The never ever again circle.

When I first arrived to London (UK) I started to work in a small clothes shop in Oxford Street. I hated it. I really did. I think I disliked almost everything. See, I was an accountant in my country, so I was not used to so many rules and supervisors and assistant managers and managers, and everybody wanting to boss me around. Not that I was not used to hard work; I worked hard as an accountant but I could go and pee without having to ask permission first. I also worked in customer service before that.
But it was totally different from this country, where there are too many levels in the hierarchy of small businesses.

It was a small shop; we were few in the shift; one guy in the shoe section; three sales assistants on the floor, plus two supervisors, the assistant manager and at some point the manager. A chain of command with a little problem, the ladder was having more people on the top than on the floor.

But I didn't hate it because of that; I hated it because the assistant manager hated me, so she tried to make my shift as miserable as possible, which I did not do anything at the time to defend myself. Why? because I was new to the country, my English was not that good to spar linguistically speaking with a british, and adjusting to everything new and not having any friends (I came alone) was taking all my energy.

I also hated it because we were working so hard while the manager was ringing every two mondays to her bank to cancel her credit cards because she usually drank so much during the weekend she ended loosing her bag with everything in it! That was a first for me. What can of people actually gets management positions here?

I hated the most that pressure of having to enrol people to their loyalty program. We were having a weekly target that if you did not keep up with it, you would appear in massive posters all over the communal staff areas with your name in red down the list and a sad- angry face. Was I back to the kindergarden? Did this people think that was a good team motivation strategy?

Finally they sacked me because spring came, we changed our uniforms to tops and they saw my tattoo, which they thought was unacceptable. Good bye!

I felt so free I didn't actually care about how unfair and illegal that was!

And then I said, never ever again I'll work in a clothes shop again!!!!!!!

But I suppose I did not give a proper closure to that circle, because next week I start a job as sales assistant in a clothes shop! (I need to eat and pay my bills, what else can I do?), and so "the never ever again circle" got me because we have unfinished business going on!

C'est la vie!