by Tazeen Ahmad
After Betty leaves, Louisa asks if I’ve heard about the six-penalty-point approach to sickness. She was on her bike and fell off. She had a pain in her shoulder afterwards so called in sick.
‘Richard took me aside and said, “You’re on probation, you need to be careful about calling in sick.” I was really shocked.’
During some quiet-time I read Justin’s latest newsletter. He talks about the competition from discount stores like Lidl, Netto and Aldi, and quotes a report that says discounters are more expensive than the big supermarkets. He suggests we get this message out to customers. His take on why Sainsbury’s is doing so well is because customers are getting ‘great value for their values’; in other words, he says they’re not prepared to compromise on how food is produced and where it comes from, even if they are looking hard at what they spend.
I end my shift with Barbara telling me that someone will relieve me. Five thirty comes and goes and I am still here. After several minutes of waiting, and in the absence of customers, I bite the bullet and close my till. I go over to Barbara and explain this. She roars at me, ‘You can’t do that, you have to wait. No matter how long they take. It doesn’t matter if it’s quiet, it could get busy again.’ I look towards the till where Louisa is sitting. She’s staring into thin air, twirling her curls and chewing hard on the gum in her mouth. Deflated, I turn back to Barbara and apologise. Betty’s instruction from five or six weeks ago is ringing in my ears. ‘When you are on baskets and it’s the end of your shift, just close the till and cash up.’
Saturday, 10 January 2009
The store feels like a deep freezer due to the below-zero temperatures outside. Customers complain about the cold in the store and my fingers are like icicles. I see Michelle and she’s back to her usual self, giving me a friendly hello, although I swear that I see a hint of suspicion in her eyes.
There’s a lot of white bread coming down the belt today and I don’t know if it’s the cold or the credit crunch. Either way, it looks like comfort food to me. During the coming months people look set to gain a few pounds, just not the right kind.
One of my first customers is a sweet-as-pie sixty-something couple. They’ve only just returned to the store after years away. They were deeply scarred by a bad customer service experience but decided to forgive the store, although from the convoluted anecdote they share with me, they certainly haven’t forgotten. I know that under Richard’s management things have certainly changed, so they are probably back for good.
There’s no avoiding the talk of yet more job cuts amongst my customers today. One man works for a charity that takes care of parks and looks after kids’ play areas and they’re short of money. He and his team have all decided that, rather than lose any jobs, they would all take a pay cut. Another small businessman says his work has gone so quiet he’s just sacked everybody who works for him. He’s got two kids and his own skin to save, so he sent them all home one day saying, ‘Sorry, but there’s nothing left to do.’ A receptionist at a law firm tells me they’ve just cut nine people at her law firm of 400. It’s all her friends who work at other law firms are obsessing about. One regular works for BNP Paribas and tells me that things have hit rock bottom there. They are about to cut 2500 jobs. While his job is safe, he says it’s never been gloomier.
But it’s not all bad news. An older dad, who comes in with his newborn son, works in the oil industry and tells me it’s ‘down but definitely not out’, and a nurse and her policeman husband are not worried about their jobs—she works at a doctor’s surgery and thinks her job is safe because ‘people get sick during recessions, after all’.
Apart from talk about jobs and the recession, customers are all raving about the BOGOF (Buy One, Get One Free) deals in the store. And Sainsbury’s have definitely got their finger on the pulse because next Saturday is ‘Make the Difference’ day. The focus will be on promoting the Basics range. At executive level they claim that more groceries and frozen items are expected to sell as customers start cooking from scratch and spending their cash on cheaper items.
I haven’t seen Rebecca for a week and am itching to tell her about my shift change. Just as we are chatting, Michelle nips in beside me. As soon as I see her, I know there’s trouble on the horizon—she’s planning to pin me down. First she tells us about her recent failed assessment. Richard has told her she needs to talk to customers a lot more and he’s not pleased. She tells us it’s not easy or natural for her to make small talk. Rebecca agrees.
‘Do you know what? I’m going to carry out my own poll and ask customers if they would like to engage in chat with me.’
‘Yes, you must—and then release the results of this meticulous empirical research to Justin King. I’m sure he’ll take heed.’
We are still chuckling about this when Michelle suddenly asks me, ‘So, have you changed your shifts?’
I turn to look at her. She has caught me off guard, but I have no intention of lying.
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Oh,’ she tries to say casually, ‘what to?’
‘Fridays and Saturdays.’
‘Two days! That’s what I need. Is it because of your kids?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what I need to do. I miss my girls too much and they’re too little.’
‘Well…well, he…he didn’t agree to it straight away…You know, he…he thought about it for a while…’ I trail off.
‘You know, I’m going to ask him again. No, no, I’m going to wait until I’m in his good books, and then ask him.’
I am officially teacher’s pet. Rebecca and I exchange a knowing look and I scarper as quickly as I can. It’s about minus three degrees outside and I feel for my friend having to take two buses to get home in this cold.
