Harris and Hoole is cool(e)!

miss annie

She's marvellous!

Idoru

It seems to odd to me that tea and coffee should produce such strong feelings either way. But why does it matter if some people are a little obsessive over their hot beverages? BTW, coffee isn't made with beans. What we call the bean is actually the stone from the fruit of the coffee plant.<br><br>I know us ladies are supposed to like a funny man, but David Mitchell did *very* well.<br>

miss annie

Article about H&H in the Standard tonight. Can't do the link, sorry

andy

Summary of article: "we're not tesco's, honest. No one else would give us the cash. I'm just a cheeky family artisan Aussie" etc.

Bridget J

Here it is!<br><br>http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/we-had-to-take-tescos-cash-to-launch-our-coffee-shops-but-the-values-are-down-to-us-8450751.html<br><br>The younger brother used to make me a coffee in his tiny coffee area in the middle of Travel Bag in Brighton.<br>

checkski

Update. I am sitting in H&H now. Ethical unease vanished, all too easily, in the face of a nearly first class coffee-shop experience. Knock off a point for the slightly too loud music, but at least it's... real. Some harmless well-played jazz from 60? 70? years ago. "What's your name?" Pardon? "Well, Checkski, it's to enable us to call you with this buzzer when your utterly sublime small cappuccino is ready." Radiant smile, which looked sincere. What a charming girl. I perched myself on a sprawling, leathery, v.v.comfortable settee thing, and in a few secs the gadget lit up all over the place, urging me not to waste a single second before gulping down coffee heaven... "Hi Checkski, how lovely to see you again! Enjoy!" So I did. Sorry, I've gone a little mad. Same price as Vaga, £2.30, plus loyalty card, every 6th one free. Wow.

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checkski

Personally, I've usually found the managers (= head teachers, in my case) to be the bastards. Power warps. And all too few bosses act in the interests of the community, let alone of the workers.

dorothy

I like Vaga better.   They're sweet and chilled out.  The beardy man is always more than happy to make me a sandwich without bacon in it.    Even when I have a bike and two dogs in tow they cheerfully open the door for me and I nearly always get chatting to someone when I'm in there.

conformable_kate

I wonder what happens to these (non-unionised) charming young people when they fail to smile radiantly or forget to refer to the coffee as sublime ... I have clearly gone too far down the grumpy old git route; when people I don't know use my name and tell me it's lovely to see me again I just get cross.

Mirandola

Hi Kate, lovely to see you again, (smiles) Sorry.

conformable_kate

ho ho ... I told you it was a sign of early onset grumpiness. 

checkski

<P>@conformable_kate. I agree with every word you say. Failing to smile radiantly can cost not only you but the entire staff that vital bonus. Wages are at starvation level - but not, an insider tells me, at H & H. I am conflicted: as an old leftie, I deplore working conditions in shop chains. The workers badly need an effective union - see above. But I love coffee shops, to the point of boring everybody on SG.org. Perhaps  that should be hypocritical, rather than conflicted.</P>

miss annie

<P>Actually, if you work for a chain, the working conditons aren't bad. </P> <P>EU workplace law covers breaks, provision of somewhere to have those breaks, disciplinary procedures, working hours etc. Most companies provide tea, coffee, (biscuits if you're lucky!), and they have to provide well maintained lavatory facilities unless you are in a shopping mall or under a particular square footage. In my experience small or independent retail shops provide better conditions.</P> <P>Individual companies have their own specific rules - Harrods require you to wear make up (ladies), nail polish etc., fashion companies require you to be able to wear to clothes they sell, bookshops require you to have a reasonable knowledge of books, fairy shops require you to love pink and glittery things. Everyone expects that staff would be smiley and pleasant to customers.These things would be clearly stated at interview/probation stage and explained quite clearly and are, I think, reasonable expectations.</P> <P>People were shocked about the newspaper article which revealed that that staff are told off for not being cheerful, but I'll be surprised if anyone here hasn't moaned about shop staff being sullen, miserable or grumpy - I do it all the time and I know how hard it is to smile at customers when they are being complete asses.</P> <P> </P>

