I am an 18 year old guy, and LOVE river island clothes. I thought working there would be a dream!! How wrong was I...


For me, the worst thing about working there was the managers. I found them so disrespectful, bitchy, unprofessional, unorganised and just horrible people. You are never praised, only ever told what you did wrong. It's bad management as it just makes the employees so demotivated!!!!!! I know that whatever i do it will be wrong and ill get shouted at, so i have given up trying! At the end of the day i was paid 6.08 an hour as a sales assistant and the amount of abuse i took from management, and the amount of responsibilities that were given to me which i had never been trained for was ridiculous.

I worked in operations there for a while where you handle all the stock etc and to this day i still don't understand what my responsibilities were. We were told something different everyday. Also we would be told either, 'you can go early now' when i didn't want to as i wouldn't be paid, or we'd be made to stay longer and not even get payed for it!! I am not talking stay an extra 15 minutes, i am talking stay for an extra 4 hours without a break!!! At times i'd be on delivery, and there would literally be 2 people trying to process a 1000 unit delivery within a 4 hour shift. You were just left to do it with no help and were expected to complete it within that time, when it was near enough impossible. Not only that but we were told 'you need to get it done within 3 hours' so we'd rush to try and complete it then through rushing, not everything like the stock room is neat, so we get shouted at for that, but when we take more time to make sure everything is neat and tidy we get shouted at!!!!

I also found the managers were so bitchy, and look down on you. I think it is disgraceful the way i was treated. I was literally talked to like a 4 year old at school. I actually use to get upset over how i was treated which is not like me at all!! I found it also impossible ever to talk to managers. For example, my pay was wrong nearly everytime i got paid, so i had to talk to the manager about it, and after every time trying to talk to her about it, i just felt like shit as she just looked at me in disgust as if 'why are you talking to me'.

My advice.. Don't work there it is not worth it. Working there was the worst time of my life. I couldn't stand each day i went in. SERIOUSLY... i thought it would be amazing as i loved the clothes there and always shopped there but working there has even put me off shopping there ever again. I kind of hope a river island manager reads this them selves so they can think them selves what they are putting there staff through and maybe change there ways.