Saturday job was in a big proper department store. In a cafe, but a naice one, with blue rinsed old ladies ordering sandwiches, cream cakes and pots of tea. It was table service and there were half a dozen of us teenage Saturday staff. Uniform was a hideous cornflower blue a-line skirt, matching tabbard and white shirt with blue spots for the women. Men were in black trousers, white shirt, black tie. I did feel jealous. We had great times there though. Being sent to the main kitchens, huge up in the eaves of this old building to fetch the days sandwich fillings and cakes, squeezing into the tiny potwash at the end of the day as we were allowed to eat leftover cakes if “off the sales floor”. We did have to train for bomb scares with the ominous “Will Mr Bracken please go to the General Manager’s Office” relayed over the tannoy if something suspicious was found. The first time I heard the Inspector Sands message on the London Underground I thought that sounds worryingly familiar!

I had a few Saturday/Sunday jobs

Aged 14-15. In my mother's cafe in Shoreditch. It opened very early on Sunday to serve the local market workers and delivery drivers . I just remember having to get up at up 4.30am to get to the cafe by 5.15am with her and butter ( well margerine) all the bread for the sandwiches before we opened at 6am. Then serving all those lorry drivers who orderd massive fry ups and liver etc.for breakfast. Making coffees and taking orders and money . I loathed it !

Aged 15-16 in a reproduction furniture assembly factory . This came about as theiir workers used to.come into the cafe and told my mum.they were looking for help. I was desperate to do another job so she asked if they would take me .It was across the road form the cafe so I came in with mum still but worked in the factory . My sister was unhappy as she had to take my place in the cafe though

My mum then sold the cafe so I got more usual jobs at 16-18 yrs in Wimpy ( burger place now closed) for a few months and then and for a couple of years in a local independent wool shop in the high street

From age 12-18 I worked all weekend and every day in school holidays in a riding school.

No health and safety.

It’s a wonder any of us stable girls survived to adult hood.

As well as all the usual chores involved with looking after horses we used to be put on barely trained ponies brought in from the local dealers yard as crash test dummies and so that we could tame them to a point they were safe for customers to ride and possibly buy.

At the end of the weekend we had to ride and lead (sometimes leading two from the horse we were riding) bareback to the fields which were about an hour’s ride away up lanes and also main roads.

In winter this would be in the near dark with no headlights, no hi viz.

Once we became sufficiently “expert” the more senior of us would teach customers to ride and take them out on hacks whilst trying to control our own mount which would generally be one of the tricky ones the customers didn’t want to ride.

Despite the blatant exploitation (£2 for the whole weekend both days 7am to 6pm in 1979 rising to £20 for the whole weekend by about 1984)and the frankly terrifying physical risks it was enormously character building, mostly great fun and I learned a lot about people and horses.

I gained in self reliance and resilience plus I became very fit from the constant exercise, bearing in mind that as well as a full day of hard labour I cycled six miles there and six miles back every time.

It also gave me, as a very shy (now realise this was autism) young girl the confidence to speak to adults and the ability to survive bullies.

It is awful that so many children and young people are now so cosseted and given money on tap and so don’t look for part time jobs when work teaches so much.

Boots. Awful uniform of blue pinafore dress over flowery Peter Pan collar blouse. They sold things like luggage, art supplies and houseware, as well as the usual cosmetics etc. Had a really good subsidised cafeteria where you could get a hot lunch for 40p. The furore when a police officer was called to arrest a shoplifter who’d kicked off. Poor lad nearly fainted when he saw him - it was one of his top bosses, one of the most senior officers in West Yorkshire.

Broomfields the bakers for me.All adding up was done in your head.

