Woolworths

A Memory of Redditch.

As a 'floor walker', or trainee Woolworth's manager, one was expected to work quite a lot of unpaid overtime especially over the Christmas period. For the anticipated Christmas rush much larger amounts of stock were ordered, resulting in huge piles of unpacked cartons. I remember working throughout the night to reduce one of these mountains and at two o'clock in the morning was well ahead of schedule when disaster struck as I struggled with a 1cwt box of marbles. I tripped and the box burst, releasing a veritable tsunami of marbles that bounced through the store and out in to the street, on its way filling and immobilising the lift well. Instead of being 'two steps ahead" I was suddenly five steps behind and my managerial potential took a huge nose dive.