How to survive working in retail!

If you didn't already know, I currently work in a very popular clothes shop which I can't name for legal reasons, blah blah. I've worked there for almost a year and I thought that it might be fun (and helpful) to tell you some of my tips and tricks on how to cope with a job in retail...it's harder than you might think..xD

1. First of all, one major part of working in retail is the customers. As nasty or annoy as they can be, they are ultimately the ones who pay your wages. Sometimes it can be very hard to smile when you've been treated like a piece of dirt by a customer but it is kinda necessary, kinda. Personally, if a customer is rude to me or whatever I will still be polite but I will get revenge in other ways. For example insufficiently packing their clothes etc.  (I'm such a rebel, I know..)
However not ALL customers are grumpy! Some of them are very very lovely and will chat and be understanding if you have to call a supervisor or whatever. To survive in retail, I would say that it is very important to thrive off of these people because if you focus on the negatives the day will seriously drag!
Another important thing to remember with customers is that they are the same as you. They have problems and sometimes they may be having an awful day and it then becomes your opportunity to either try and make them laugh or be as helpful or quick at serving them as you can be so that they can get back home to eat ice cream and binge watch Netflix.
Moving swiftly on...

2. Another pretty damn big part of working in all jobs really is your colleagues. The best advice for this one is just try and get on with them. It will make your life 1000000000x easier, okay so that might be a bit of an exaggeration..
But basically, you're going to be spending extended periods of time with these people, it will be much more enjoyable if you're not hating each other. Of course there seems to ALWAYS be that one person who you just can't get along with but don't make it your life mission to annoy them because you can bet that they'll get revenge or karma will kick your butt.
Whilst there will always be people who you don't get on with there will always be people who make you laugh and you get on really well with:) One of the main perks of working in a big retail store is that there are lots of different people who I probably wouldn't have met if I didn't start work there and now they've become some of my good friends who I know would stick up for me and my job. They also make the rubbish days a bit more fun and interesting:P

3. This point also relates to the colleague thingy and that is avoid gossipping. When you work with other people who you may not necessarily know very well or at all it is very easy to hear an opinion of someone and then have that singular perspective of them. Anyway back to the point, gossipping just makes working harder to be honest. When rumours start, cliques are created and this can have pretty shitty results . At my job, I've known people be reported to the boss for something that was a total rumour however it led to them losing their job so yeah. Personally, I just stay out of the firing line as much as possible!

4. The final point relates more to your mental (or even physical if you've been stood up for like 7 hours straight) well being. It's important to remember that it's absolutely OK to have a break. Retail working can be incredibly stressful believe it or not. Sometimes when you've got a never-ending queue, grumpy customers or maybe your low on change - it can be tough. Minutes being to feel like hours and if you're unhappy then you will not enjoy your job. So it's alright to take a day off now and then to chill or maybe grab a drink of water if you need it.
Just remember that you are alot stronger than you think but at the end of the day what's more important.. Your mental and physical health? Or reaching the stores budget?!


Anyway there's just a few tips that I've learnt over these last few months, I'm sorry that I haven't been very active recently, but there will be more posts to come!
Hope that you're having a lovely summer, adios x

Vanishing cream - Lush review

 Hello, so here is the first of many Lush reviews of some of the products that I picked up in my recent visit to the Oxford street Lush. Click here to read the explanation and story behind the whole Lush thing...:)
One product which I picked up in Lush was 'Vanishing Cream'.
It costs £18.75 per 45g which definitely isn't the cheapest for a facial moisturiser but this product is pretty damn good.

Some of the key ingredients are; rose water, lavender, honey, jojoba oil and fair trade Shea butter and yeah.

Some good points about this moisturiser is that it is AMAZING
underneath make up! It literally 'vanishes' into your skin and makes it super smooth and perfect for makeup application.

It feels like its doing good to your skin and it smells lovely of course!

However the only problem with this product would be that for me, after wearing it for a couple of days/nights my pores get badly clogged up. This is a problem which I've experienced with many moisturiser but I particularly notice it with this one.

Overall it is a lovely product and it lasts a long time because a little goes a long way. However I would probably not re-purchase this product due to the price but as an occasional treat it is lovely!

The lovely Lush company.

Hello, this post is going to be very different to my previous - just a warning! I felt like doing something a bit different and more relaxed I guess you could say:)

Okay so a couple of days ago it was my birthday (yay!) and as one of my presents, I decided to go on a shopping spree to London. Specifically I wanted to visit Oxford Street and Westfield and I am so incredibly lucky to have the chance to visit these places and have such an amazing time there too!

In this post I would like to talk about Lush and the products that I bought there.
First of all, I was very excited to go into Lush on Oxford Street, not only because it has 3 fantastic floors, but because I knew that Rebecca Brown (known as Beckie0 on youtube etc), worked there.

Beckie0 and I:)

For those of you who don't know who she is, Rebecca is a very inspirational Youtuber, blogger, twitterer and all other social media star. She is very open and I find watching her videos really interesting because she is so raw and honest, in a good way. For many years, I've watched her videos and was so hoping that I might get to meet her in Lush.

