The worst place you could work in London - Retail Sales Associate Animetal Employee Review

There is no contract. There is no training. Off rip you are just expected to know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. This is especially dangerous, as there is no training on what to do if there is a fire, how to work at heights (which they will make you do), or any emergency prodecures at all. There is no direction or any assistance at all. You are not taught how to use the till until they randomly decide you can, based on rules they make as they go. On your first day you will be walking around the store lost and confused. For the first month and a bit of working there, expect to not be allowed to do anything but walk around and talk to customers. You have to talk to EVERY customer who enters the shop. You are told off if you don't speak to essentially every and any customer who enters the store. You are meant to ask them if they're looking for anything, or if they need any help. Which in itself is fine. However, once customers are already walking away and have told you they're just browsing, you're expected to keep making conversation with them in any way possible. Ask them what they've been watching recently, if they're sure, absolutely anything to keep them engaged. You are told off if you don't harrass the customers until they either buy something or leave. You are given a 30 minute unpaid break if your shift is over 6 hours. That's it. I was a minor when I began working so was definitely entitled to a rest break even on my shifts less than 6 hours but I did not receive those (which I am sure is against the law). This 30 minute break is pretty much inhumane. You could be working a 9 hour shift with a 30 minute break, only to have to wake up at 6am for your shift the next day at 9:30 with another half an hour break. Those 30 minutes are just about long enough for you to think about what you might want to eat and potentially drink some water. You're also told off if you spend "unnecessary time behind the till", which is where you are supposed to keep your water. Learnt that the hard way. You are reprimanded for drinking water on an extremely hot summer day. Working at Animetal is being a glorified con-man. If you look at any reviews you will see how many detail how the prices are absurd. Figures that go for less than £30 online are being upcharged to over £70 pounds in most cases. On my first day on the job I saw a figure that I got for £15 on vinted (official, boxed and sealed) being sold for £35 "on sale". The usual retail price they were selling it for was £69, which is nothing short of robbery. The forbidden planet NEXT DOOR had it in their display case for £23.99. The bosses will talk about exportation prices and shipping from Japan but in reality they know they're scamming people, they know they're stealing people's hard-earned money and I'm sure everyone that is working there knows it too. Something funny that sticks with me is when I saw the exact same miku figure, one in display and one boxed. The one on display was going for £75, whilst the one in the box was £65. When this was brought up, the boss made an excuse as to how they "bought the figures at different times" and that's why their prices are different. I didn't know anime figures were the new cryptocurrency with fluctuating value. I've visibly seen them changing the prices for some of their figures and making them up to £20 cheaper because they clearly saw that they weren't selling (though even with a £20 price change they were still selling them for about £20 pounds more than they were actually worth). Working at Animetal means you join them in scamming innocent tourists and people who don't know any better. They are selling one piece cookies with a best before date from 2024. A customer spoke to me about this and I mentioned it to the person I was working with and he let me know that they were well aware. They know it's expired. But they are still selling them because the cookies come with a one piece blind box card. As opposed to just opening the packets and resealing the cards to sell as a blind box, they're knowingly selling goods expired out by over a year. There's a rootbeer they're selling that comes with a mini figurine that they had on sale that expired before 2020. The condition of the store itself is poor. If you haven't been put off working here yet, I hope you will be now. If you have any respiratory conditions big or small I beg of you to not only not work here, but to not even enter the shop. There are thick layers of dust on every shelf. Dusting the top of each box does not prevent dust from festering at the bottom, but they don't seem to understand that. There are piles of boxes on the shop floor that have copious amounts of dust just layered inside, that nobody ever cleans or is ever told to clean. When we were told to clean, the cloths we were given to wipe with already had dust on them, and I genuinely wouldn't be suprised if I was told that they had never been washed at all. Cleaning dusty shelves with dusty cloths, surprisingly, isn't very effective. Figures in the display cabinets visibly pick up dust. The entire plushy section is dusty and unkempt. There is definitely a layer of dust embedded into the fur of most plushies that they're selling for £40+. The staff toilet is nothing short of disgusting, ridden with skid marks and smells like biological warfare. Let's just say I went in one time, stayed in for 4 seconds, and never went in again. The two bosses are nothing short of ridiculous, both as unprofessional as the other. On my first day of the job, boss #1 (who wasn't even there watching me for the majority of my shift) sent me a text message saying I wasn't working hard enough and that she would be keeping an eye on me. Bit harsh, but fine in of itself, right? except for when I responded to her message she left me on read, and instead of replying herself actually forwarded my message to one of my other coworkers, and got him to essentially relay a message from her to me on my next shift 2 days later. As opposed to just messaging me myself, which is definitely less effort. She consistently leaves you on read, and you have no clue if she ever acknowledges your messages or not. She will message you outside of work hours late into the night and will double text you when you don't respond whilst asleep. She will not give you your timetable for the week at an appropriate time, and will let you know halfway through the week when you are working. She will not add you to the employee groupchat where they tell you your timetable, and then be suprised when you don't know your timetable. There was an instance when she called me at 8:16 in the morning (20 minutes before the time I would leave the house to get to work on time) to tell me that I had a shift at 9:30 that day, to "get to work ASAP" and "Let her know my eta". She fired me with a singular text message, saying I am no longer a part of the company. No explanation, no 1 weeks notice, nothing. Just texted me and removed me from the groupchat at 6pm (she finally added me to the employee groupchat after over a month of working there). Completely erased. The other boss is just as ridiculous, if not more. He is rude, disrespectful, and attempts to intimidate employees into submission. There is an instance where he actually swore at me, for cleaning shelves (the same shelves with a thick layer of dust). His reasoning? There was stock that needed to be moved. Stock that I was never informed needed to be moved, nor was I told to move them. When I politely asked him if he would like me to move the boxes, he became passive aggressive and sarcastic, and dismissed me to another coworker. For another 5 minutes I stood by the till doing absolutely nothing until boss #1 told me what to do. I don't care what kind of day you had, swearing at an employee is absolutely disrespectful and downright disgusting. I was shouted at and belittled for not doing something I was not told to do, nor was I trained to do (remember, no training). Working at Animetal feels like being thrown into shark infested waters whilst not knowing how to swim, with people being shocked when you get eaten and die. I was expected to take initiative and just do tasks I have never been told to do. Mind you, I didn't even know that there were boxes that needed to be sorted. When he initially mentioned boxes on the floor that needed to be shelved I assumed he meant the boxes that have and will probably continue be on the shop floor for months. There was no clarification on his part, and yet he swore at me for cleaning. These bosses have obvious blatant favouritism to particular employees, whilst treating newer employees like second-class citizens. For the first month they treated me as if they expected me to quit any second, which is probably because their staff turnover rate is so extremely high. Nobody can tolerate their inhumane working conditions and expectations, especially for a minimum wage job. You can get one of those anywhere without the mental turmoil. They treat employees as if they're going to quit, leading to them quitting due to mistreatment. Then they hire someone new and the cycle repeats. The bosses have no idea how to keep employees, how running a business works, and will continue behaving the same way until both of their stores inevitably shut down.