Don't do it. - Part Time Sales Associate HobbyCraft Employee Review

Before I worked there, I loved Hobbycraft. When I began, the warehouse was stuffed and the shelves were empty. The old manager had been demoted and moved, and the staff were all annoyed, exhausted and depressed. The staff turnover was insanely high, and the manager was not set until a few months into me working there. I used to come home crying after a shift regularly. When we did finally get a manager, it was really good - she quickly sorted everything out and made the shop really good. Still, the pressure was insane, with extreme demand for not only sales, but card sign-ups and swipes. You simply cannot force people to give you their details. Customers were pretty much always rude if they couldn't find what they wanted to, or if you didn't know how to do something. We had very little training - mainly on if we knew the colours of things - rather than general training, and we were expected to know everything by the customers, which was frustrating, so we had to do a lot of work in our spare time to not get shouted at. The queue used to go more than halfway up the shop, and even though you would call over the tannoy and ring the bell for help, nobody would come. Some people would conveniently dissapear for hours. Once, when two people finally came, I had to leave the till because I was in tears from angry customers who had been waiting, but I had been trying to go as fast as I can. After this, I had a manager mention to me that I didn't get enough sign-ups, and I was very upset. Towards the end, we changed about half the staff members, including most of the managerial team, and the shop began to deteriorate back to the state it was beforehand. I began to come home stressed and upset every day again, and I decided to leave. I wasn't given an exit interview and now when I go in, the staff do not seem to want to talk to me. I always felt out of place, under appreciated and discouraged. Leaving was the best decision I ever made.