We have all been served by sales assistants – but we haven’t all been in their shoes behind the till. Our columnist Molly Lee writes about her experience with her first part-time job at WHSmith, which was jam-packed with Karens, expensive stationary and shoplifters.
My fingers fiddle with the keys to open up the scratch cards to sell to an elderly female customer who is growing more and more impatient. My heart starts racing like I’m running a marathon. Am I running a marathon? No. I am serving one of my first customers in my first-ever job at WHSmith.
Eventually, the woman gets her scratch cards and walks off tutting and murmuring – probably saying how useless I was. The corner of my eyes began to water until my manager came over and said I was a natural.
One customer down… only hundreds and hundreds more to go during my sales assistant career at the WHSmith store in Coventry.
At the young age of 16, I was shy, riddled with nerves, wouldn’t say boo to a goose and the only experience I had of customer service was delivering homemade dog treats to owners as a part of my parents’ small business. The idea of working in a two-floor store with loads of stationary, pens and magazines was daunting.
As time passed, I made up this super-confident and assured persona. I dealt with the Karens moaning at the price of a single black pen – there are too many instances of these to count. I experienced some elderly people falling up the escalator and having to wipe the blood from the floor. Yeah, that was fun… In my two years working there, though, I always missed the fire alarm drills – thank God!
The first time I called security was when I felt like I had unlocked a new Molly. For some reason, people will try to nick anything from anywhere. Like an eagle, I spotted a guy who did not pay for a Strawberry Frijj milkshake before heading towards the doors. My adrenaline kicked in as I dialled security on a black walkie-talkie.
With that black walkie-talkie in hand, I felt powerful. The shy introverted Molly was gone and in came ‘SuperMolly’ to save the day – by saving the day I mean saving the store one strawberry milkshake worth a whopping £1.50.
It was like something out of an action film as security guards came rushing in to catch the petty thief. They caught him but the Frijj was thrown away as it was opened. So I didn’t really save the business £1.50.
The best part of working in retail was the people. The WHSmith staff quickly became a family, celebrating the highs and lows, gossiping about all sorts and spending lunches in the staff room. Oh, and the Greggs right outside.
I also felt a bit like a celebrity there too. Everyone knew me, from the security guards to the shopping centre’s cleaning staff, to the regular customers who came in for a Lotto ticket and a newspaper every weekend.
You are always judged if you say you have favourites. But I did have my favourite customers. There was one Jamaican lady who came in multiple times a week, just before closing, to buy loads of scratch cards and claim her winnings. She took a while to get used to, especially after she said I was “big-boned” but her stories of her history – freely and regularly offered – never bored me.
There was an elderly gent who came in and always had a laugh with us at the weekends. He always called me Holly but I didn’t have the heart to correct him.
Then there was the Mills and Boon lady who somehow knew when we updated our stock of the romance books and would clear us out. There was also the shoplifter who cursed at me many times when I clocked him trying to stash some Ferrero Rochers in his jacket.
It was a sad farewell to leave my second family as I headed to university. A few tears were shed as I handed over my “manageress” keys – they could no longer hear me jangling before they saw me. It was also sad to lose the staff discount – my whole family benefitted from the discounted wrapping paper and cheaper pens.
But it was a happy goodbye to the old Molly who first walked through WHSmith’s doors and a surprising hello to the new Molly – the more confident person I am today.
