To think that most shop assistants do a great job and and have to take alot of cr@p from the public...

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and yet are looked down upon on the whole because some people think they must be stupid because they work in a shop as an assistant.

I work in a food shop where we serve what feels like hundreds of customers everyday. Most are students or office workers. All the staff there work their ass off, running around doing 101 jobs at the same time, remembering orders etc.

Last week i was serving a customer and could hear these two women behind my customer talking loudly. They both worked in offices and one was talking about how she was leaving her job and that she wasn't sure what she was going to do next. The other woman said "Well you could always work in here!" and they both starting laughing hard. I thought what stuck up, patronising idiots they were. Like it is somehow beneath them to work in the place that does their lunch for them.

Anyway, i have noticed on MN in recent times that customers have been complaining about shop assistants. Well there are two side to every story and shop assistants have to put up with alot of crap from awkward customers, as well as being looked down upon by some, like they have failed their career or something and god forbid, have had to resort to working in a shop.

Now i know there are bad shop assistants out there, although i know from experience that you can't expect a Saturday girl/boy to have the same customer service skills as someone older with experience. But on the whole, they do a really good job and working directly with the public is strain on anyones patience.

I work in an office, sat comfortably behind me desk, surfing the net and pretending to do some work while im really MNing

A retail company i once worked for sent me out to work in one of their stores for 2 days, just so would get a feel of what its like

By eck, i have never worked so hard in my life, it was tiring and stressful and some of the customers where awful and downright rude, so i have respect for anyone that can work in a customer service role and still be smiling at the end of the day

interesting read everyone.

I work as a superviser in a well known restaurant chain and you would not believe the rudeness we put up with every day from customers, yet we are a great team and fantastic with all our customers. Yes alot of the staff are students, and earning a little extra cash when they can, but there are people like me who work there as its convenient shofts, close to home and will fit in with childcard when i do have dc.
As for education i am far from undereducated, have plenty of qualifications, NVQ's and the like but i chose to work where i do now, its far less stressful that my previous jobs, I meet different people every day and i enjoy it most of all.

So spare a thought for all shops, restaurant well any customer service staff. If a restaurant closes at 8 we like to finish our shift at 8. Its awful when a customer comes in at 7:55, you've cleaned everything, had a long 8/9 hour shift and they want you to cook them a full 3 course meal. Now that the bit i hate about my job and yes i have on occasions said no to cooking for them, i dont think im being unreasonable anyway.

oops spelling mistakes!! i am educated i promise!! Thats what i get for being on the phone and posting on here at the same time lol.

But the people who work in supermarkets because it fits in with your DC would you work in supermarkets if you didn't have DCs? Is that what you actually want to do for a career? Or is that what you just do for a job?

saying that customers shouldn't be rude to shop assistants and shop assistants shouldn't be rude to the customers.

Not everyone is hungry for an ambitious career, some people may be perfectly happy working as a shop assistant and not wanting a high profile career, it doesnt mean they are poorly educated, they may have the 'work to live' not 'live to work' attitude

Some shop assistants are fantastic, some are lousy. Some have qualifications, some don't. Gosh, they're a cross section of society, how surprising.

I spent 10 years working in an office 9-5 job, spening almost 2 hours a day travelling. Took the leap into the unknown and left as i was unhappy. Went into a job with adults with learning difficulties/autism/aspergers and spent every day fearful of going into work incase i was attacked again for another year. I quit as i felt it was to stressful for me.

Now yes i work in a restaurent, its 5 mins each way travel time, its over £2.00 an hour less in wages but gosh i am happier now than i have been in years, money isnt everything to me at the moment. I work to live now, spend more time with my family, neices and nephews etc.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Custardo, may i ask what you do for a living?

find it snobby to suggest retail is stop gap job for students and uneducated.my friend has degree,manages a shop,gets clothing allowance.travels.loves her job with a high street retailer

it is legal
puts food in the fridge

When I was a student, I worked in Asda. After encountering so much rudeness, it made me determined to work hard at my course so I could leave all this behind.

It takes a special kind of person to be able to put up and deal with some customer's attitudes. .

I am always always courteous to retail/shop assistants/waitering staff as a result.

Forgot to mention in my last post, people who in the past said they wouldn't do a job like that (out of snobbery, not because they genuinely wouldn't be able to do it) will be happy to take anything that's going in this recession.

