Well, as you may have gathered from the title of this review, I work in the great business of gambling, and am eployed by Coral.
I am going to outline the ten things about my job, that i am pleased with, and then the ten things that i do not find satisfactory. Before i begin however, there are a few things that i think are important and that you should know.I began working part time in the local bookmakers in our area, John Joyce. This company had branches all over the North East of England; Hartlepool, Middlesborough, Marske, Billingham, Barnard Castle and many other places around this area. I was working on a wage of £4.52 per hour and was contracted to saturday work, but on holidays from college took all the time i could get.
In about Novermeber of 2003, John Joyce soldo ut to Coral, and from then there was a whole host of changes that took place and it was very awkward for a while getting used to the new systems and everything.Coral fully took over John Joyce in March this year, and have since intergrated EPOS systems to make the taking of bets easier, and pay us monthly now instead of weekly.
Ten Things I Like About My Job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1. The Uniform.
Although this sounds pretty sad, i think that its a lot easier to have the uniform and know what i am going to wear the next day for work than having to rush about on the morning finding anything clean and ironed.
The uniform itself is pretty crappy - Its basically a blue shirt with the lovely coral badge printed on it, and another one sewn onto the sleeve with 'coral.co.uk' written on it. Theres also a little fabric square sewn onto the right breast so that you canpin your name badge onto it. I feel so special. With the shirts, we are allowed to wear either a skirt or trousers so long as they are black or navy. How thoughtful of them.2. The Hours.
Contracted only as part time, i have a weekly time slot of 6.5 hours that i am supposed to do on a saturday. However i also work sundays, and tuesdays. The hours themselves are really not that bad, as some of you may know i am not a morning person, and starting at hal 10 isnt really that bad. If i start at half 10 on one of my 6 hour shifts, which i get more regularly than 6.5, i am out of work by half 4.
Sundays i usually work 4 or 5 hours and sometimes do 5 or 6 on a tuesday. 3. Wage.
I am currently on a wage of £5.15 per hour, which i think is very good for part time work, especially considering how easy the job i do actually is.
On Sundays i am paid time and a half apparently, however te last wage slip i got had biffed my wages by about 2 weeks :-s everyone elses was short too so might just be them cocking it up. 4. Shop Managers.
This might sound a bit weird, but none of the people that i work with in the shops i go to are my actual bosses. They simply manage the shops and i pretty much am under them but they cant really boss me about that much. Obviously i do as i am told to, but i find it easier as i resent being told what to do and find that this way i am just helping them out as they have their job to do as well.
5. Shops.
I go to different shops, depending on where i am needed and find that this is much better than being stuck in the same shop each day. It gives me a variety of different customers to work with, and also a variety of staff too. Some of the staff in some shops i dont get on with aswell as others, so rotating about makes it easier, and also fairer.
6. Epos System.
Since Voral took over, they have fitted all of the shops with the Epos system, which is basically where you just sit at a computer all day, and feed the bets into it. Before epos, we had a till where we printed information about the bet e.g, how much was paid, which till, date, time, bet number, along the bottom of the bet, and the bet had to be settled manually. These tills also werent used for paying out which had to be done manually.
Once we got the Epos system, what happens is we take the bet, feed it through a scanner built into the front of the computer, it appears on the screen, we confirm how much they pay, then it prints a receipt we give to them. After this is done we translate the bet into the computer, basically type in the horse name, price, type of bet for example, and then it works it all out for us.If the customer has a winning bet, he brings the receipt back, we dip the barcode into the scanner then it tells us how much to pay him out. Simple as that.
7. Ease of Job.
The job i do is really really easy, i just sit on a till and do as i have explained above all day. Sometimes there is awkward chewy customers who want you to ring for prices or something but its not that difficult and basically gets you off the till for a few minutes so its a nice change. 8. Atmosphere.
I dont mean the stinking smoky atmosphere of the shops i work in, cos i really hate that. I mean the atmosphere behind the counters. The people are really friendly and its pretty laid back and can even sometimes be fun :-O shocking i know. When its a really busy day like this saturdays grand national though, there will be no chance ot have conversations or have a laugh or anything so im not really looking forward to that.
9. Chance To Use My Brain.
This is another one thats a bit weird i suppose, but being primarily an art student for the last 3 years, i have found that i havent really excersied my brain cells, and hardly ever write at length and never really count. So i find this job interesting because it gets my mind going again which is something im not used to and it stops me going dumb. 10. Coral - The Story.
It all started in 1926, when Joe Coral, born Joseph Kagarlitski, began his bookmaking business, operating primarily at racecourses then he went on to open a credit office in London's West End in 1943.
