My Work Experience (Marks and Spencers in general)

Member Name: bhayanid

Product:	Marks and Spencers in general
Date:	04/01/09 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Discount and Atmosphere

Disadvantages: None

Like I did with my Comet review, I am going to write a review about my experience of recently working as a Christmas Temp at Marks and Spencers food store. I may get criticised for writing a review about my experience of working at M&S, but I feel this does come under the heading which states M&S in general, so if you do not like this then tough luck.


So having graduated last summer I was in the need for some job to pay for my ACCA studies and there's only so much I can make of jobseekers every week. I applied to a fairly local M&S store for a Christmas temp job and got it. I'll be quick on the selection process, however it was fairly straightforward and consisted of a personality questionnaire, interview and role play exercise. The whole process was around an hour.


The training was simple, but very time consuming lasting two days. They went through all the procedures which is general for most firms these days and is mainly so that if anything happens to their employees that M&S is not too blame. The only problem I found with the training was that it was too long with only half the time needed I felt, however I was getting paid for training so this is hardly a complaining point.


Now onto the three weeks of customer service assistance that they hired me for. My job was simple and pretty much just consisted of me sitting on a till for four hours and serving customers. On the first few days I occasionally came across little aspects of the till that I was unable to use, however there was a silent bell that meant that the manager usually came quickly to assist me. Within a few days though I was having no problem at all and to be honest was just happy to get away from home. I also was on the shop floor some days and that just consisted of me going into the human side freezer and taking the milk and juice onto the shop floor. It was a simple job, but one that I was happy to do as I needed the money.


The advantages of working here was they provided me with a M&S discount card which proved to be very convenient around Christmas time. This gave me 20% of all products apart from technology, so I spent £100 on clothes that Christmas and saved £20, so a great save. Another great aspect of working there was the process at the end of the day called 'waste'. This consisted of all the food which the display date was that day and hence could not be kept on the shelves anymore and was available for only 25% of the original value. So of course I used to buy a lot of food at the end of the days for dirt cheap and it really was a bargain.


The managers were very nice and polite there and if they were harsh then they were not doing it for the sake of it, but because I was not doing something correctly and it was said in a polite way. The other employees were friendly and I made some great friends over my three weeks there although there was one employee that I will not name, who unfortunately followed me around for three weeks whenever he could. He also went and told random people that I was his 'best friend', even though I barely knew him but that is a story for another day.


Overall M&S is a great store to work for and if I have not got a job in the near distant future then I am sure that I will be looking to see if there are any jobs at M&S available to tide me over. The pay is decent and they are very flexible with their hours, and with the great discount available there is not a lot more you can ask for. Five stars all round.

Summary: Will Consider For The Future