From time to time,when I feel my life lacks a certain grit,I go to Primark and stand in a queue for an hour or so. Like the Old American West,it can be wild and woolly in there.Although there isn't a great deal of yer actual wool,it is mostly acrylic. I like the staff ;they have an awful lot up with which to put. A friend of mine was recently spat upon deliberately whilst she harmlessly travelled the escalator. This particular chum is not one to take such treatment in a supine position. The young spitter had then loudly regaled her comrades with her views on the suitability of this or that outfit for her forthcoming appearance in court. I think she may just have been showing off. Anyway, my friend felt,and I think rightly, that being expectorated upon does not form part of the "positive customer experience" we have been led to expect when parting with our pennies. So she went to see a manager, who,in addition to apologising and agreeing that being showered with the bodily fluids of others is discomforting;went on to tell several stomach-churning anecdotes about other Rabelaisian pranks pulled by the punters of Primark.Eueew!
I worked in Miss Selfridge in 1976. I was supposedly a "graduate trainee", there to learn all aspects of the thrilling fashion retail business, prior to clawing my way to the position of manager or buyer. I fancied buying.Buying was a thing I could do,and with other people's money...? Bliss. Unfortunately,before I could reach such Olympian heights, I was invited to spend many years being bossed about by stroppy supervisors and to stand around changing room entrances with an impassive expression. I was put in charge of t-shirts. That year, the paramount style was slash-neck and with three-quarter-length sleeves. The shape of the neck meant that you could not keep those blasted things on the hanger for more than a nano-second,try as you might. And,to the endless accompaniment of "Band On The Run" on looptape,I tried. And the buggers fell off.And I picked them up and put them back.And they fell off. This made me crazy.And made our supervisor, a vile little creature called Jane,come and shout at me. I am not entirely sure how it all happened,but my fuse was shorter in those days. I said things,she said some other things,and suddenly there was a huge pile of t-shirts on the floor and Jane had a hanger stuck to her cheesecloth shirt. I was led away. And that was that for retail;until,some years later, I was employed in a "Boutique" in Walton Vale. It was run by a Heswall housewife whose husband had bought it for her to play shops with. This woman was nuts. I often think that Mary Portas Queen of Shops would have got an entire series out of her...she loathed and despised her customers. To her mind,they were all common and all fat. She went on buying trips to Man-Chess-Torr, but would only stock the smallest sizes known to humanity.It was like working in Lilliput. She took every opportunity to close the shop,in case anybody forgot themselves so far as to buy something. A punter might get in and try on one of her dresses,which were usually confections of lace and leather, with denim patches sown on,or eye-searing evening gowns beaded beyond belief and weighing a ton.If this happened,the alarm bells would ring in her wig,and she would rush into the changing room, tug the curtains apart,and tell the poor woman how awful she looked. If this didn't do the trick,she would start an anti-sales patter, highlighting how expensive the dress was "For What It Is"; whatever THAT meant, and how it would require specialist dry-cleaning when the foul excrescences and gravy-stains of the hapless punter had wreaked havoc upon it. It took nerves of steel and a will of iron to buy anything there, and most of the ladies of North Liverpool,although redoubtable,were not up to the challenge. After the shop closed and they took her away in a padded van, I worked in a pub in Kirkby. The atmosphere there was less nerve-wracking, Although it was a good year for bomb-scares.My job,in addition to being the most tragically inept barmaid in the history of alcohol,was to winkle punters out of their seats and away from their pints,when we had a threatened explosion phoned through by the police. This happened about twice a week.
God,but they were stubborn; to a man insisting that it was a trick to remove them from their drinks,which would be watered down or somehow tampered with,in their absence. In the end I just thought "Oh well stay there then you recalcitrant old bastards,but I am off to stand in the carpark of the Liberal Club (three feet away) as requested".
So now I can make eleven pints of Lager Top appear very quickly (and charge a different amount for each one),and I can fold t-shirts. I am sure that this will stand me in good stead. Primark are now employing the elderly,so I could whip down to HR and dazzle them with my folding skills. I shall balk at changing room supervision though, as I now have inside information on what people actually do in there. An unexpected item in my bagging area would be as nothing..
I worked in Miss Selfridge in 1976. I was supposedly a "graduate trainee", there to learn all aspects of the thrilling fashion retail business, prior to clawing my way to the position of manager or buyer. I fancied buying.Buying was a thing I could do,and with other people's money...? Bliss. Unfortunately,before I could reach such Olympian heights, I was invited to spend many years being bossed about by stroppy supervisors and to stand around changing room entrances with an impassive expression. I was put in charge of t-shirts. That year, the paramount style was slash-neck and with three-quarter-length sleeves. The shape of the neck meant that you could not keep those blasted things on the hanger for more than a nano-second,try as you might. And,to the endless accompaniment of "Band On The Run" on looptape,I tried. And the buggers fell off.And I picked them up and put them back.And they fell off. This made me crazy.And made our supervisor, a vile little creature called Jane,come and shout at me. I am not entirely sure how it all happened,but my fuse was shorter in those days. I said things,she said some other things,and suddenly there was a huge pile of t-shirts on the floor and Jane had a hanger stuck to her cheesecloth shirt. I was led away. And that was that for retail;until,some years later, I was employed in a "Boutique" in Walton Vale. It was run by a Heswall housewife whose husband had bought it for her to play shops with. This woman was nuts. I often think that Mary Portas Queen of Shops would have got an entire series out of her...she loathed and despised her customers. To her mind,they were all common and all fat. She went on buying trips to Man-Chess-Torr, but would only stock the smallest sizes known to humanity.It was like working in Lilliput. She took every opportunity to close the shop,in case anybody forgot themselves so far as to buy something. A punter might get in and try on one of her dresses,which were usually confections of lace and leather, with denim patches sown on,or eye-searing evening gowns beaded beyond belief and weighing a ton.If this happened,the alarm bells would ring in her wig,and she would rush into the changing room, tug the curtains apart,and tell the poor woman how awful she looked. If this didn't do the trick,she would start an anti-sales patter, highlighting how expensive the dress was "For What It Is"; whatever THAT meant, and how it would require specialist dry-cleaning when the foul excrescences and gravy-stains of the hapless punter had wreaked havoc upon it. It took nerves of steel and a will of iron to buy anything there, and most of the ladies of North Liverpool,although redoubtable,were not up to the challenge. After the shop closed and they took her away in a padded van, I worked in a pub in Kirkby. The atmosphere there was less nerve-wracking, Although it was a good year for bomb-scares.My job,in addition to being the most tragically inept barmaid in the history of alcohol,was to winkle punters out of their seats and away from their pints,when we had a threatened explosion phoned through by the police. This happened about twice a week.
God,but they were stubborn; to a man insisting that it was a trick to remove them from their drinks,which would be watered down or somehow tampered with,in their absence. In the end I just thought "Oh well stay there then you recalcitrant old bastards,but I am off to stand in the carpark of the Liberal Club (three feet away) as requested".
So now I can make eleven pints of Lager Top appear very quickly (and charge a different amount for each one),and I can fold t-shirts. I am sure that this will stand me in good stead. Primark are now employing the elderly,so I could whip down to HR and dazzle them with my folding skills. I shall balk at changing room supervision though, as I now have inside information on what people actually do in there. An unexpected item in my bagging area would be as nothing..
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