I worked at WH Smith. This is why it all went wrong

Telegraph

31-03-2025

The call came during a lunch break at college when I was 17. A softly spoken jittery man named Phil was the one to tell me: I'd got the job, could I start on Sunday? I was on cloud nine. So long to the messy, smelly pub kitchen I'd been toiling away in and hello to the glamorous world of retail work. The road to glory was paved with discounted Dairy Milks and threadbare blue carpets, and that road ran straight through WH Smith.
It's hard to reconcile that youthful exuberance, 14 years later, with the sad demise of WH Smith, soon to be replaced on high streets by the impersonal, invented name TG Jones.
When I started my Saturday job at WH Smith on Fishergate High Street in Preston in spring 2011, the brand felt like a high street stalwart. While HMV down the road was on the rocks, and the Woolworths opposite hadn't gone the distance, WH Smith was a rock. While my college peers toiled in cafés and pub kitchens, I felt pride in donning my blue button-down.
That enthusiasm didn't last long.
Till point conversations
Because Smith's shelves were stocked with literally every product the human mind can imagine, the till system was intricate. We had to log every time we sold a blade or drugs – by which, of course, I mean a pair of scissors or glue, including Pritt Sticks. These till shortcuts were stored under the sub-menu within the touchscreen system for discounted chocolates, the obvious location.
I can't reflect on my time at WH Smith without talking about the dreaded 'TPCs'. Short for 'till point conversations', shoppers will remember being asked 'Would you like a Terry's Chocolate Orange/Dairy Milk/packet of Sharpie Pens for just a pound with your shopping today?' (The word 'just' was vitally important.)
Customers hated being asked, especially when they were just popping in for a magazine or a bottle of water. But if you found it annoying, imagine how tiresome it was to repeat that question hundreds of times per day, especially when trying to clear big queues.
Still, because stores were assessed on how many TPC products they managed to shift, managers watched like hawks. Failure to ask resulted in a swift reprimand. Staff were 'motivated' by a large spreadsheet, hanging in the upstairs office which tracked how many transactions we'd supplemented with a TPC. Those who came at the bottom were obliged to take a retraining course on till etiquette. I would ask my parents or friends to come in while I was working just so I could flog out-of-season chocolate oranges to them and avoid this.
Shoppers may also remember the reams of vouchers and gift certificates presented alongside every purchase – all carefully timed to make clear that no discount could be claimed until at least a week after the voucher was printed.
Plastic bag fee
To compensate for felling a small rainforest to create the paper for these, WH Smith was one of the first shops to introduce a fee for plastic bags. A plastic bag was 1p (5p if you preferred one which didn't disintegrate as soon as you picked it up) but we were told not to inform customers about that until after we'd finished bagging their shopping in case they abandoned transactions. That was the thinking anyway. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a parent abandoned a basket-load of folders, notebooks, pens, and plastic wallets during Back-To-School season (starting before the previous term ended, of course) rather than pay. Guess who'd have to return it all to the shelves?
Perhaps noticing how much our customers loathed the till experience, WH Smith was an obvious candidate to become one of the first high street shops to introduce self-service check-outs. Preston was the second store in the UK to get them.
Customers were thrilled by this development. Even more so when managers ordered us to stop using the traditional tills entirely and guide them through self-service instead. The first time I truly appreciated the sheer amount of quality content in the Sunday Telegraph was when one was launched at my head when I offered to help one shopper scan his copy. Concussion was avoided but a lifelong appreciation for broadsheet news was formed.
Stained and sticky carpets
A number of years ago, a Twitter account was set up dedicated to cataloguing the ruinous state of WH Smith carpetry. Our store's was particularly bad: a stain was left in front of the display for Richard & Judy's book club picks after a man defecated on the floor there.
WH Smith never had the spare cash for cleaners or the like. I was once informed by my manager, a world-weary chap called Andy, that each store in the chain could afford a loss of £13 per week. One stolen Game Of Thrones box-set or a couple of misprinted lottery tickets was all it took to see the heating turned off until next Monday.
When we could, we'd resist in small ways. If a customer ever asked for our cheapest packet of cigarettes, we'd direct him to the corner shop beside our backdoor. I'd forgo the bag charge if a customer was spending over a certain amount of money.
Hard-working team
Though WH Smith staff had a reputation for apathy, my team was dedicated and worked hard. I remember Linda, a woman in her seventies who could remember the precise location of every greeting card and magazine and spent an hour at the end of each day returning them all to their correct slots when customers abandoned them in the wrong locations. There was Ivan, a man who worked seven days per week, yet always sent customers on their way with a smile. And the aforementioned Andy who went out of his way to support us, happily inviting me back in the holidays to work after I'd gone to university.
Anarchic, manic and mismanaged as working at WH Smith undoubtedly was, I'll forever be grateful to it. It taught me to think on my feet, the value of good customer service, the skill of diplomacy when dealing with truculent customers, and perhaps most importantly, the precise barcode number of the Sunday Times poly-bag which would never scan on the tills.
WH Smith was always destined to end this way: pulled in every direction by incompetent management who gradually stripped away its identity in the attempt to be anything and everything for a quick buck. Even so, from 2011 to my final shift in 2015, it was a place I loved working. I can't say I'll truly mourn its passing, but there's no denying it helped shape me into the man I am today.