Extreme amount of swearing ahead, you have been warned!
Sometimes I really hate being in the UK. Well, not hate, but I feel disgruntled. It's mainly when I'm trying to watch some Canadian content and either Youtube, or ctv.ca, or cbc.ca tell me the video I'm trying to watch is not available in my region. Grrr! But I want to catch up on Rick Mercer and So You Think You Can Dance Canada! Thank goodness most of Youtube is not region-censored.
And I've come to the conclusion that British people (at least those in London, I'm hoping in other areas people aren't like this) are very very rude. No one is helpful, polite, or respectful as my fellow Canadians are. If you're in Canada and you see someone coming through a door with a pile of stuff, you will either go hold the door open for them, or at the very least GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY. In London? Not so much. At work, I was trying to bring out some shopping carts from the back to the front of the store. Many customers continued to stand in my way and did not move an inch until I said excuse me out loud. Even though they clearly saw me coming. One woman saw me coming and purposefully got in my way. Wtf?? Even work colleagues don't bother to help. They don't hold doors open, they barely move out of the way, they don't bother to assist with anything. It's driving me INSANE. It's common courtesy people! If someone is about to drop a box or something, and you're walking next to them, and you work with said person, pick up the goddamn box! It's not rocket science, it's called being polite and respectful.
And to continue on with my rant. Want to know how much my work sucks?? Cause it truly does. Yesterday I was 5 minutes late for work. I'm never late, I pride myself on not being late, but shit happens and I was late yesterday. Mainly because there were long queues at the bank and in England they don't allow you to deposit money any other way except through a teller (which is foreign to me, because in Canada you can do it through a cashpoint). So I was rushing up the stairs when my manager is walking down them. He looks at me. Looks at his watch. Looks at me again, raises his eyebrows, makes a look of discontent and continues on. He doesn't bother asking me why I'm late or whatever. Which really pissed me off. Fucking ask me, I could have been stuck in traffic for all he knows. Argh. And then around 6:30pm I tell Jose (one of my colleagues who I directly work with) I'm not feeling well and I want to go home. He tells me I need to speak to Pat, who's the manager on duty, fair enough. I go to the information desk, Pat's not there, but Diana (who's a supervisor) is. I ask her where Pat is, apparently she's in a meeting. I tell her I'm not well and want to go home. She says she can't send me home, because she's not a manager. She tells me that Andrew (my manager, the one who raised his eyebrows at me) is still there and I should go talk to him. So I go find him, he tells me he can't help me because he's going home and I have to find Pat. For fucks sake! He's such an asshole. So I go back down, find Diana, tell her, at this point this guy Adnan (who I work with in ops - he's an asshole too) is there too. Their solution, since they can't send me home? Go to the canteen and sit there until Pat's meeting is finished. Wtf? Suppose I was really ill (I wasn't, I was just fed up with working there), all I wanted to do was go home. So I go sit up in the canteen for 20 minutes. Diana comes up, says Pat is back on the floor and I can go home. So I go home. I also called in sick today. I really really can't stand this job. It's time to actively start searching for a new job. Starting now. I need to go get dressed and then hit every single Starbucks near me. I feel working for a Starbucks will be a hell of a lot better than working for M&S.
Okay, so it was like 20 questions to call sick into work. Omg, I just hate this place more and more. I don't understand how people stay there for so long. Maybe they're not used to anything better?? Maybe retail in the UK is always worse than retail is in Canada. Or maybe I've just been lucky. But I don't think so. I really think it's the UK.
And I've come to the conclusion that British people (at least those in London, I'm hoping in other areas people aren't like this) are very very rude. No one is helpful, polite, or respectful as my fellow Canadians are. If you're in Canada and you see someone coming through a door with a pile of stuff, you will either go hold the door open for them, or at the very least GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY. In London? Not so much. At work, I was trying to bring out some shopping carts from the back to the front of the store. Many customers continued to stand in my way and did not move an inch until I said excuse me out loud. Even though they clearly saw me coming. One woman saw me coming and purposefully got in my way. Wtf?? Even work colleagues don't bother to help. They don't hold doors open, they barely move out of the way, they don't bother to assist with anything. It's driving me INSANE. It's common courtesy people! If someone is about to drop a box or something, and you're walking next to them, and you work with said person, pick up the goddamn box! It's not rocket science, it's called being polite and respectful.
And to continue on with my rant. Want to know how much my work sucks?? Cause it truly does. Yesterday I was 5 minutes late for work. I'm never late, I pride myself on not being late, but shit happens and I was late yesterday. Mainly because there were long queues at the bank and in England they don't allow you to deposit money any other way except through a teller (which is foreign to me, because in Canada you can do it through a cashpoint). So I was rushing up the stairs when my manager is walking down them. He looks at me. Looks at his watch. Looks at me again, raises his eyebrows, makes a look of discontent and continues on. He doesn't bother asking me why I'm late or whatever. Which really pissed me off. Fucking ask me, I could have been stuck in traffic for all he knows. Argh. And then around 6:30pm I tell Jose (one of my colleagues who I directly work with) I'm not feeling well and I want to go home. He tells me I need to speak to Pat, who's the manager on duty, fair enough. I go to the information desk, Pat's not there, but Diana (who's a supervisor) is. I ask her where Pat is, apparently she's in a meeting. I tell her I'm not well and want to go home. She says she can't send me home, because she's not a manager. She tells me that Andrew (my manager, the one who raised his eyebrows at me) is still there and I should go talk to him. So I go find him, he tells me he can't help me because he's going home and I have to find Pat. For fucks sake! He's such an asshole. So I go back down, find Diana, tell her, at this point this guy Adnan (who I work with in ops - he's an asshole too) is there too. Their solution, since they can't send me home? Go to the canteen and sit there until Pat's meeting is finished. Wtf? Suppose I was really ill (I wasn't, I was just fed up with working there), all I wanted to do was go home. So I go sit up in the canteen for 20 minutes. Diana comes up, says Pat is back on the floor and I can go home. So I go home. I also called in sick today. I really really can't stand this job. It's time to actively start searching for a new job. Starting now. I need to go get dressed and then hit every single Starbucks near me. I feel working for a Starbucks will be a hell of a lot better than working for M&S.
Okay, so it was like 20 questions to call sick into work. Omg, I just hate this place more and more. I don't understand how people stay there for so long. Maybe they're not used to anything better?? Maybe retail in the UK is always worse than retail is in Canada. Or maybe I've just been lucky. But I don't think so. I really think it's the UK.