Nobody would have wanted to work in Burger King in the past, but recently there were 35 vacancies at a Galway branch - and 500 applicants. Lots of them with degrees, but loads who were made redundant from their factory/barman/IT/etc jobs and hate being on SW

Shop assistants have a very important role in our society. Without them, the sobby people who are so keen to look their noses down at them wouldn't be able to go out shopping. Some poor bugger has to work in these roles so you can go to "Tescos" at 10pm to do your shopping. Just remember that next time you turn your nose up at these "uneducated" people.

i work for tesco and i love it!!
admittedly it's on the pharmacy and is a specialist job but it great. i have 11 gcse,3 a levels and 2 nvqs. i'm not uneducated, i chose my career, and it is a career to me. it fits around my kids, the pay is better than minimum wage and i enjoy the work.
i hate rude people, i once had a customer ask to speak to an older assistant as i wasn't experienced enough, i told him that she was a trainee and i was 2 levels above her in the dept. that soon shut her up.
the other thing is when drs make mistakes on scripts, it's always our fault and never the drs, coz they are sainted. we always get a gobfull off patients for that grrr

I get you Custardo. The job of a shop worker is considered relatively low-skilled and therefore low paid. The individuals that actually take up the job may have Phds coming out of their backside but doesn't take away from the fact that the jobs themselves - especially now that American time/motion work practises have been brought in to break things down into simple processes - are designed so that even a simpleton can be paid the peanuts to do it fairly efficiently. What is insulting is that these 'paid peanuts' jobs tend to be taken up by women who have no choice to fit around the school run and childcare.

I changed from a career in childcare to retail a few years ago after I got married and decided to start a family. I realised that it would be easier to find part time hours to suit me and children in retail.

As a nanny I worked for some very well educated, well paid women at the very top of their chosen professions who had to make some very difficult decisions with regard to work vs children/family life, sometimes it was heartbreaking to see the fallout for the mum and kids.

I did not go on to further education (some of us are not all that academic y'know) but I am v happy with the way my life has turned out so far and work only fills a v small part of it. Part time working gives me the majority of my time with my DS and a couple of days being able to talk customers and co-workers away from home. It works well for us anyway.

I'm certainly not an expert but I do have a passion for the things I sell at work and it can be v fulfilling when I help a customer find the right products for them. Its not all drudgery.

Bit pountless to turn this into shop assistants vs the public: shop assistants are the public too.

I worked in shops for years and there are two sides to it. There are some unspeakably rude people out there, and many who should be banned from shops completely.

But at the same time, this is the UK and we don't have a service culture. The bored, blank shop assistant who makes no effort at communication at all is a stereotype based upon people we meet in real life every day.

I agree that it is rude and dispespectful to look down on shop staff, but I'd be disappointed if a kid of mine wanted to be a shop assistant as a lifelong career. Mainly becuase of the crap pay and conditions.

As a student or part time job though it can be brilliant fun. I met my very best friend when working in a shop, I wouldn't swap those years for anything.

"but I'd be disappointed if a kid of mine wanted to be a shop assistant as a lifelong career."

Really? First of all i'd be happy that my dc had a job at all and secondly i would rather them be happy with their life as whole even if that meant they worked in a shop. As opposed to them being successful in a career but stressed and unhappy.

I have always said, i don't care what my children do (within reason) as long as they are happy. I guess others measure success and happiness differently.

yes i imagine the more pushy parent would prefer a solicitor/accountant/doctor.but that is about fulfilling your wishes and your vicarious pursuit for social status.

rather than your child making an informed
choice about what they want

if they made informed choice an genuinely wanted to, why not?

same as any career really

my friend went to RSAMD drama school and is out of work more than she is in.her mum thinks it is dreadful and is always going on about her disappointment

no money.infrequent work but my friend is happy she chose her vocation

my mother 'only ever wanted' me to be happy. its the heaviest burden you can give to your child imo. Its illusive and non specific and something that trips off the tongue without thought.

and its easy to say "i don't care whether my child shovels shit as long as they are happy"

when all i can then counter that with is - what the bloody hell are your kids making up class sizes for - if education is unimportant and all you wish for your child is to waork at asda?

choice is a word i used earlier - as in career of choice.

and then somepeople come on and say ' well i work in a shop and i have degrees and a masters in neurophysologicaldysfuntialeronomy...but i work in asda becuase it fits in with the kids

well thats not a choice is it?

it suddently occurs to me what fortunate people there ae on mumsnet to be able to work in Asda - being highly educated - and do this as a matter of choice.