Years “very difficult”. These words immediately come to Amel Medjahed, 22, when she is asked to describe her journey in selling clothing. “We don’t imagine it right awayraises the Parisian woman, who started as a saleswoman at the age of 15 during her professional graduation from commerce, but the saleswoman means handling all day.
Carrying packages of clothes weighing several kilograms, unpacking, putting them on shelves – sometimes several meters high -, picking up, folding, collecting… All while standing constantly.
Having gone through various brands, from underwear to high-end stores, Amel returns home in the evening with severe pain in his leg, caused by repeated trampling. Before the age of 20, she developed pains in her arms, shoulders and ribs that lasted for a long time.
In the shopping centers where she worked, the lack of windows, and thus natural light, disrupted her biological rhythm and gradually caused her eyesight to deteriorate.
In his entourage, however, some strive for it “reduce” the fatigue created by this highly feminized profession (88% of clothing salespeople are saleswomen), reports Amel.
“People will say it’s an easy job, even a bit stupid, but you have to see what it’s like to carry packages four times your weight for hours! »exclaims a young woman who, exhausted, recently went from a clothing store to an optician.
Unstable conditions
Since her beginnings in hairdressing, Tifanny (who does not give her last name), now 31 years old, has suffered from recurrent tendinitis.
In the cheap salon in the north where she started in CAP and then in BTS, she does shampoos, haircuts and blow-drying. “chain”, elbows constantly in the air carrying a hair dryer and scissors. Without always having time to set up well or recover, with “a lot of overtime”.