Well paid but extremely demanding - Store Assistant Lidl Employee Review

honestly in 10 years of working in retail this is the worst job I've had, perhaps I've been fortunate but I found working at Lidl one of the toughest experiences of my working life. After initial application, brief telephone interview I was contacted by the area manager, I had a 1 to 1 interview at a local store and left his company very impressed. He's was a very likable, honest and open individual who had worked for the company for a number of years. He said he was pleased with the interview but had a few more people to see. Later that day I received a call from him to say he'd like to see me again, he arranged for me to meet him at a different location. Upon meeting him for a second time, I was asked to complete small retail tasks which involved some merchandising and also display some stock taking skills Ie counting units. once completed he offered me the job on the spot. I went away very happy and excited by my new job. As a term of the job offer, I had to attend an induction at the regional offices, this was a very impressive day, despite the raft of power point presentations, travel costs were repaid, lunch provided and I was paid at my hourly rate for the day Also sent home with a number of Lidl products such as chocolate cake and branded products like mugs and notepads. Despite not yet having a working day in a store yet all impressions were good, this is when things changed dramatically. I arrived to store the following week for my training, initially Rota'd a 4 hour shift, along with fellow new starters we watched a number of instruction DVDs and filled in our training manual, we were sent home early with barely seeing the shop floor and told we'd by only paid for the actual hours that we were in-store. I asked if I could stay to make up the time difference by completing tasks around the store or back of house and was told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't an option. This pattern continued for my first week, of my 20 hour contract I actually got paid for about 10 hours as thats all the time I spent in a store. I can only presume this is a cost saving exercise as staff training is money lost Initially. Your not greatly contributing to the running of the store and the experienced staff member is away from completting usual daily tasks. My first 'real' shift was a 5am start, with deliveries to store overnight it was important to get in as early as possible to merchandise perishables. I spent the entire 4 hours putting out 'meat and chiller' stock. It was physically exhaustive work but it felt good to do some actual work instead of sitting In the staff room. As the weeks went by the training ground to a halt and I gained more experience in store, being till trained but not bakery trained(all staff are meant to be trained on all aspects of store). A pattern started to emerge and I was continually put on chiller/m&p. Despite asking management if this was a reflection of my experience and told it wasn't. I often found female staff were left to monitor tills for long periods while male staff seemed to the bulk of merchandising, especially of these cold/frozen products. This may well have been the managers preference but I found it odd to have gender ascinde roles. Within my first month of work, I was asked to work In a different store, this store had a different delivery schedule meaning deliveries arrived in the evening. this meant an increase of working evenings and with my relative newness to the company I found it difficult to say no to the move. From then on my experience soured, I found myself increasingly working till the early hours of the morning, despite being Rota'd for example 6pm till 10pm or 12pm, more often than not I would remain in store till after 2 or 3 am. On a number of occasions I worked a 12 hour period with only a 30 minutes break also with little notice to inform my family. Ultimately these shift patterns along with the physical demands turned me into a zombie during any family time and for my own health, for the good of my family and my own piece of mind I found a new job.