Sales assistants at christmas

[Lazarou]

When you go into shops at the moment the sales assistants are on you like vultures.
Went into toyrus the other day and i was showing ds1 the bikes and ride-ons and this 'boy' was practically stuck to me like a magnet. Every time I moved he moved. I was about to tell him to back off but he started trying to sell me stuff.
Noticed it in other stores as well, and if you say you are just browsing they say 'what sort of thing are you looking for?' I think the trick is not to make eye contact, that seems to activate them.

yes, eye contact is lethal and does activate them!
was pounced on in similar way myself,
it worse when they have perfume in their hand

i had so many conflicting smells on me i got seat on tube in rush hour..semi result i suppose!

Lol, thing is I'm usually really polite to the staff even when i want to tell them to fook off.

tbh they have such a crap job at this time of year I feel sorry for them. they are probably pressured by managers to nag at people and most likely hate it. Plus they have to listen to that awful Xmas music on repeat all day - enough to drive anyone insane. Many work extra hours at this time of year to boost their income too

It's because they want their christmas commission and they have all these incentives to get them selling stuff.

my mate dd overtime in The works one Xmas. She said it was the worst job she ever had, people were continually rude, the queue was also massive because they were always short staffed because it was such a shite job and the music drove her crackers!!

I know dooley, i used to work in a department store on a beauty counter and christmas was horrendous. Mind you, the rest of the year was pretty rubbish too, they seem to think they own you!

Well alot of them are only taken on as xmas temps so they want to get as much comission as possible before they are laid off.

Plus I would imagine they'll be instore incentives for them too.

Must be hell on earth working in Toys R Us and similar at this time of year.
My worst nightmare!

Was just about to say that exact thing Fio.

Some customers are really rude, that's why i just smile and say 'no thanks' when sales assistants approach me.

oh God yes I could never imagine working in toys r us. By the time Xmas arrived you'd want to forget it was happening - most likely you'd sleep all day and get up at some foraken hour on Boxingf Day to get the shop ready for the January sales!!

Most shop staff do not get commission.

Only ones I suspect might are those in very expensive shops with big, expensive items to sell.

Most staff get paid same whether you buy something or not.

I used to get really rude comments abotu working to commission by people who refused to believe I didn't get any

it's called floor walking
everyone is made to do it

maybe not commission, but they often will do prizes of some sort for whoever sells the most of a particular thing. i'm at m&s, whichever of our technology team sells the most TVs in the next 3 weeks gets a mahoosive TV as a thank you and well done. they will also likely be kept on after christmas.

and last christmas our per una department did such a fab job that george davies paid for them all to go for a week to italy.

Many shops do offer incentives, especially at this time of year.

Blimey me too, oh hang on, I already did, they didn't want me.

I wished I'd worked at M&S

At woolies the best we got was a free 'perfect partner' (one of those cheap DVDs they flog at the till).

MOst of the staff refused them.

lol

Yeah, we used to get a prize if we opened the most accounts, and it was always really embarrassing to get someone to open one only for them to be declined. We worked on commission and we had to do promotional evening etc. I hated it, I enjoyed selling the products and doing makeovers etc, but the pressure they put on people was terrible. If you weren't selling, they weren't particularly pleasant.

I've worked in shops that offer incentives. They are mostly shite though (see post below) and hardly motivating.

I got zilch when I worked at Wilkinsons over xmas.