Mid to late 90s Toys R Us- uniform was black trousers, white shirt and a bright blue waistcoat with a yellow badge with a picture of Geoffrey the giraffe on it. All staff carried a box cutter in their waistcoat pocket, which was a metal handle that hid a razor sharp blade that appeared when you moved the switch.
Worked on the till- serving customers, it was mayhem at Christmas and listening to the same 20 christmas songs all weekend on repeat. Having to use the tannoy to call orders through to the back for large items like bikes and prams, and working on the shop floor restocking and assisting customers meant walking thousands of steps a day- the shop was huge and the stock room was almost as big again and over two floors and I had a 45 min walk each way to work as well.

I also remember the queues and fights when both Tamagotchis and Teletubby toys were launched- grown ass adults pushing and shoving each other to get to the last ones in store, I had never seen anything like it- as staff we were allowed to reserve one each only. The Gold Card, loyalty system- we had to sign up 20 new gold card customers per shift if you were on the tills, by asking every customer if they had one and swiping them through the till- and tally sheets were posted each week by the managers in the staff room. If you were consistently under target you were called in to the office to be told off by the manager, there was no allowance for if most of your customers already had a card or if it had been a quiet day in store.

It was hard work, I found it dull and quite repetitive but enjoyed seeing all of the new toy lines that came out each year- I was still a child at heart!

Baby sitting
Shoe Shop in London. Hideous uniform. Hot and sweaty on the tube. Remarkably good fun. Worked more hours in holidays and earned lots of money.
Saturday assistant in a Boots chemist. Had to wear white lab coat over clothes. My friends worked there too. Boss constantly on us to clean the shelves 😁 better paid and less travel than my London job.

Also the library like a PP. I learned to mend books and also did shelving, checking in and out and supervising the children's library. I complained about the ones that smelled of smoke and I remember being told "that's nothing, I had one returned with a piece of crispy bacon used as a bookmark".

Freeman Hardy Willis shoes in a really fun down area. £1 an hour. Guy told off for not selling enough fancies - Polish, shoe horns etc. The customers could barely afford the shoes.
A few weeks later a brand new shiny Miss Selfridge opened in our city centre and I went in done up like a dog’s dinner. Instantly fell in love with the place, £1.75 an hour, great uniform and loads of discount. Lots of extra hours as well. My best mate worked next door in Ravel so we used to trade discounts.
Some of the happiest days of my life.
I am really tall and was like a beanpole so if anything wasn’t selling they’d put me in and have me going up and down the High Street and to do errands. I can remember being in M&S Food one Saturday in a giant puffball skirt and a tiny bra top in December. It actually worked, girls would stop me and ask me where things where from.
Made friends for life.

I worked in Woolworths on the record counter and I loved it sooo much. Wouldn’t have felt the same if I’d been on any other counter. But I was a teenage girl who loved chart music, it was my perfect job. As a result I may have the odd ( hundred or so or more ) vinyl records. Who knew they’d come back into fashion. My grandson thinks they are such a cool thing to have.

Loving this thread @Snooks1971 .

Mid 80s in Mothercare. Wore a light blue skirt and pastel striped shirt, flesh coloured tights and COURT SHOES. We were on our feet all day in court shoes!!!! Mine were cheap and plastic and pinched like absolute bastards.

Everything in the shop was pastel shades at that time and it always smelt of baby products. I loved it and felt really lucky to work in such an attractive shop.

We had to call senior members of staff 'Mrs X' or 'Miss X' and there was a very distinct pecking order and Saturday girls were the most lowly. I used to have to run up and down the stairs out the back lugging cots, basinets, stair gates and baby baths to bring down into the shop in my court shoes, trying not to snag my tights.

I dreaded having to measure pregnant ladies for their maternity bras. I found it excruciatingly embarrassing! I also hated doing credit cards on the till, as you had to use the card machine with the carbon papers and it was really complicated and required a whole load of extra buttons being pressed on the till, as well as one of the senior managers to authorise the transaction.

I earned £3.15 an hour, which felt like I was a millionaire at the time and I got discounts at all the Burton Group stores. I bought some horrific 80s party outfits at Richards as a result!

