Okay, so I admit it. Apparently I am not like 99.9% of the UK population. I am some kind of mutant freak. Why? Well, I can see no pleasure in grasping at so-called bargains in a Next sale that I would never have looked at in the first place.
For some reason, now this crap is only a fiver, buy one get one free, with 20% off, it has become an item I should trample over other crazy customers to purchase. There we go…I’ve said it. My name is Becky Cope. I am a Topshop sales assistant. And I hate the January Sales. And all other sales in general. Grrr.

Topshite
There are several extremely understandable reasons that explain why I hate the sales. Some of these are even unlinked to the fact that I work in a shop. Basically it’s shit. All the stuff that people buy in sales is old shit that the shop couldn’t sell the first time round, so now they have lowered the price in a desperate bid to get rid of it. And gullible customers eat up these so-called ‘bargains’ like starved vultures chomping on a diseased carcass. Everything is either a faulty return, a size XXXXXXXL, the wrong season, or just plain hideous. This is especially true of some of the lower end high street stores (you know who you are!). I will grant you that what you can get in a Reiss or All Saints sale is obviously of a higher quality than what I am ranting about. However these are not the sales that make the BBC Six O’clock news on Boxing Day for heinous injuries to customers kicking each other in the shins to pick up a bit of tat in bright pink silk. No no no. That was the Next sale. Once when I told a friend this view she accused me of being a snob. Maybe I am a bit of a snob, but I stand by my opinion. Especially as I have experienced as a sales assistant first hand the psyche of the Sales customer (and it ain’t pretty kids, be warned).

Who cares about Jesus?

Which brings me to another of my irrational complaints about Sales. The customers. I do not understand the mind set of the sale shopper. As an employee of Selfridges in Birmingham, lucky old me worked on not only Boxing Day but also New Years Day for the Sales onslaught. At first I assumed these shifts would be relatively pain-free apart from missing out on the obligatory family visits and the odd mince pie. However I was very, very wrong. During my shift on Boxing Day part of my soul died (a mere exaggeration perhaps, but entirely felt…) I mean, this was Boxing Day. The day after Christmas. When you’re supposed to be too fat and too hungover to move and still doing the family rounds of visits and watching crap TV like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But no. These people queued overnight from half past four in the morning to stampede a shop and make a grab at any old piece of rag they could get their greasy paws on. Apparently at Selfridges someone was pushed down in the rush when the doors opened at 8am, and everyone trampled over them, like animals. Yet it was not just the way they treated each other which hurt my soul so much. It was the complete ignorance of my existence as I picked up all the clothes off of the floor, hanging them up again, tidying the rails. These people pushed hangers over my fingers while they were still on the rails, snatched things from my hands that I was hanging up, and trod all over the clothes they had freshly knocked onto the floor, after I had spent half an hour tidying. I mean, I am a human being too, right?! Phew… But it gets worse…

Those dreaded three words…
“What a bargain!” a moronic chav shrieks to her 23 children, all in their own pushchairs (the sales assistants’ second worst enemy), about a £5 metallic blue corset. I kid you not. All I can say is there is no chance I am ever working during the sales again. Or even going within a one mile radius of them. You people make me sick! Whatever happened to good old-fashioned Christmas consumerism (tacky tinsel and cheesy Christmas movies). This year’s Sales’ madness goes to show that it has just gone too far. This new over-the-top bargain-hungry consumerism is disgusting. Shops should not be grabbing money every day of the year except Christmas day (as a rather nice albeit slightly odd customer ranted at me on Christmas Eve). No doubt soon the Sales will start Christmas day… Sorry Santa. And Jesus.