In early February I managed to secure some interim work as a Sales Advisor in a London department store. And although retail is all rather new to me, and not a preferred route back into full-time employment, it earns me money. Thankfully, I have an employer who understands my preference to travel after nine thirty in the morning. (It’s cheaper that way!) A later start has other benefits too, these include avoiding the crush on platforms and trains, avoiding school children adorned in bright green uniforms as they (I imagine) continue to wage their campaign of loud ipod and mobile phone music torture in each train carriage.
The town itself has a population diverse in nationality and language. So much so, that on my first day, when soaking up the atmosphere in my lunch hour, I seldom heard English language spoken, which somewhat took me aback. The streets were busy and would-be shoppers were bouncing between shops, and a few moody looking hooded teenagers were doing what moody hooded teenagers do best – waiting and posturing. On one occasion as I walked past a building site a rather disheveled looking woman boldly offering a group of three builders on a break, her services. Maybe she was a plasterer.
Inside the store, all is quiet and unless a group of school children in green appear, with ‘security’ staff for company, my only other meaningful contact is with James a manager from another department, a computer screen, a phone, and some pretty rank piped music. Occasionally there’s a flurry of activity as escalators whirr, carrying shoppers to a higher level of shopping consciousness. That is, the floor where I’m in attendance.
Midway through my six hour shift I sneak up to the staff canteen and select a number 21 from the drink machine and settle down with my cardboard flavoured coffee, my lovingly prepared sandwich and my current lunchtime read. The staff are friendly, but I confess I don’t always make a lot of effort to talk to others, my book is good and my spoken Polish is non-existent. Instead I tend to rely on acknowledging smiles rather than the spoken word in this context. Down on the high street, if I chose to, I reckon I could jabber away to my hearts content without fear of being understood (or for that matter misunderstood). Brilliant.
After completing my agreed hours of replenishing and pricing stock, advising, selling luggage and the odd suitcase, and directing bemused looking shoppers to other floors, it’s time to head for home.
This may not be everyones choice of job, and may not always stir those little grey cells, but I’m grateful that I now have something resembling an income. It won’t pay the mortgage, but working two days a week is certainly better than working no days a week. Surely things can only get better, can’t they?
workhope.wordpress.com 