I had a few…on a Saturday I worked on an indoor market stall, selling ground coffee, cheeses, meats and other delicacies. This was quite ‘the new thing’ in 1979 when I started…everyone wanted to taste things before committing to buy 😂 I had this really quite cool ‘tabard’ with the fancy stall name embroidered. On the downside, I also had to wear a stupid kind of ‘shower hat’ thing to keep my hair out of the produce. 😬

I also worked in a chippy two evenings a week…had to wear a god awful nylon pinny! My mum made me strip off EVERYTHING in the back porch before I was allowed in the house because I smelled so bad! 😬

Another job I had was office cleaning, in a big factory where my dad worked. I did this ‘early mornings’, three days a week before college. Quite liked working there…I got to use one of those floor buffer things to make the floors all shiny…and I was allowed to wear my Walkman 😂

Ahhh nostalgia…now I spend my days teaching Year 3 🥰

Spud peeler in a fish and chip shop. 4 afternoons a week after school plus Saturday mornings. The spuds were peeled by a "tumbler" which was like a spin dryer - you put the potatoes in, let them spin for a few minutes and they came out peeled. They were then either stored in big vats of water for later, or put into a machine to be cut into chips. £2 a week - the tight bastard owner never once offered the staff (me) a pie, piece of fish or even a bag of chips.

Friday evenings and all day Saturday at Liptons grocers. White warehouse coat/lab coat uniform. Shelf filling, pricing tins using rolls of sticky price labels - later replaced by a leaky, inky price gun. No bar codes, so had to manually punch every price into the till. Worked there full time in the school holidays too - for £7.50 a week.

Dolcis - can't remember if I had a uniform but did get a discount on shoes. We had to leave our bags in the break area and they got checked as we left for the day. During one of my first shifts someone put a load of tights etc in my bag I guess to get me done for stealing....thankfully I checked inside my bag and took at all out. I never found out who it was.

Summer temp jobs as a fifth/sixth-former in various offices. £1 an hour, which was a small fortune back then.

One memorable job as a one-week holiday replacement. Turned up on the Monday and given a one-hour introduction into how to check some paperwork against a computer print-out and then where to file said paperwork.

Given a big pile of papers to work through, which I diligently got started on and finished by mid-afternoon. Went over to the person who'd shown me what to do and asked if there were more papers. She looked at me as if I'd just landed from Mars. The office manager was called. Arms were waved and words were exchanged. Turns out that what I had completed in about 4 hours was taking the regular staff member a whole week to complete, and she was claiming that she had too much work to do. It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall the following Monday when she returned from her hard-earned holiday.

It's sad for today's teens. They are missing out on a lot as there are very few Saturday jobs available nowadays. I learnt so much from all my different Saturday/weekend /holiday jobs. I learnt skills related to the job and life skills too. I made friends, had fun and enjoyed having extra money to spend on make up and clothes! It definitely helped make teenagers more responsible and built some independence back then too.

Radiorentals- a shop that used to rent people TVs and video recorders (VHS and Betamax)
Well that is dating me.
Got sacked when I said I was not bothered about watching the Charles and Diana royal wedding on TV

I also worked at antiques fairs taking the entrance fee. It was dead boring so I would take school homework with me and crack on with it during quiet periods. The actor Charles Hawtry (was in a lot of the Carry On films) was a regular customer, but most attendees were old men who collected war medals or railway memorabilia.

This brings back memories! I remember being hired to tidy up a filing cupboard once 😂 I made it last all week

I worked in b and q as a teen in the 90's

The pay was great, about £4.65 an hour which was way better than Topshop etc which paid about £2. Obviously Topshop was way cooler but it's all about the money at the end of the day.

I used to get discount on b and q stuff and also Woolworths, so my mum was thrilled

Also used to get random gifts I.e. large tin of emulsion

Great when you're 17 🤣