“Smiles were made for sales,” a room full of women were told in one bizarre training session. The only reason I stuck it out was because it was better paid than other retail jobs and completely flexible. Everyone I worked with (all women) felt the same.
So I empathise with the thousands of shop floor staff who joined retail for perks such as flexibility but are now fed up with being underpaid and undervalued.
Job that’s better than others, provides something you value other than money – that flexibility – and yet it’s underpaid?
Err, no?
There’s technically nothing stopping female store workers from applying for a better-paid warehouse job. But in reality it’s not that easy.
Aside from the skills being very different, the draw of a shop floor job is flexibility and location – attracting carers, students and working parents who want to work part-time and close to home.
Flexibility and location is why I put up with working in a shop that told me “smiles were made for sales”, many years before I could begin to appreciate how vital a flexible job like that might be for a parent. That doesn’t justify poor pay.
Right about now is when we tell this bird to fuck off, isn’t it.
A smile costs nothing
Not smiling may cost you your job.
So, the jobs are very different then? And we’re supposed to be surprised that the pay is also very different for those very different jobs?
This means that once you are used to the perks and take them for granted they cease to have any value.
So, there’s nothing stopping anyone taking a better-paid job in a warehouse but it seems like hard work so most women don’t bother. However, easier, more flexible retail jobs should pay the same.
This could have easily appeared in the Guardian, yet it is in the allegedly right wing Terriblegraph. That rag seems to be circling the plughole at a dramatic rate. I hope whoever buys it rips the fuck out of it and sacks its many Polly Fillas.
But my understanding of (Nobel Laureate) Claudia Goldin’s reasoning is that much of the gender pay gap, at least in the US, can be explained by gender preferences for flexibility in working. As a single example, “The data show that there is a large hourly wage penalty associated with working fewer hours per week. In most instances this is not gendered, as men are penalized for working fewer hours as well. However, because women are more likely to work fewer than 40 hours per week, they experience the wage penalty more often” (p.23, https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/goldin_equalpay-cap.pdf). This can be explained (at the high income end): “Rather, certain professions and organizations experience higher overall productivity if workers are around for more hours or for particular hours” (same report, p.4).
’Aside from the skills being very different…’
As BiW points out, haven’t we just been told they aren’t different enough?
Ironically, writing opinion pieces for major newspapers is one of the rare decent-paid jobs where working longer hours doesn’t correlate with higher productivity.
I wonder if she thinks that “Smiles were made for sales” is any more egregious than “Diversity is our strength” or “Stop Global Warming”.
People who work less get paid less, shock. Film at eleven.
Marius
It’s Scarcely even worth reading now in the interests of research. Barely a hairs breadth between Murphy’s philosophy…
I’ve never seen the case for paying shop-floor employees less than warehouse workers explained so clearly and logically.
Well done, that woman.
@V_P
I’ve said before, you’ve actually been living in Murphyworld for some considerable time. So Tim is constantly agueing against the consensus.
He should change the heading to It’s all non-obvious but trivial. There is no except.
BIS,
I don’t know. My feeling is that mainstream journalism is now full of flakes because the money isn’t there for serious people to do it.
There are millions of people who consume almost none of it. My kids are mostly watching tiktok and YouTube.
The spouse was a shopowner once. Jewellery. She employed a number of people over the years. Some were excellent, mot not so much. You need to leave the shop in the hands of staff while you are buying stock or doing paperwork or you have more than one shop.
In that time we had:
‘Manager’ giving BJs in the back room.
Gay employee leaving gay hard porn mags about.
Employeed running up £700 phone bill in one quarter phoning boyfriend in Holland (before smartphones costing nowt)
Employee stealing stock to order for her mates.
Employee opening shop then leaving up a back in five minutes sign for an hour or two while elsewhere in the shopping centre.
And of course, just nicking stuff.
And that’s why the spouse no longer has shops. Employees.
One of the worst jobs I’ve had was working on the shop floor of a well-known department store in London…
Oh the inhumanity.
– Right about now is when we tell this bird to fuck off, isn’t it.
With a smile if you really wanna sell it.
The article has dissappeared behind a paywall (and I can’t be bothered), but it claims (IIRC) that 1300 acts of violence in retail settings last year are equvalent to an average of .almost 57 attacks per hour across the country.
Err…
I imagine shops are generally open ten hours or so per day, and for 365 days, except (perhaps) statutory holidays (this side of the pond retailers stay open on stats, except Christmas and New Years day, but I digress). Lrt’s say that gives us 355 shopping days, or 3,550 shopping hours. If we have 1,300 acts of violence, that equates to an average of 0.36 /hour. That’s just over two orders of magnitude off their claim. No doubt the rest of the article is equally accurate.
Many years ago I made weekly business trips to London. On the way back I would nip in to coffee shop at the station where a couple of smiling Filipina girls would sell me a coffee, a sandwich, and as many snacks as they could persuade me to buy, along with some pleasant recollections. They were eventually replaced by disinterested east Europeans who only ever managed to sell me one coffee.
dcardno
Shops that employ people must close Easter Day and Christmas Day.
Everything else is optional. Sundays they may only open for 6 hours.
@Paul
Spot on
@Ottokring
Open 24/7/365 is allowed in Scotland – except for alchohol ssle
“except for alchohol ssle”
Lol
Good job smack is always available.
Confucius say person who no smile must not open a shop.