Obviously having spent most of today in a bland Croydon shopping centre, I don’t really want to stop stores opening on the Day of Rest, but I’d be quite pleased if they did for one reason alone.
The reason? So the crap Sunday staff don’t get any work. The one big problem with weekend trading is that the proper full-time employees rarely work on Saturdays and Sundays.
One example: I went into (whisper it quietly) TKMaxx (look, it’s where I get my pants, OK?).
Having queued up patiently, I reached the till and handed over my purchases. The girl took them from me and rang them up. At the moment, one of her co-workers appeared alongside her and started to put them in a bag.
This co-worker started a conversation with ‘my’ assistant which lasted the entire length of the transaction. It wasn’t until the girl handed me my receipt that she looked at me and said the first word of the entire process: ‘Thank you!”
I’m not actually quite sure what she was thanking me for. Perhaps, allowing her to carry on her personal life with her mate, while still serving me.
So you see, if we ban Sunday trading, then people like this won’t have jobs and won’t be able to inflict their particular brand of customer dis-service.
I sodding hate it when assistants chat to each other throughout the trasaction – it’s so bloody rude, and when they don’t say please or thank-you, it makes me mad. So I now say ‘You’re very rude’ to them. It’s one advantage of age!