How To Survive In Retail: Out Now!

How To Survive In Retail: The Shop Assistants Guide To Reaching Retirement.

Dealing with the general public day in, day out can be an ordeal as anyone who’s ever worked in retail will tell you. I know in the past I’ve made jokes about my profession and those jokes inspired this book. I teamed up with my good friend R.J.H. McDowell, who also works in retail, and together we have put together a guide. However, in true Gem Stone style, I couldn’t take it seriously so this is a book that walks you through every aspect of retail … and basically takes the mic out of it. I’d like to share a snippet with you. I hope you find it funny.

Excerpt:

Management

No matter what company you work for there are always managers and retail is no different. However, the management system can be rather confusing so I’m going break it down for you.

Most shops have an Area Manager.

This is a person who will stop by maybe once a week, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less frequently. They will walk around the store and examine everywhere before explaining to the store manager what head office says they have done wrong. You will not speak to this person very often. In fact, if you’re lucky, you will only speak to him if you have made an exceptionally big mistake and are about to be fired.

The Store Manager.

This is the person you will deal with regularly. The store manager is in charge of your store. Occasionally you will have a very nice manager who you get on well with. The rest of the time you will have an arsehole.

The nice manager will be your friend and laugh and joke with you. But don’t worry, they are still your manager who you can go to with work issues and who will fire you if you don’t do your job right.

The asshole manager will not be your friend. They will be strict and quickly correct you if you do something wrong.

Whichever manager you get, don’t worry; they will make sure you do your job to the best of your ability.

On occasions, your manager may be sent to another store and you will get a Temporary Manager. Quite often the temporary manager will be used to doing thing a different way. This is nothing to be concerned about. They will teach you the new way of doing things and when your old manager returns you will simply remember their way again.

Below the manager is the Assistant Manager.

The assistant manager is someone you turn to when the manager is not available. They are well versed in the running of the store and know what to do in any given situation. If you have a problem, by all means, approach the assistant manager with it. They will be happy to refer you to the manager when he or she is next in store.

Below the assistant manager are the people who run the store when the manager and the assistant manager are not available. We will call them the Supervisor.

These people go by a number of different names depending on what business you work for. If you are lucky enough to become one of these people you get to enjoy the full responsibility of running the store. Now don’t be alarmed by this. You will most often be given the quiet shift, either very early in the morning or late at night. But you still get treated like a manager when you are there. You will get to deal with customer complaints, handle staff problems and answer the phone. And naturally, you can expect a nice pay increase of roughly ten pence an hour for all your extra work.

So that’s the management system. If you are not one of these people and just a simple shop assistant, the best way to recall how the system works is to remember. All of the above are higher than you!

 

I hope you enjoyed this snippet. If you want to read more, simply follow the link.

This book is currently FREE on Kindle Unlimited

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