It turns out that this birthday was one of the best I've ever had! So she wasn't there when I arrived at the store but I plucked up the courage and asked a member of staff of her whereabouts. Turns out she was going to be arriving at 2 and they organised for me to have a personal tour of the entire store!!!

2pm finally arrived and so did Beckie0! I had an absolutely amazing personal tour of the shop and I learnt so much from that visit! There is honestly so much more behind every product than you can possibly see at first glance.

We also had the chance to go into the photo booth (I will insert a photograph of course!) and she even gave me a free eyeliner as her 'Random Act of Kindness' for the day.

I had an absolutely amazing birthday thanks to her and the wonderful Lush company!!
Rebecca Brown is a very very lovely person who is so very true to her online persona and wow, I was blown away by her patience to show me around and letting me try so many products!

So yeah, basically I had a brilliant birthday and ended up spending almost £100 in Lush that day...ooooops...
Anyway I wanted to tell this story to say how lovely the Lush company are and they are very ethical. I know that it's definitely not the cheapest but you do get what you pay for in that shop!

I'm planning on reviewing many of the Lush products which I purchased that day and from other times so yeah, watch out for those ones if you like Lush products/want to know more about them!

But to my humble followers here on Google+,  I am still planning to keep up with the kind of posts which I've written so far as I understand that beauty reviews are not for everyone! I just want to try something a bit different:)

Thank you very much for reading and thanks again to Rebecca Brown and Lush in Oxford Street! And of course to my lovely parents who took me shopping that day:)

xx

Scary University decisions

For those of you who don't already know I currently attend Sixth form and will soon have to begin applying to University..but this really isn't as easy as it seems, at least in my head it isn't.
Everybody seems to say a different thing about University depending on their perspective.

Sixth form says 'go go go' - because of statistics and their reputation, they don't actually seem to care too much about the individual apparently...
Graduates either do exactly what they want and get the job they wanted or they end up doing a job completely unrelated to their degree which could potentially be seen as a waste of £30,000..
My parents personally try to stay objective and just want me to be happy I think but there is always that pressure to do well of course because I want to make my parents proud which is pretty normal I think.
Friends say no, its a waste of time, you'll have to make all new friends if you go to University and move away and lets not forget about the dept.
Other people just say that you should go to University if you know exactly what job you want to have etc but who really truly knows EXACTLY what job they can get which will satisfy them for their whole entire lives, of course there are some exceptions but I'm definitely not one of them.

So at the moment, deciding on whether I should even attend University is very very blurry. Personally, I'm a very undecided, easily influenced person who can change their life goals in a split second making the choice even harder.

Then there's the part of choosing a course and a place to go to and where to live and ahhhh so much to think about. It just all seems crazy and scary because making the wrong decision here could really negatively impact what happens in the future from my perspective.

Some people would say that an apprenticeship or a different alternative to university is a better option but then you hear the statistics such as ' Graduates Earn £200,000 more than those without a degree'. ( http://www.graduates.co.uk/the-graduate-premium/) Yeah, I'm just a little bit stuck and confused right now I guess :(

So please if you have an opinion or any suggestions on how I can make the right decision for me, I would love to hear about it!! Or maybe you're going through the same problems as me, let me know and we can discuss!

At the end of the day, I find security in thinking that whatever happens, will happen for a reason. 
For example If I completely fail my a-levels, then maybe I was never meant to go to uni but something else will crop up.
(This will also help me cope on results day haha..)

Thank you for reading! Please check out my other posts if you enjoyed this one and please feel free to comment or send me a message.

You're the only one who will be there forever.

First of all I want to say sorry for the lack of posts and activity here recently. I've finished my exams for this year and to be honest, I've just been having a little break from all social media and the internet etc.
But also I wanted to say that whilst I want to update this blog as much as possible, I really only want to write good quality material. Therefore I will write when something has motivated me or something has inspired me to go on a rant or whatever. Basically, I'm trying to focus on quality over quantity.
So yeah that explains my absence and now lets get on to this post!

This one was inspired by what someone said to me the other day. They said that I should 'stand up for myself'. I shouldn't let everyone get what they want and use me for what they want.

That may seem really obvious. I mean, why would you let someone treat you like shit if it's going to make you miserable?! It's totally counter-productive but sometimes you simply can't help it.

Personally, I grew up as quite a shy child. I would never put my hand up in class, or share my opinion because at the end of the day who really cares. This meant that if someone was nice to me or tried to be my friend I would welcome them therefore I would do what they want, let them treat me how they want etc.

But now I've kind of realized that you can never please everybody. Whatever you do or say will irritate someone so at the end of the day you might as well do whatever makes you happy. The number of friends you have may determine your popularity but it can't determine your happiness.

This can be really hard when it links to someone who you love very dearly, for example your closest friends. However, who's going to be around forever? Just you. Technically, no body apart from yourself will be present for the whole duration of your life. I'm talking about all the bad times and good times, all those secrets that you've locked up deep inside, at the end of the day you are the only person who will be there for all of it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is focus on making yourself happy. This might sound very selfish, and I'm not encouraging anybody to purposefully hurt other people, but you can't live to make someone else happy if you're not happy yourself.

