Boxing Day is, to many people, an opportunity to go shopping in the sales and grab a bargain.

But with thousands descending on shopping centres and retail parks, staff working shifts on the day aren't often thought about and it's not all fun and games...

I worked two Boxing Days during my four and a bit years in retail, and it's definitely not for the light-hearted.

Even though I'd say it got less and less busy each year (probably because of online shopping), it was still something that I would never have chosen to do and I will now never go shopping on the bank holiday.

I worked at New Look between the Bromley and Canterbury stores, as I transferred back and forth while I was at university, but all my Boxing Day shifts were in Bromley which is a pretty big and busy store.

In my first year when I was 18 I only worked a four-hour shift which doesn't sound too bad on paper but it felt significantly longer.

I received a lot of verbal abuse on these shifts, particularly because the lines were too long (even though all 10 tills were manned and people should expect it to be busy).

You'd also get intentionally shoved by people trying to look to the sections you were attempting to tidy.

One year, a woman came up to me and put maybe 20 to 30 items of clothing in my arms and said: "Can you put this behind the till for me I'm still looking."

Before I could respond or process what had happened, she'd walked away, and I remember watching my poor colleague on the tills have to serve her, which took a good half an hour.

One pro of working the shift was that we got pay-and-a-half, although compared to a lot of other shops' double pay you could say we were still at a bit of a disadvantage.

Staff would either be on the tills, the fitting room, or – the worst option – the sale section (which happens to be where I was stationed each year).

It would get to the point where there were so many clothes on the floor that I would question: "Should I just leave it until the end of the day because it will get messed up again in about 10 seconds?"

It was an ongoing battle of doing the rail, tidying the rails, and having someone directly next to you following you around and messing up what you'd done pretty much immediately.

While that does happen with a normal sale, Boxing Day is on a completely different scale and you may as well not even bother trying to make the shop look presentable during opening hours.

A lot of people view retail as an 'easy' job that doesn't require much effort, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

In fact, I think it's both mentally and physically challenging, especially when you do it full-time and on days like Boxing Day.

So if you're out shopping today, please be mindful of the staff because they'd probably rather be at home with their families but are instead working for your benefit.