Pauline Costello* has worked at a Next store in Southampton for more than 10 years. Here, she explains what it’s like working at Next and how retail has killed the spirit of Christmas.
‘A member of staff got knocked unconscious by a frantic shopper’
After you’ve spent a few years working in retail, Christmas is no longer a joyful time. It’s just something I have to get through.
If you ever want to upset a retail worker at Christmas put Christmas music on. I’ve been listening to the same songs on repeat for more than 10 years.
On Christmas Eve I’ll be working a ten-hour shift. Everybody has to stay until at least 6pm. Sometimes the work isn’t finished by then, so you end up staying later.
I haven’t had a proper family Christmas in over a decade. I’m never home before 7pm on Christmas Eve and by then I’ll be exhausted because I’ll have worked so hard all that week.
I work every Boxing Day so the only days off I have had are Christmas Day and the previous Sunday and there’s no choice involved you have to work Boxing Day.
When it comes to prepping for a sale, a lot of shop floor staff are asked to work the both the shop floor and stockroom and the work is fast, physical and hectic.
Work for the January sale starts at the beginning of December. We start getting more stock in, marking things down and moving stock around. At this time of year there’s barely room to move in the stock room.
This year I’m concerned about how we’ll manage to get the store ready and stick to social distancing because usually we’d be on top of each other.
On Boxing Day we’ve been told we’ll be wearing face mask and visors and they’ll be limiting the number of customers that are allowed in the store at one time, but I don’t see how we can be properly protected from the public who will have spent two or three days mixing with their family and friends.
Normally, in a large store, there would be several hundred people waiting outside for the store to open at 5am and then they all rush in.
There was an incident a few years ago where a member of staff got knocked unconscious by a frantic shopper and had to be taken to hospital.
A heavily pregnant woman threw up because she got too hot. Its absolutely nuts.
It’s ridiculous that we go through all of this and we’re paid less than people working in the warehouses.
I spent a week working in one of the warehouses and it seems a really chilled out place so when I found out they were earning so much more I was completely shocked.
When you work in retail you have to second guess what customers are going to want, what mood they’re going to be in, whether they’re going to be rude and none of that is recognised.
It’s not much to ask that management acknowledge that we don’t just stand there taking payments, putting things in bags and smiling.
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