My First Job: Shoe Shop

I got my first job pretty much as soon as I’d finished my GCSE exams. I was lucky enough to put in my CV into a local shoe shop, pop in for an interview and was given the job the same day. I later found out my luck stemmed from the fact that around 10 people had just quit so they were rather desperate.

The whole time I was there I was never trained to use the tills, so I spent my full-time hours over the summer wandering the sports section (yes, they put me on sports) making sure each shoe was at a 45-degree angle atop its box. When it wasn’t possible to avoid a customer any longer, I’d pop out to the stock room to get their size if needed. It was dull, but I had a job and was working hard for my £3.90 an hour (although future pub work has shown that the experiences within that shoe shop were far from ‘hard work’).

Over the course of the job, I learnt the following things:

• People (not all, but most) are completely different outside of school. You may even end up pushing a girl you once thought was a complete bitch around in a cardboard box under the broken CCTV camera.
• Polyester uniforms are a subtle but effective form of legalised torture.
• You will be able to get away with anything if you are an old battle-axe of an employee named Dot.
• If you’re going to discuss pay, make them say it first. When you realise you’re getting more than them you can just agree with what they’ve said.
• That weird noise you can hear is actually your manager playing the ringtones from her new phone over the tannoy so you can pick your favourite.

From reading my fellow So So Gay writer’s experiences it seems I missed out on sexy stock room encounters. The closest I got was drunkenly groping my boss’ boobs on the work night out. She approached me a few days later to inform me that I was funny, but weird.

That night out was an issue as half of us were underage. I was fortunate enough to borrow ID from one of the older members of staff. He also happened to be the fittest guy in the shop, and said: ‘We definitely look similar enough to get away with it’. After memorising his birthday, star sign and address I’m pretty sure I was in love (although just to confirm, I did not stalk him).

While I often had fun, less pleasant times were had. These chiefly occurred on the shifts where I had to cover the kid’s section. Finding a full nappy in one of the aisles was not a pleasant experience (until I ran straight to my supervisor and made him clean it up as I was not going near it). Neither was having a child who must have been made up of at least 60% mucus sneeze on me as I was trying to fit their shoes.

As first jobs go, it was a pretty good one. It only went pear shaped when my manager was accused of stealing £3,000 and got fired. The new manager was somewhat less friendly. At some point in December I handed in my notice, telling them I wanted to ‘focus on my studies’. My AS level grades of A, D and U clearly reflect how serious I was about my education.