I couldn't work for WHSmith

There are few things that will seemingly last forever, whatever happens. Cockroaches, Happy Meals, WHSmiths. The way the world is, it's incredible that while many high street shops are in trouble or closing down, the most baffling of mainstays on the British high street remains. WHSmith. If you need a bomb shelter, you might as well find yourself finding salvation in the husk of a WHSmith.

It's an institution that will probably find a way to last much longer than my lifetime, and I'm going to live to at least 120, I tell you. But I just couldn't find myself working there.

I mean, I did work there once, in a way. The way of work experience back in high school, so not a geniune entry on my CV. That was literally half my lifetime ago, and that's sobering. When I was 15, I found myself spending two weeks wandering the aisles of WHSmith because clearly I couldn't get work experience at somewhere I actually wanted to work back then. They didn't exactly have room for me somewhere on a film set or even working for someone adopting this "YouTube" thing that had started becoming a thing...

With that being the case, yes, I found myself at WHSmith. What a curious place WHSmith is. It's a Swiss Army Knife of a location, if all those tools were that combination nail file/cleaner tool. An off-brand Room of Requirement. There's never a strong desire to go to a WHSmith these days, but oddly, it caters specifically for the needs you don't realise you have until they strike you.

I have higher standards in myself. I'm not a person purely for other peoples convenience. And WHSmith is the most inconvient convenience store, even though it wouldn't market itself as that.

WHSmiths just exist. You can't escape them. Not even in near-death. Need a magazine for your overnight stay at the hospital? There's a WHSmith right there. Following you. On the commute and need a coffee during a pandemic? Sure, Starbucks is closed, but WHSmith remains. Need to post something? Somehow even then, you've got WHSmith beckoning you into its antiquated doors, boasting a Post Office they've managed to wrangle inside their facilities.

I could learn something from WHSmiths. Screw being a scout or something, you wanna be prepared, go to WHSmiths. Where else can you get stationary, send a package, buy a leaving card for that guy in your office you barely know, find a small bottle of Lilt in the wild, and escape with a fuck-off sized bar of Dairy Milk chocolate?

WHSmith is so diverse in its portfolio it's the bloody Warren Buffet of needs. They sell video games consoles? Pencil cases that look like a can of Pepsi? You see those adverts for magazines that cost a fiver a month that you get little parts to build a model DeLorean from Back to the Future? Literally the only place that seems to sell those are WHSmith.

I fear WHSmith. Those two weeks peeled back the curtain for me and years later they've only gotten stronger. Now there's self checkouts upselling you gallons of water for £1. McDonald's vouchers thrown at you around every corner. Absorbing Post Offices gave them the loophole of staying open during lockdowns. WHSmith should never work on paper, but it fucking sells the paper.

As humanity inevitably becomes its own downfall, the cockroaches will find solace inside the ruins of WHSmith. They will feed on Peanut Butter Snickers bars at the till, read from the Richard and Judy Book Club, try to not get stuck to the back of infinite supplies of football stickers or down in the exploded ink of discarded gel pens.

You cannot escape WHSmith. Whether you're the staff I still see working there 15 years after a fresh-faced version of myself spent two weeks there, or if you have the need to buy Sharpies today and not next-day delivery on Amazon, or even if you're trying to fly out of this damn country. WHSmith lurks everywhere, and as much as I try, I couldn't be a part of that world.

Not like I have a say in it. It's only a matter of time until it sucks me up. And it's only a matter of time until it gets you too.