Pros
Working with some nice colleagues who loved reading, the books of course!, 50% staff discount.
Cons
Where on earth do you start? 1. Due to them being so short staffed you have to put your holidays in a year in advance!!! 2. Due to them being so short staffed they put up a rota about 2 weeks in advance, so you can never make plans. You are expected to change your shifts at a moments notice and if you don't do this you are considered inflexible and this can be heavily counted against you. 3. You are forced to sell certain books of the month titles that head office deem appropriate. Nothing else matters than selling these books and it is so hard to do especially if you work in a shop in an economically deprived area. You find yourself desperate to sell these certain titles and stop recommending books that you genuinely like and think your customer will like and try to flog them one of these books of the month instead because this is what each shop is graded on each week. This has taken all of the enjoyment out of bookselling and no matter how much money you have taken if you have had a bad day on these titles then you have HAD A BAD DAY FULL STOP!. 4. The company is top heavy with middle management and not enough on the shop floor booksellers. Sometimes there would be just two of us working in our store running around trying to get everything done then you would have an area manager, a cluster leader and a RCM all come into your shop and do nothing but criticize. How about actually employing staff to work on the shop floors rather than just horrible middle managers who never have a good word to say and leave everyone feeling absolutely demoralized when their visit is over. 5. Been sent on stupid bookseller training days where said middle management would lecture you on how you need to sell more books etc etc etc. Well instead of wasting time sending already depleted staffing levels to these days how about letting them stay in their stores and sell books without constant interference. 6.Getting stock deliveries where all different genres of books are mixed up and having to painstakingly sort through before shelving. Just what you need when you are so short staffed. So much for the hub streamlining everything. 7. Barely ever getting weekends or bank holidays off. 8. Very poor wages. 9. Been expected to travel and work in different stores up to an hour away due to staff shortages. 10. Endless appraisals. 11. Constant doom and gloom regarding the state of bookselling in general and going up against the impossible task of Amazon. The amount of times I'd hear a customer say "I'll get it off Amazon its much cheaper". Pretty soul destroying really.
