It will do for a few months. (Sainsburys)

Member Name: stokx

Product:	Sainsburys
Date:	15/02/09 (338 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An easy job to get and keep.

Disadvantages: The job.

On checkouts awkward customers are actually an advantage because they make the day go faster.
I had two customers ask for change in advance of actually handing over the money: one was a wnker who started trying to negotiate what percent of the bill I could have before the receipt, I think the other was going to run.
There are a few who are just crazy; one woman came to the till to ask permission to lift her daughter out of a freezer she'd climbed into.
Most days are unbelievably boring but anything is bearable for a few months.
When I worked checkouts the starting rate was £5.70. This rises with time and apparently also with the training you do although no one seemed to know how much each capability contributes.
When I had been there six months and trained for petrol station I was making £6.08.
You don't get paid more per hour for overtime but there are a lot of shifts available. Working Sundays and bank holidays adds a little: seven hours on each of four Sundays makes about £20 over standard pay.
Holiday is excellent, six weeks (inc bank holiday entitlement) and while they say it has to be booked in one week blocks with so many blocks in each season in reality you can put what you like, even take a few hours off the start or end of a shift.
They are just as flexible when it comes to moving shifts, normally this is arranged in a couple of days - sometimes it is done in hours.
Training is poor and growing worse: it is meant to take two days but it is crammed into two hours. When I was first put on a till the customer showed me the technique for opening bags.
There is a pension but the employer match is only 10%.
The shares scheme is very good, it offers shares at a 20% discount to today's low price but you have to stay with the company three years so I never used it.
If you do stay there a year you become eligible for a store performance linked annual bonus worth up to 10% of salary.
After your first six months you get a discount card (10% normally, 15% at certain times like just before Christmas0.
For an eight hour shift you get half an hour paid break and sometimes an hours unpaid lunch.
The work of operating checkouts is extremely tedious. The best role is probably stacking shelves because you have more freedom and when you interact with a customer it's because of a problem so it's more interesting.

Summary: Easy boring and pointless. Reasonable money.