Pros
You meet new people all the time. Every day is different and you face new problems on daily basis, which is great, as I love a challenge. It is great, to make the shop look nice and hear it from customers.
Cons
The job as Shop Manager (my job) is not that well paid. We are required to meet weekly DONATED TARGETS (income from donated sold items). If we do not meet them, our Area Managers then ''bully'' us, in terms of WHY DID WE NOT REACH THEM. I say bully, but it is like, daily calls, texts, etc., keep asking us, if we are at least half way through with the income of weekly target, texting us, way after closing time, with questions about the shop. I am not saying every AM is the same, but most of them are this way. They send us WAY TOO MUCH stock from other stores, and expect us to deal with it. When we say, we have no space for it,most of the AM say: TELL YOUR VOLUNTEERS TO DEL WITH IT. The worst is, that you are expected to REACH THE WEEKLY DONATED TARGETS ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE. The job title is SHOP MANAGER, but they want you to be a fundraiser too. We need to organise FUN DAY every few months and raise in excess of £150. How? E.g. through tombolas, selling cakes etc. Then we need to organise DONATION STATIONS, and raise at least £2000 a year. HOW? Ask local business, if you could set up stall there, where people drop off their donations, or simply ask local business to donate their unwanted stock. OUR INTERNET IS BLOCKED: we cannot use e-mail, so of course, during day, you have no time for this, as you deal with donations, refunds, shop being tidy, training the volunteers, hiring volunteers, doing the H&S checks. When will you do it then? I tell you. At home, in your own time, but you get paid only for about 36 hours work weekly. In fact we do rarely have lunch breakes. Plus we need to overlook the H&S. Fire safety, etc. Area Managers just boss you around because of the targets, but are not very supportive.