At this time it was only legal to place a cash bet at the racecourse, so any other bets had to be credit ones placed by telephone, letter, or telegram. This was designed to restrict betting to the wealthier sections of society, but really, illegal betting flourished with backstreet bookmakers using runners to collect bets and stakes. In 1960, the government became concerned with the illegal gambling trade, and the Betting and Gambling Act legalised high street betting shops, and Joe Coral was one of the first to take advantage of this, and opened his first licensed betting office in 1961. Shops were not allowed to promote betting however and were made to look unappealing and lacking any comforts. By the next year, there were 13,340 betting offices, of which Coral owned 23.
Ten Things I Hate About My Job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1. Smell.
I hate coming home after being at work stinking of smoke and filth and damp and all the horrible smells that some of the scruffier people who go to these places REEK of. TAKE A BATH, DONT BLOW YOUR CANCER SMOKE IN MY FACE - I HAVE LUNGS AND I WANT TO KEEP THEM INTACT.
2. Organisation.
I Think that the way some of the system is managed is not particularly organised. The wages have been wrong this week and for a company as big as Coral i dont particularly find this acceptable. I also dont like it when you have to ring the helpdesk to ask for a price and then they ask 'Is it on the screens?' HELLO? 'oh yes, its on the screens, i just felt like ringing you to hear the sound of your voice, because i havent got anything else to be getting on with.' How stupid are some people.
3. Rude Customers.
It really pisses me off when someone tries to put a bet on after the race has started then tried to blame me for it. Like it isnt their fault? why dont they come to the counter earlier? Am i psychic, do i know that the bet they want to put on is for the race thats going off in half a second. Then even after that they hurl abuse at you and call you pretty much anything they want, all words allowed. Really though, do i need this shit? no i dont, and then i tell them to f*ck off and they start themselves all over again. I hate this. DAMN YOU. 4. Responsibilty.
I dont particularly like the responsibilty of handling large amounts of money and having to keep my till right at the end of the day. I get really worried when my till doesnt balance, and sometimes i get scared they might dock me wages, if they did though there'd be hell on.
5. Shops.
By this i mean having to go from shop to shop, sometimes they ask you to go out of town and then they dont even pay for your travelling expenses. This really gets my back up, i shouldnt have to travel out of town, i dont mind doing it but i shouldnt have to. Then if i do they dont even compensate me. Once they asked me to go to the next town to mine, i didnt know how to get there, then when i asked how to get there the area manager simply said 'oh someone will know which bus to get on.' YEAH CHEERS GOOD ONE, dont tell me where to get on, how many stops till i get off, how much i will need, f*cking pig, he couldnt care less.
6. Repetition.
I do the same thing every day, repeating the same process, putting a bit of paper in a computer, tearing off the receipt, taking the money. Its very boring and quite demeaning actually but i suppose a job's a job and they all have their faults. Its easy though so its not like its hard work or anything i just get bored really easily. 7. Cleaning the Shop.
Coral seem to think that we just arent busy anough and now ask us to go round and pick up all the little bits of sh*t and crumpled up bets that customers throw on the floor and put them in the bin. They also get us to empty all the ashtrays into the bins aswell, some of which people feel compelled to spit in. Say no more. Filthy b*st*rds.
8. Pervy Customers.
Some customers really knock you sick, one came up to me the other day, started calling my by my name, thanks to the lovely name badge, and was saying 'eee you're wasted in here love you should be in the movies.'Yeah well tell the movie people that then i wont be stuck in this sh*thole, i should have said 'Yeah you're right im much better than being stuck in this dump talking to losers.' Probably would have got me sacked though hehehe
9. Dinner Hour.
Now we are Coral, we only get chance to eat anything if theres time and if its not busy. In some of the busier shops we literally go all day without any scran and this is really horrible :-( it hurts my tummy too. Some shops we get a quick bite when its pretty quiet but we have no set dinner hour :-( not fair. 10. Gambling.
I have only placed about 5 bets in my life, and to me it just seems really pointless as i see people putting hundreds of pounds on, losing it all them leaving the shop. Whats the point? The 5 I placed, i was copying of a guy who obviously had inside knowledge and he won everytime so i thought why not, and i won too. This was before it was Coral mind, as part of our contract stated we arent allowed to bet at Coral, we are at ladbrokes but like i would go out of my way to give away my money.
Gambling is also seen as being seedy and low, so its not something i would partake in personally. However i dont mind taking the money off the people. If only i could keep it all :-( So there you go, now you know all the ins and outs of Coral, :-s its all a bit weird really! xx
by (6%):
10.06.2004 20:24
Never been in a bookies in my life, never seen the need.
01.06.2004 17:52
Wow....a lot to learn here on an average part time job in the UK. I prefer my job...listening and tracking submarines...plus the 3000 quid/month paycheck isn't bad either...Chris xxx
05.04.2004 23:11
I've seen what gambling can do - I only ever have the odd bet on the football when I go and watch it and on the national - which by the way I won!!! Only £1 EW but that is not the point!! Great op. marc