I was forced to do a weeks work experience at Morrisons after the work experience I had arranged fell through.
At the store I was placed in the staff were completely miserable, totally uncooperative and many seriously looked on the virge of suicide. There was a huge feeling of hatred towards the managers and supervisors who were all complete retards, who sat around all day doing absolutely nothing. Everything seemed completely unorganised and unplanned. The warehouse was a mess and nobody knew where any of the stock was and most of it had been crushed or split. Also despite being Easter there was a extremely lack of Easter Eggs because they were all lost in the warehouse somewhere, most completely unsellable due being crushed by having pallet upon pallet of heavy items loaded untop of them.
The warehouse manager 'Jeff' was the worst. He actively tried to cause damage and physical bodily harm to anybody remotely near or in the way of his forklift. He'd worked in the store for decades and I've never came across anybody with such a distorted view on life.
Working in the admin offices was a relief compared to the other days, although this was still painstakingly boring trapped in a small room with no windows with 3 middle aged women. The only exciting part of this was watching the CCTV cameras. The computers systems were ancient and so slow. The terminals had green and black mono screens and keyboards with most of the keys missing or in the wrong place. You had to use a pen lid to press in the hole where they key was supposed to be to type.
After our 15 minute safety video at the beginning of the week the three of us on work experience were let loose onto the shop floor, admin offices and warehouse despite not being trained or having any knowledge of the procedures, store layout and what the hell we were actually meant to do. They also expected us to stay on the same area for the entire week, until we told them this was possibly the worst idea ever.
We had to use the box crusher machine in the warehouse despite being underage and completely untrained. Customers were asking us questions we had no answers to and nobody else was around to help.
The only decent members of staff there were the fishmongers who were quite funny and took their jobs as a joke. They had a very laid-back and relaxed outlook towards their job (spending all their time in the canteen). There were also two guys our age who failed their A-Levels, and a really nice management trainee girl who was seriously complementing how her life would turn out if she continued on the training course.
The only decent thing about the entire week was the staff canteen, which was awesome. They gave us £2 per day to feed ourselves and that covered breakfast/bruch, lunch, snacks and drinks because the staff cantene was so rediculously cheap.
In conclusion Morrisons is the worst shopping environment ever. Everything about it is horrendous - even down to the store layout and the way you are forced to walk through the 'Market Square' full of semi-rotting fruit on the way in, the floor tiles, the trolleys. Everything is completely dilapidated and obviously no investment or effort has gone into providing a good experience for customers. The disregard to the staffs needs is also apparent. The shirts are the most uncomfortable, hot and itchy items of clothing I've ever seen. They also strangle you and restrict breathing if you do the top button up, even when you have the correct size. The female uniform also looks horrendous, what the hell are they thinking?
This was without a doubt the worst week of my life and I wouldn't encourage anyone to work there, ever. That's not to say you'll have such a miserable time working there, but at least you'll get paid for it!