Thank you very much for reading even if it was a shorter one this time! Please check out some of my other posts and don't forget that you can sign up to get email updates whenever there is a new update on this blog! Thanks again, have a nice day :-)

Is childhood disappearing?

Everyone has a very different experience growing up and I think that this is a really important question which will affect the future of society.
It is debatable as to whether a) childhood is disappearing and b) is it a bad thing.

So, it is arguably true that childhood is disappearing.For example, the sexualisation of children. Nowadays you can buy baby bikinis, baby high heels etc, why are we trying to grow our children up so damn fast?!
Another example would be access to information. In the past children did not have access to news and adult information because the only way to gather this information would be through a newspaper for example. However in the modern age, children live in a television culture where they only have to watch and listen to understand a situation. They're getting exposed to our world much earlier than ever before.

Some would argue that 'childhood is a social construct' - Stephen Wagg. This means that childhood changes from place to place and from time to time. This is supposedly normal and makes complete sense if you really think about it. For example, in pre-industrial times, children were an economic asset to parents and would work just as an adult would. However soon the compulsory education act was introduced and child labour laws prevented children from working. Policies such as these have reformed childhood and what you experienced as a child will be extremely different to what your great great great grandchildren will experience, that's for sure!

Personally, I would argue that childhood is not disappearing, it is just developing and changing to fit in with society as human kind continues. People have to adapt to the situation which they are thrown into just to survive on this crazy planet.

Whether these changes in childhood are for the better or the worse, I guess that only time will tell.

Thank you very much for reading, I hope that you enjoyed this post which was inspired by part of my sociology a-level course. Please let me know what you think and don't forget that you can get email updates every time this blog is updated by entering your email address into the box on the right hand side:)

 How was your childhood different to your parents?

Thanks again.

5 steps to surviving a chaotic lifestyle without breaking down!

Okay, so firstly I attend sixth form 5/7 days of the week. The other two days I decided to get a job in a very popular discount clothes shop. So this does not leave me with a single day of rest in a week, it's great I know.. I also go dancing 3 times a week for a total of 7 hours per week..

Anyway I'm not going to complain about that anymore as it was completely my choice to get the job and go dancing etc and that isn't what this post is supposed to be about.
But from spending my weekends working in this store, dancing and juggling college work it has taught me a couple of ways to cope with people and to handle a chaotic lifestyle:

1) First of all, it really helps to know that you ARE allowed a break.
It's not going to kill you if you take that evening off from doing the dishes or housework for example. You are allowed to have the occasional cheeky netflix binge. Personally I find when I begin to feel like I'm drowning in stress, going out with someone, taking a hot bath, watching You tube; anything can help as long you can turn your brain off for a bit. If you can take half an hour to relax, things will seem clearer. Okay yeah you may have just lost half an hour in which you could've been studying or whatever but at least now you'll be able to organise what you really need to do and when. Everything should just seem a bit clearer, if it's not maybe try writing it down. Sometimes I feel like my head is just juggling so much information I feel on the brink of explosion but if I can empty those thoughts slightly, it can help to relieve the pressure.

2) You can say no.
This one I really need to work on oops.. By this second point, I mean like saying no to going out with friends or doing that extra shift at work. If you've been working hard all week and then they ask you to go in super early on that Sunday morning, you do not have to do it. You are allowed to have that extra couple hours sleep which will really help you function. Of course it's important to be kind and helpful to others etc but you can't forget about yourself. 

3) Stress will come in waves.
For me, this is a big one. I find that I can build up tension inside myself and it just keeps going until I feel like I'm drowning in pressure and stress and anxiety and bleuuuuuugh. No thanks! When you reach that point that's when you need to take 10 minutes out. Break away from the world and this might sound weird but think about how big the universe is and how insignificant whatever you're stressing about really is. Remembering that stress comes in waves helps me because it just reminds me that things will calm down. Things will get better, it's how life works. Life will throw you a challenge, you either take it on or you run, either way it will stretch you and your abilities.

4) Look after your physical necessities.
This kinda links in with number 2 but its very important that you look after yourself! Don't stay up all night watching TV if you've got work early in the morning. You're going to need that sleep so that tomorrow doesn't seem so bad. Eat healthily, exercise blah blah blah, yeah do it. That McDonald's is not going to fill you up for long enough, have some proper food and remember that you are literally what you eat. Say you eat junk food all week, and say some of it gets stored as fat. When you look at your body in the mirror and see that you've gained those couple of extra pounds, it's literally that cheeseburger but in a different form. You are made of whatever you put in your body. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips.
The exercise? I just do it because afterwards, its like 'fuck yeah' I'm doing something goooood.

5) It's worth it.
Always remember that your hard work will pay off, there is a reason as to why you do this with your life.

 If it's not okay, it's not the end.

Thank you for readind, please share this if you found it interesting/ helpful! Goodnight:)