Ever worked in a charity shop?

Van Hellseek

Van Hellseek

Van Hellseek

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2 Jun 2004
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Just something I've been wondering about doing. My weekend mornings tend to be a bit dull, so I've been pondering 'volunteering' in a local charity shop for a while, especially as it would look great on the CV :D

But I'm not sure... I heard that people are made to do it as community service, and the idea of working alongside local scum doesn't appeal. Plus there are, of course, a whole variety of charity shops around, so I'm not sure where to start.

If anyone's done it, I'd love to know the where's/how's/whys etc. :cool:
 
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Yep, worked in one for about six months. Only three problems I had were the smell of mothballs inherant to most charity shops... the old dears that, although they weren't going to buy anything, whittered on for hours about the war/pensions/price of carrots (though, I know chances are they had no one else to talk to, so I never complained about it at the time) and the people who seem to think our prices were a guide, rather than a set price...
Other than that, it was great experience, and its nice doing something because you want to, rather than because you have to.
 
I'll give you two weeks before the droans of the old farts that frequent and the smell of the wee stained carpets makes you quit.

Nah only joking mate. I respect people who give up their time to volunteer.
 
I used to work in our local Barnardos furniture shop for about a year back in Northern Ireland and I really enjoyed it. Most of the other volunteers were a good bit older than me (I was about 20 at the time) but their was a couple of other young people there on their Duke of Ed. Their was a guy working there who was 'connected' with one of the estates on some government scheme where he got more dole money for volunteering there so that the government could class him as working and lower the unemployment figures, but he was really dead on as well and a master at arranging the furniture to get quite a lot of stuff fitted in a fairly small shop.

As it was a second hand furniture shop rather than the clothes shop that was on the other side of the road there was plenty of grunt work involved going out on deliveries and collections. Most of the customers were dead on and you could have a chat with them, but you do get the odd ass complaining about the prices and trying to get you to knock up to 30% off for them
 
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My gran works in a Marie curie shop on saturday mornings. They have regular shop lifters (the same people every time) and it can be quite stressful for her. Because they're all old biddies they just have to let them go rather than confront them to leave emplty handed. They use the radios to call the security from thwe shopping area but they're too slow.

I'd imagine it could be quite annoying to work there, lots of odd people you may not be comfortable with can shop in charity shops, but it may just be boring and quiet.
 
I used to work in a charity shop, on Monday afternoons while I was at school, don't have any interesting stories though :(

There wasn't any scum either tbh.
 
I've volunteered in Oxfam for the last 5-6 years. There's a mix of people in the shop I work at, about half are old women but the other half is a mix of school kids, students and a large number of language students. It's a really good atmosphere, the manager is a french woman who came to learn the language and has stuck around, everyone's very easy going and we have a lot of fun. I do work in the stockroom downstairs though, so spend more time rooting through bags trying to work out what mystery items are and playing around with anything interesting then dealing with customers and possible shoplifters. Shoplifting is a suprising problem in charity shops =/

All in all I'd say go for it, it's been an amazing thing to have on my CV as well.

It's probably worth scouting out the shop you want to work at though, check that it's somewhere you'd like to hang out and avoid any with the mothball smell or anything else that might put you off after a couple of weeks. :p
 
Spuds said:
'Norn Iron' slang for nice bloke :p

Edit: 'Norn Iron' = 'Northern Ireland' spoken in a broad Belfast accent, just in case that causes any more confusion
Click to expand...

hehe i love terms that people not from here dont understand :D

is the charity shop a local one or one like oxfam etc?
 
My parents used to help out in the local Imperial Cancer Research shop and really enjoyed it most of the time, however like anything there is politics behind the scenes and that can really drive you nuts* (especially when you're doing it FOC and getting told to do it differently every week or two by different managers/regional people).

As I think has already been mentioned it's worth looking around your local stores, seeing what they are like and possibly having a chat with the staff and see what they are like - it's bad enough if you're in a paid job and don't like some of your collegues, but in a charity shop :eek:

If I were to to work at one of the charity shops around my way, I would probably try one of the more local ones first as that would be helping something local to me, rather than a large national charity (which may or may not have large overheads), partly because the local ones seem to be more sane with their pricing for things (I tend to look through them for books on a regular basis and a couple are barely cheaper than Amazon are for the new books).



*My parents gave it up for 2 reasons.
1: my mum's hip was getting worse
2: The employment of a paid manager with big ideas who didn't seem to realise that whilst increasing the price on things bought in more money, it didn't bring in as much as actually moving the stock, my dad used to price the books for example, and would reduce the price to keep the back room clear/safe when needed (if books were piling up they would reduce the price of them for a while), the manager decided the books were too cheap - cue them not selling and the shop having to pay for them to be disposed off:p.
 
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