checkski

You omit the most important consideration, Miss Annie: money. No amount of free coffee will compensate for being paid less than the London recommended minimum, which is I think £8.55 ph. I bet you are paid less than that at Waterstone's (not that that is any of my business, of course, so don't feel obliged to respond!). They are paid MUCH less than that at Spaghetti House, Costa, Pret. I agree that it is reasonable to expect staff who deal with the public to be pleasant, even when they don't deserve it. I wish some of the Tesco's staff would be taken to task on that front. Don't work with the public, if you want to be grumpy. But the point abt Pret was the pay penalty, where one scowl could equal loss of pay for all. that is downright fascistic.

miss annie

<P>I was just talking about the working conditions.</P> <P>Money is and almost always has been shocking in retail, I don't see any prospects of impovement now that people are expecting goods to be cheaper and cheaper - the cuts have to come from somewhere and that is from the staff and suppliers. Unfair, but unless profits improve wages won't.</P> <P>One of the many problems with retail is that it is percieved to be a job for unskilled people who can't do anything else and the pay reflects this. I currently work with a radiographer and midwife in the last months of their degrees, a retired art history lecturer, two neuroscientists about to start Ph.D's and the man who writes Radio 4's Clare in the Community, along with several other bright sparks one of who also works as a translator for the British Museum part time. Almost everyone is doing something interesting or creative as a hobby or job outside of work. Still customers treat us as if we are stupid and one felt the need to spell Faulks for me the other day, and to ask if I knew he wrote Birdsong. I have encountered the same assumption in every shop I've ever worked in.</P> <P>Having said that, on a personal level Islington shop does well and we even got a bonus!</P>

Papa

My view is that the problem we have in this country is that we have constructed a system where low wages, especially in the service sector, can be got away with by firms due to tax credits.<br><br>The nation is subsidising a low wage culture that allows a lot of people to be paid less than the minimum they need to live on. This works for both big and small business, but the effect is most pronounced at the larger end of the scale. <br><br>Essentially, taxpayers are subsidising the profits of large companies, by the tax credits system allowing them to pay artificially low wages. <br><br>To compound the issue, these profits are then returned to the wealthiest through high executive pay, shareholder dividends and increases in the share price of firms.<br><br>Ultimately this benefits no one, as the middle and lower end get paid less and as we have seen once the crutch of easy credit was removed in 2007, our consumer economy ended up completely hamstrung.<br><br>That's not how capitalism is meant to work.<br><br>The problem is how do you dismantle the tax credit system now that so many people are reliant on it. <br><br>Personally, I think a considerably higher personal allowance - say £15k - would be a good start and I'd then lower the overall income tax and NI burden too. Ultimately, the money lost in tax revenue will be put back into the economy through spending and deliver a wider benefit.<br>

Ali

<P> I see Tescos  have bought into Giraffe and own part of  the Euphorium Bakery chain</P>

yagamuffin

@Papa L  If what you say is true (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) then surely the answer is simple. Increase the minimum wage at the same time as scrapping tax credits.<div><br></div><div>Over time the increased costs for employers will be met by the people having more money to spend. And oh, suddenly there's movement in the economy!</div>

miss annie

Tax credits are quite a new thing, retail wages have always been low. Although not so low that full time staffclaim tax credits, that's something part timers tend to rely on. Tesco are going to open more Giraffe's apparently - beside their shops. The couple that own Giraffe are the parents of the owner of Monkeynuts in Crouch End (which has gone dramatically downhill recently).

dion

I am a complete capitalist but agree that increasing the personal allowance to £15k would do a phenomenal amount to help lift people out of the poverty trap, as well as reforming tax credits.<div><br></div><div>However, doing something like reducing employer's national insurance contributions would reduce the cost of  employers taking on more staff and providing employment.  NI in general is just a hassle and a complicated nonsense.</div><div><br></div><div>There are plenty of 'large' companies, e.g. Clinton's, Comet, Woolworths, which didn't make large profits and which didn't benefit from artificially low wages, well, at least not enough to keep them alive.</div><div><br></div><div>I am personally against minimum wages in principle, but I find it hard to find people to employ on the minimum wage so am forced by labour market conditions to pay more anyway which makes me think the labour market in London, at least, is reasonably healthy and balanced.  </div>

miss annie

What do you do @dion? Can I come and work for you?

