Retail Staff Treated Poorly? (recent HomestoreandMore experience)

Hi Folks,

This might seem like perhaps I have been living in my own little bubble, but I've generally been avoiding shops the last while, with the exception of grocery stores (Tesco, mostly).

I had to pop up to HomeStoreandMore the other day (twice, as i forgot something) and I was a bit taken aback at the set up. One thing I particularly noticed was the staff working the tills.

I was in the shop twice, once early on when they opened (to avoid any potential queuing and such) and again later in the afternoon, and both times the same person was serving on the tills. Which in itself is fine, but both times the till girl was standing at the same till. She had obviously been standing for the whole day.

Is that the norm? Anytime I go to Tesco, Woodies, Ikea, etc. the staff have seats to sit on if they're at the tills? Although I didn't say anything, I did take a look in behind the counter on my way out, to see was there a small stool or such that I just missed, but no, no seat at all, and not only that, no soft floor covering or such to stand on, like a foam mat or such. Just hard concrete floor?

Also, there was no cold air/air conditioning? The place was a sweatbox. They did have doors open, but they didn't really make any difference unless you were standing directly beside them.


This is the Drogheda store, I'm referring to, incase anyone is familiar with it.

Is that the norm now? Have stores (not just HomeStore, but in general) made staff stand and turned off air con/fans? I didn't want to say anything at the time as I felt it wasn't my place to say, but it's still in my head, days after, and it's still annoying me, but I'm not sure if it's a legitimate complaint, or just me being a bit out of touch with reality.

I was thinking maybe they're afraid touching chairs will spread the virus or something, but i've not heard of such logic anywhere, and the staff in my tesco still have chairs to sit on.

In all honesty - I'd have thought that standing in one place, for a full day of work, would be illegal at this point, considering the damage it must surely do to your legs/back over time?

Princess Calla

I can't comment on air conditioning.

However the chairs.... I've worked in different retail stores and not all would have chairs.

Supermarkets would, but the clothes stores you'd be standing. The idea was when not serving a customer you are fixing shelves, pricing stock, keeping the place tidy.

It's often easier to stand while serving anyway, otherwise you're reaching and stretching a fair bit.