[Angus]

Originally Posted by ~Kerry~

Many shops these days open until late but the run up until Christmas goes quite mad. For instance - my 'local' shopping centre (Meadowhall) has announced all next week their shops are open until midnight

Now, is this a good thing? Part time jobs for people willing to work so late? More overtime for current staff? Great for those who can't get there in "normal" hours? Or just plain unfair to staff?

How about just plain greedy with no thought for the poor staff who also have families and homes to go to? Both my sons work in retail and between November and January no staff are allowed to take time off, other than their normal days off. As they are both management, they are also expected to put in loads of extra time without overtime. Recently there have been several midnight launches of new video games and Kinect all of which my eldest son, as Manager, had to attend. At one of them, they had just three customers!

It's funny too how normal "health and safety" doesn't seem to apply to night workers who are more at risk of attacks and shoplifting since there are generally fewer staff late at night. At one midnight launch, my son had to call the police as a mini riot ensued when a gang of teenagers ran amok in the store. There's also the little matter of staff having to travel home in the early hours of the morning - ok if you have transport, a nightmare if you don't.

I can only say that anyone who goes christmas shopping at midnight seriously needs to go get a life. Even people who work unsocial hours still get a couple of days off a week to go shopping so where's the justification in making people work all hours?