21/06/2026
For many of you that don't know, for a few years in my 20s I was a HR Manager for Safeway 🛒
After leaving my restaurant manager role, which I'd done for over 10 years 🍽️, I decided it was time to do something completely different.
HR clicked with me because I've always had a strong passion for training people 👥, making sure the job gets done to the best of everyone's ability 💪 and helping bring out the best in others ⭐
After completing the interview and getting the role 🎉, I settled into the company training programme to become fully qualified.
As a HR Manager, you're responsible for all training, admin, recruitment and disciplinary procedures for the whole team 📋
You also have to learn how to open the shop floor because, to begin with, once a week you take on the Customer Service Manager role too.
All the training eventually led to my final assessment ✅
It was a hands-on walk-through starting from the car park 🚗, checking litter, trolleys, lighting 💡, then onto the shop floor making sure stock rotation (FIFO) was being followed and shelves were fully stocked 🛍️
It was basically the daily routine of an opening manager.
Now let's talk about getting your exam interrupted... 😳
It could only happen to me 🙄
I was doing my walk-through with the Regional Operations Manager when suddenly a man came running towards us with a load of coat hangers sticking out from under his clothes 🏃♂️
Theft 🚨
First thing in the morning. FFS 🤦♀️
Exam abandoned.
It was time to get this guy off the shop floor, up to the office and have the police called 👮
Job done...
Or so I thought.
Because this was only the beginning 😬 and what happened afterwards was honestly quite shocking.
It turned out this guy was a well-known local drug addict with a pretty bad reputation 🚫
Because I was the one who stopped him, I became the one he targeted.
Whenever I was on the shop floor, he'd walk past the huge front windows making throat-slitting gestures at me 😳🔪
He absolutely hounded me.
He was banned from the store, but one day he somehow got back in. We caught him shoplifting again and when he was approached, he pulled out a needle 💉 and started screaming that he was going to inject me with HIV.
I'm sure you can imagine how frightening that was 😨
Every night after that, store security would walk me to my car 🚶♂️🚗 and make sure I got safely off the car park before they left.
To me, this wasn't part of the job I signed up for.
Now I finished my qualification, I worked my role as Hr Manager for nearly 2 years but enough was enough ✅️
(And to pop this in also , the company decided to scale back on staff to save money..I was the HR manager, and also 2 x shifts as customer service manager....and guess what...no extra pay and I still had to complete my HR role in 3 days and not 5
No no no ✅️✅️✅️)
The risks that can come with some roles are unbelievable ⚠️
And this was at least 27 years ago ⏳, so I dread to think what some retail workers face nowadays with the way the world has changed.
So what did I do? 🤔
I put up with it for as long as I could, but eventually enough was enough.
My life was worth far more than any job ❤️
I walked away 🚪
Not long after, I got a job as a Time Computers Manager 💻 and started a new chapter 📖
Look after yourselves ❤️
Being threatened by a local drug addict waving a needle around is a step too far for anyone 💉❌
It's one of those experiences that stays with you forever 💭
