My various jobs in retail (and my prior office experiences) have never required me to work nights. I did one ‘night shift’ when working in office supply retail, and I’ve done some late evenings on occasions of stock takes, but regular nightshifts have not been a thing for me. There was however one occasion where I was called to the store very late, due to the alarm going off. As a member of management (and a keyholder) I had no choice but to attend, which meant getting up and out the door in the small hours. If my memory serves me correctly, this occasion was the same one where I informed my then-manager of the rather rude treatment I’d received at the hands of colleague, and he gave me some sage advice on how to deal with it.
Another time, the alarm went off in the late evening, which wasn’t great, but slightly more civilised. We attended the store, and looked around, not able to spot anyone (in fact, this was the time where I reported my colleague’s behaviour). We were walking around, chatting as we did, when the alarm company called back, reporting multiple motion sensor activations. We were in a mild state of panic, wondering if we were about to be ambushed, when we realised that we were the source of the activations!
On yet other occasions, my manager and I encountered ‘drunk Santa’. He had wandered into the store, gone completely unnoticed by everyone, and passed out on one of our display office chairs. It turned out he’d stolen a bottle of booze from a nearby Marks & Spencers, as well as a coat, and necked most of the bottle (brandy or sherry or some such), before making his way to us. My manager told him to leave, and copped a mouthful of abuse for his troubles, so we called the police, who somewhat roughly manhandled him from the building. Why do I call him drunk Santa? Well, he had a long bushy white beard, albeit it wasn’t as pure snow-white as Santa’s…
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