Honestly, from all my retail jobs between high school to now, nighs shifts were the best. They were the only time in my retail jobs where I would go to work, previous shift manager would tell me what needed to get done by the end of my shift, and just leave me to it. I was advised to bring something to read with me on my first day.
I could bang out all my work in one go, then sit and read for the rest of the night, and nobody cared. Plus, there weren’t that many customers, and most of them tended to keep to themselves, anyway.
When I did overnight grocery in another company, there was even less customer interaction, and we could bring little speakers with us to play music while we stocked our aisles, as long as we didn’t blast it crazy loud or have something playing with tons of profanity. Out of all my positions working with the public in retail, those were easily the best. Also, given the minimal staffing on the overnights, we really only saw each other when we all took our breaks, so work place drama was pretty minimal.
Grocery stores are open at 4am?! What monster would ask retail workers to work night shifts?
Night shifts are typically the only actual humane, reasonable, and nonsoul crushing retail shifts
Low customer volume, no micro management, self directed time tables.
Like it’s literally the only way retail is reasonable.
Honestly, from all my retail jobs between high school to now, nighs shifts were the best. They were the only time in my retail jobs where I would go to work, previous shift manager would tell me what needed to get done by the end of my shift, and just leave me to it. I was advised to bring something to read with me on my first day.
I could bang out all my work in one go, then sit and read for the rest of the night, and nobody cared. Plus, there weren’t that many customers, and most of them tended to keep to themselves, anyway.
When I did overnight grocery in another company, there was even less customer interaction, and we could bring little speakers with us to play music while we stocked our aisles, as long as we didn’t blast it crazy loud or have something playing with tons of profanity. Out of all my positions working with the public in retail, those were easily the best. Also, given the minimal staffing on the overnights, we really only saw each other when we all took our breaks, so work place drama was pretty minimal.
US companies of course
Everything was open late before covid. Wegmans and Walmart were 24/7, we had pizza places open till 3am, etc.
During college I worked retail on second shift, it wasn’t so bad.
Yeah I “think” we have one all night dinner left out of dozens of places before COVID. And that’s in a 500k pop City.
I miss 4-5 am grocery shopping :(