Papa

Dion, I'd say those large companies you mention were assisted in keeping going for longer than they would otherwise have managed by being able to pay subsidised low wages.<br><br>Without a clear vision of how to adapt their business and take it forward for the modern age they were always in trouble, that and debt has been the killer for some of our big High St names. <br><br>Miss Annie, I think retail wages, while always low, would have risen by more than they have, ie towards a fairer representation of living costs, if tax credits hadn't existed.<br><br><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/18/pays-tesco-ceo-wages-we-do">Zoe Williams wrote a good piece on tax credits and low wages last year</a><br><br><br>

miss annie

Don't agree. I've worked in retail and with retailers on and off for about twenty years and they never rise at the same rate as other jobs. Too many variables, supplier costs, rents, business rates, theft, VAT etc. And as stated, it's viewed as an unskilled job - like cleaning, so they pay low wages. The man who cleans our shop was a Science teacher in Nigeria but came here because it was 'horrible' there. He is cleaning while he improves his English. If you view retail as your career though, you can do ok. Managers at Tesco, M&S etc can get about 60k for managing a smallish shop, there is a lot of opportunity to progress quickly in big companies if that's what you want.

Papa

I don't doubt that retail is one of the areas that would see below average rises, owing to the ease of getting people in to replace anyone who demands more.<br><br>But my point is that overall low wages in relation to the cost of living - whether in retail or anywhere else - have been made more palateable by tax credits thus removing a lot of the pressure that would otherwise have been brought on companies to raise pay.<br>

miss annie

I only know one person that has ever claimed tax credits, that's my self employed sister, so I've no idea how it works. I expect you're right but if tax credits vanished tomorrow I really don't think you'd see a change in retail wages.

checkski

You finished, you two? All a bit technical for me. I just loathe the idea that any worker should be so badly treated. Miss Annie makes the point: shops pay badly because the staff are regarded as unskilled. In my ideal world you would be paid according to need, not perceived power or skill. A street cleaner would get the same as Mr Cameron, or vice versa. Once again, read The Spirit Level, if you want to see how unhealthy this country is, as the result of the huge gap between Cameron and eg cleaners. It makes my blood boil.

dion

I think that working in retail is less skilled than many other professions.  This is because you need very little training. And surely this is why the pay is so low.  Something has to be the lowest paid job in the market and I can't really see what else it would be. Cleaning is one but this often has the added pain of manual labour and antisocial hours.  Retail isn't too hideous, meaning there is probably a plentiful supply of people willing to give it a go. <div><br></div><div>@missannie - I had  look today we pay less than the london living wage but our lowest paid staff is on minimum wage plus 10% and london staff are on £8.10 an hour - London living wage is £8.55 if I remember correctly. </div>

miss annie

I know quite a lot of shop assistants that get more than that, some with commission too. Most retail involves non stop training once you're doing it. We are all currently doing the European Bookselling diploma in partnership with a German organisation and Derby Uni. You have to be qualified to be a bookseller in Germany! Most of the rest of out training is deathly dull though

krappyrubsnif

Popped into H+H desperate for a coffee just now and it was full.    Full of (1) yummy mummies with their buggies taking up three or four seats each (2) rows of children and (3) geeks staring into huge laptops occupying tables meant for two.  No, in Crouch End you don't share.<br><br>It had a slightly intimidating 'You're in Crouch End, so fuck off'' atmosphere.<br><br>Lucky for them, unlucky for me, but there's always somewhere else.<br>