I went for my induction yesterday and it was awful. Me and three others were taken into the tiny back room and given forms to fill out with info about ourselves. We were then asked to fill in our designated shifts that the manager had given us over the phone. So I filled mine out and she (manager) looked at my like I was an absolute idiot. "where did you get these times from" she said. I told her I'd written down exactly what she had told me on the phone (which I had). She then gave me a totally different shift pattern with a lot less hours and I was puzzled. I thought it was the worst of the lack of organisation.... However, soon after she explained how we would get paid via some website called 'Oracle' but gave us no login and then went onto say that if we didn't set it up correctly, it would be our own faults and we shouldn't come 'whining' to her about it. we would have to wait 8 weeks for pay if we messed up. We were then told to go away for our 15 minute break and then come back and START WORK! we had had no training at all. And were told we'd be working for 5 hours that night. I came back to begin work and we were told we would shadow someone (which did not happen, I was left alone). So I began tidying up as they told me too and advising customers. They gave us no training about using these stock checker machines and we had to leave customers waiting whilst we attempted to find things in the disgustingly messy stock room. We had no break, even to use the toilet. (apparently you only get a break if you work 8 hours or more) they basically made me pick up plasters out of the changing rooms and tidy the shop floor, picking up litter. Then when work had finished I was told to pick more shoes out of the stock room and put them on display; they had given us no health and safety precautions, so I nearly fell off the ladder climbing up for shoes:(
Before I left I also wanted to check my hours because they hadn't been clear but the manager had absolutely no idea, and we weren't on the rota yet so I left with no clue about when I was next meant to be working. Not only did I have no clue about that, but when asking the manager how they were keeping track of our hours (that we had done) she seemed pretty clueless about that too!! I felt like crying the whole time because even when I asked questions they were so reluctant to answer and would often ignore me, or use a load of jargon to purposely intimidate and confuse me.
I left feeling so disheartened and shocked at the entire process, I had the worst migraine, my feet were painful and I hadn't eaten in 7 hours. Considering I am 17 and get minimum wage at river island, WHICH IS SOMETHING LIKE £3.70 AN HOUR.. I will certainly not be staying. They pretty much use you as their slave !!!!! do not go for a job there!!! I HAD READ ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ON HERE AND ON OTHER SITES AND STUPIDLY STILL WENT FOR THE JOB. BUT NOW I KNOW EVERYONE WAS RIGHT!
