25 reasons to work in a charity shop
You don't have to run ten miles in a nappy or sign away your beer money to a chirpy chugger to do your bit. There are ways that don't result in empty wallets and mass humiliation. Pete Cashmore works Sunday afternoons in a charity shop. And he’s willing to explain why he does it, 25 times.
1. Men will never ever wear anything that may have touched another man, so all your customers will be ladies.
2. And all those ladies will be thinking, 'He works in a charity shop in his spare time. I wonder what he looks like with no trousers on.'
3. They still do vinyl. And, for that matter, cassingles, Betamax and ZX Spectrum games.
4. You can refer to your charity work in court if you are ever implicated in a £37 million gold bullion robbery.
5. Charity shops get given such huge amounts of stuff that they cannot possibly sell it all. Or, to put it another way, that Paul Smith suit that just arrived can leave in your bag without it being missed. NOTE: I have never done that. I’m just saying.
6. At least one of your co-workers will almost certainly be doing community service, so you can pretend that you are associating with shadowy underworld figures.
7. Even if he is 18 and doing 40 hours for riding a moped on the pavement.
8. If you don’t visit your grandparents enough, charity shop work will provide you with at least three surrogates who will come to you and tell you how lovely you are in a fraction of the time of normal grandparents.
9. It is only right that, at some point in anyone’s life, they are required to accurately assign value to a ceramic salt and pepper set shaped like Italian chefs with huge moustaches.
10. And a two-piece egg bowl whose lid is a sitting hen.
11. They usually let you have the radio on quite loud.
12. By law, it is required that, once a week, somebody brings in a perfectly functional Mac laptop, tells you that it ‘probably doesn’t work’, and leaves you with all the add-ons, while nobody is looking.
13. It is also required that anyone dropping any music off will leave an absurdly collectible jazz 78 from the 1930s, for which you have been searching since you were 12, at the top of the pile.
14. You often get to meet the people for whom your work is beneficial and it is impossible not to be utterly moved. Sorry, that’s what we in the list business call ‘the serious one.’
15. You always know that your wages are just as good as anyone else working in the industry.
16. You can show up in your jeans. In fact, show up in anything else and they think you’re odd.
17. You will frequently experience the pleasure of bartering (i.e. turning down flat) people who think that they can argue down your shop’s already-minuscule prices, one of the most satisfactory experiences available to mortal man.
18. At least once, a garment roughly approximating one you were considering buying for over £100, will arrive in the shop and be immediately priced at £4.99.
19. And then you’ll get a 30% staff discount on that.
20. As long as there are charity shops mankind will never run out of any part of the Die Hard trilogy. Especially the one with the planes in.
21. If you work Saturday afternoons, you will never watch your team lose, at home, in the rain.
22. If you work Sunday mornings, you will never watch any boring Sunday morning God-botherer telly.
23. Wait, this is for Christian Aid. Better scratch that last one.
24. When you arrive in the morning and find that people have left 20 big binbags of stuff literally leaning on a huge sign saying PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE DONATIONS HERE, you will have a unique opportunity to gauge the limits of your patience and love for fellow man.
25. Because it’s better than doing nothing. Isn’t it?
2. And all those ladies will be thinking, 'He works in a charity shop in his spare time. I wonder what he looks like with no trousers on.'
3. They still do vinyl. And, for that matter, cassingles, Betamax and ZX Spectrum games.
4. You can refer to your charity work in court if you are ever implicated in a £37 million gold bullion robbery.
5. Charity shops get given such huge amounts of stuff that they cannot possibly sell it all. Or, to put it another way, that Paul Smith suit that just arrived can leave in your bag without it being missed. NOTE: I have never done that. I’m just saying.
6. At least one of your co-workers will almost certainly be doing community service, so you can pretend that you are associating with shadowy underworld figures.
7. Even if he is 18 and doing 40 hours for riding a moped on the pavement.
8. If you don’t visit your grandparents enough, charity shop work will provide you with at least three surrogates who will come to you and tell you how lovely you are in a fraction of the time of normal grandparents.
9. It is only right that, at some point in anyone’s life, they are required to accurately assign value to a ceramic salt and pepper set shaped like Italian chefs with huge moustaches.
10. And a two-piece egg bowl whose lid is a sitting hen.
11. They usually let you have the radio on quite loud.
12. By law, it is required that, once a week, somebody brings in a perfectly functional Mac laptop, tells you that it ‘probably doesn’t work’, and leaves you with all the add-ons, while nobody is looking.
13. It is also required that anyone dropping any music off will leave an absurdly collectible jazz 78 from the 1930s, for which you have been searching since you were 12, at the top of the pile.
14. You often get to meet the people for whom your work is beneficial and it is impossible not to be utterly moved. Sorry, that’s what we in the list business call ‘the serious one.’
15. You always know that your wages are just as good as anyone else working in the industry.
16. You can show up in your jeans. In fact, show up in anything else and they think you’re odd.
17. You will frequently experience the pleasure of bartering (i.e. turning down flat) people who think that they can argue down your shop’s already-minuscule prices, one of the most satisfactory experiences available to mortal man.
18. At least once, a garment roughly approximating one you were considering buying for over £100, will arrive in the shop and be immediately priced at £4.99.
19. And then you’ll get a 30% staff discount on that.
20. As long as there are charity shops mankind will never run out of any part of the Die Hard trilogy. Especially the one with the planes in.
21. If you work Saturday afternoons, you will never watch your team lose, at home, in the rain.
22. If you work Sunday mornings, you will never watch any boring Sunday morning God-botherer telly.
23. Wait, this is for Christian Aid. Better scratch that last one.
24. When you arrive in the morning and find that people have left 20 big binbags of stuff literally leaning on a huge sign saying PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE DONATIONS HERE, you will have a unique opportunity to gauge the limits of your patience and love for fellow man.
25. Because it’s better than doing nothing. Isn’t it?
 |
|
|
Terms & Conditions © Christian Aid 2007
