They go to work sick. “Sometimes such an employee goes to bake rolls, and the manager just tells her to be careful”

To earn extra money, many students decide to work in a store. The choice usually falls on clothing chains that have a high demand for employees. Usually, there is no problem with setting a schedule so that it does not conflict with classes at the university. A fixed salary and a flexible schedule are big advantages for those who are looking for additional income. It seems the benefits end there. I talked to several people who had the “pleasure” of working in such stores.

You even had to be able to stand

It turns out that in some of them a better description of work would be “plowing”. Possibly “exploitation”. Interestingly, this is not always due to the fact that the store is busy. Sometimes it’s just the opposite – the fewer customers, the worse the employees had. Although times have changed dramatically, many Poles still believe that even if you really have nothing to do, you have to pretend that you are doing something. And if everything is done… let’s do it again.

Empty store, literally no customers, clean floors, clothes folded into neat cubes, sparkling fitting rooms. I stand next to them and look at the room, not even at my phone, which you can’t have with you. The shift manager comes with a stack of t-shirts and spreads them on my table. So that I don’t get bored – says Ola.

The situation was no better for Patrycja, who worked in a more luxurious shoe store. As she admits:

– Considering the salary at that time, the prices of these shoes were very high. As a result, the store was empty. Usually, some stray senior women would come in to pick up a shoe from the shelf, look at the price and leave. The day started with me entering the store an hour before opening and receiving the so-called gauge. It was a plastic block about the size of a small telephone that was used to measure the distance of each shoe from the end of the counter and the distance between the shoes. They had to be identical everywhere.

The rest of the day felt like torture. Shifts lasted 8, 10 or 12 hours and the only work to be done was… being. It was forbidden to sit, it was forbidden to talk to co-workers, and of course it was forbidden to use phones. It turns out that you had to be able to even stand: – You couldn’t lean back or cross your arms on your chest, because that’s an offensive attitude.

During the entire working day, a man wandered idly around an empty store, listening to the same songs and analyzing his life, from birth to the present moment. There were about three transactions during the day.

“There are a lot of customers, you can go for dinner later”

Monika had a completely opposite experience. She couldn’t complain about the lack of work. In fact, even going to the toilet was problematic. Let alone a break for lunch. This, in turn, lasted on average 15-20 minutes. If someone worked more than 12 hours, they had 30 minutes of rest. This was just luxury.

– I couldn’t go to wash my hands after hanging the goods because the manager was outraged that she didn’t have time for it. A moment later, the second one came and shouted at me that my hands were dirty – said Monika and added:

In just over 2 weeks of working in a clothing store, I lost 3 kg because I often heard: There are a lot of customers, you’ll go for dinner later.

Supervisors often turn up their noses when they hear about health problems. If you have a mandate contract or a specific work contract, if you don’t work, you don’t earn money. It also turns out that employees are even punished for being sick. A quite popular solution in stores (not only those selling clothes) is to refuse bonuses if you took sick leave in a given month. Krzysiek said about how it ends:

Employees receive an allowance of several hundred zlotys per month if they do not take L4. They just go to work sick. Sometimes there are strange situations when such an employee goes to bake rolls, and the manager just tells her to “be careful”.

And so, in a simple way, diseases are brought from stores to homes. This applies to both other colleagues and clients. What if you get sick at work? This is no longer the problem of the superior, but of the sick person. Ola and Asia know this very well:

At the beginning of my job, I constantly had a cold because it was cold in the sales room, but “if I didn’t fuck around, I would be warm” (of course, the sales room was empty and clean). You couldn’t dress up either, because there was a dress code.

– says Ola. Asia, in turn, adds: – One day, both me and my friend felt bad during the shift. The boss only let her go home because she reported it earlier, even though even the clients told me that I looked pale.

There are also other tidbits related to superiors. They often take advantage of the fact that – especially working students who earn extra money – they are young, inexperienced and often unable to defend themselves. These are perfect conditions to just take it out on them. Weronika shared this memory:

The boss came by once every two months to change the exhibition and if she didn’t like something, she would normally call you out in front of the customers. Several girls quit their jobs in tears

In turn, Klaudia, laughing, recalls the strange situation with her superior. Although she wasn’t laughing at all at that time, because she had to eat even a sandwich standing up: – The regional boss came to visit and – note – she took the only chair out of the store, because we don’t need it, but it fits the bar in the kitchen.

Only customers were worse than their superiors

It is also impossible not to mention the issue of cleaning. Stores often do not have an external cleaning company, so the employees are responsible for cleaning the store: sweeping and washing the floors, windows, dusting the shelves and those unfortunate changing rooms. Many of them complain about unpleasant aromas, especially on hot days. Not every client can influence how his body reacts when he is hot. However, it influences the condition in which the fitting room is left. Scattered clothes are nothing compared to what Monika remembers:

Items left in fitting rooms are a hit. These include a used sanitary pad that must be cleaned up by an employee. Let us add that without gloves and, of course, the possibility of washing your hands. Besides – I didn’t see this one – but I know from other employees that there was also a condom.

What Asia mentioned is probably known to most store employees. Well, they experience a lot of unpleasantness from customers: – Actually, the customers were much worse. They treated us, employees, as objects. Expecting me to leave the cash register when there’s a long queue to look for something, rude responses, stylists making huge turns and complaining that I’m serving them too slowly… This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Employees often get hurt because they have to perform certain procedures imposed from above, that they cannot leave their zone (fitting room or cash register), that it is expensive here, that they do not know whether the customer will be warm in this jacket. This list is basically endless. That’s why many people who have ever had the “pleasure” of working in a store can find enormous amounts of empathy for other salespeople, even on the worst day. After all, it won’t hurt anyone to say “good morning” or look someone in the eye when picking up a receipt. True?