SHOPPING HOURS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 106, 6 May 1943, Page 4

SHOPPING HOURS

If "Just a Shop Assistant" had to do shopping dragging young children or a baby around town and on and off trams, etc., she would be only too pleased for late Friday night shopping to be resumed. I was a shop assistant myself before marriage, and, believe me, those few extra hours Friday night were nothing compared with the hard work of shopping with a family. Anyway, many trades and essential workers work 12 hours every day, so why do shop assistants cry about one 12hour day? They have a pretty easy time compared with other workers these days, as there is no worry about pleasing the customer. One has to take the article offered or go without. As for last-minute shopping, well, the reception one gets if one wants to buy anything from 5 p.m. onwards should be enough to deter the most thick-skinned. Anyway, what is wrong with the extra three hours worked Friday night being given to shop assistants during the week to enable them to do their shopping? ANOTHER FRIDAY SHOPPER.

As a retailer and employer of labour for the last 26 years, may I state that in my opinion there is little need for the late Friday night. Early closing may at present cause some slight inconvenience to a small section of the public, but when do these people think the shop assistants do their shopping? My assistants get a half-day every three months or they could buy neither clothes nor boots, etc. For many years before the war a large section of the people worked only 40 hours weekly, but the shop assistant worked 44 and did not finish work for the week at 4.30 or 5 p.m. Friday night. Instead, after the heaviest day of the week, he or she had to work till 9 p.m. and then take a chance of getting home about 10 or 11 p.m. Then next (Saturday) morning there was the pleasure of working or rushing till 12 noon, while the other section of the people were enjoying themselves in the sunshine or having breakfast in bed, and so on. Surely these harassed shop assistants in these days of coupons and shortages require' more relaxation than ever before; and I would like here and now to strongly protest against anything so unfair as the late shopping night. GROCER.