As I drive to pick my children up from my mother’s place I listen to Radio 4. The author Mike Gayle is talking about his new book The To-Do List. One of his resolutions is to talk to checkout girls more.
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Two weeks into the New Year and I promise myself a new me. Researching and reading about this downturn every day and listening to other people’s financial fretting for the past few months has started to grind me down. I’ve found myself getting fanatical about my own money matters, so for the sake of my sanity I need a new outlook.
With only minutes to go before my shift, I race into the canteen to grab some water and stumble head first into an enormous article stuck on a whiteboard by the entrance. It’s the Evening Standard heralding Sainsbury’s recent success. My thoughts are lingering on my parched throat and the tick-tock of the clock counting down to the start of my shift, but I stop to skim read the article.
A voice behind me interrupts:
‘If you’re thinking we’re going to get the bonus—we won’t, you know.’
I turn to see a Cog I don’t know too well.
‘Oh no, it wasn’t the bonus…I was just interested in how…’
‘Come on, it’s the bonus you’re after, it’s all right. But you aren’t going to get it, you know. We just don’t.’
‘I thought we all got the bonus?’
‘Well, we do, but it is not much for the hours we put in.’
She turns to the Cog she’s with. ‘It’s how it is, isn’t it? We do all the hard work and THEY get the glory.’
Down at the checkouts, there’s no ignoring the doom and gloom; redundancy tales abound. When I sit down, the Cog behind me is listening as earnestly as she can feign to a customer who’s fretting about her daughter’s recent job loss and lack of success in finding a new job.
My first customer today is a friendly woman in her twenties with cute cropped hair like Demi Moore circa the Ghost years. She works at a recruitment agency.
‘The agency has just cut half the people who work there because it’s gone so very quiet. It used to be busy and bustling with people coming in and out, but now…’ She stops packing for a second to emphasise. ‘It’s just strangely quiet.’ She resu
mes packing. ‘So, muggins here has picked up the workload of four people, can you believe?’
‘That must be pretty stressful,’ I say, scanning, sliding and listening intently.
‘Definitely. And the mood is so depressing. We’re supposed to be recruiting—but there are no jobs out there to recruit for.’ Not far behind her is an extraordinarily tall man with lots of his own plastic bags and a stomach so big I’m sure he’s hidden a dozen or more in there. He used to work for the Royal Mail but he’s bored stiff after taking early retirement in April last year.
‘Now I’m starting to go out of my mind with the routine of not doing anything. I’d really have liked to go back and work— even to pick up just a little bit of work. But what work? There is NO work.’
OK so I’m not going to escape the economic drudgery, I’ve just got to keep it at a psychological arm’s length.
It’s a Thursday so there are plenty of retirees like my mail man in the store. Weekdays at the supermarket are for the elderly (very old), the mid-elderly (old but somewhat sane) and the stay-at-homers (mums, the unemployed and, more recently, the redundant). They’ve all got one thing in common—they’re keen to beat the weekend rush. With the elderly and midelderly there’s a lot of packing for me to help with and my items per minute target is pretty much off target. I have to give them the time to catch up, so I slide, scan and pass at snail’s pace. It suits me though, as I get to chat and listen carefully. A woman with a giant silver cross dangling from her neck tells me she worked at a big high street bank and left last year, taking early retirement.
‘I wish I’d stayed on for severance pay as I may have been cut anyway, with the culling that took place after I’d gone. It was bloody though, I hear.’
‘Well, at least you’re getting some time off. It must be good to slow down.’ I say trying to sound positive.
‘Hmm,’ she says, packing distractedly. ‘It’s just boring, you know. I’ve been off for a few months and I think I’m ready to do something else. It’s just that, at my age…who’s going to give me a job?’ She’s a young-looking fifty-eight-year-old and I tell her that she ought to find something soon.
‘Well, I kind of have already,’ she says, suddenly brightening. ‘There’s going to be a new Holland and Barrett up my local high street and they’ve promised me a job.’
‘That’s great! See? All is not lost.’
‘Yes, but the only thing is, it was supposed to open in September and it still hasn’t.’ As we talk, it starts to dawn on her that with things being as they are it may never open at all.
Housewives flood into the supermarket on weekdays. They are my favourite breed of customer as they’ve perfected the art of small talk in ways I can only admire from the creaking discomfort of my checkout chair. They stand by my till day after day, hour after hour, opining and ruminating about the sun, the moon, the stars, and then by equal measure politics, the populace and the price of food. And if you listen carefully they often have practical solutions to problems that the great and the good of this country are currently struggling with. All this while being the linchpins of family life. They are, and I say this sincerely, a fascinating and remarkable bunch.
Dear Gordon Brown,
With every passing year I’ve found myself becoming more of a girl’s girl, so now seems as good a time as any to tell you about my people. These creatures, women in their twenties, thirties, forties and menopausal years, rush to my till day after day—in all shapes and sizes. At first I only half listened to them, my other uninterested ear concentrating on the rhythmic beep of my scanner. If you could hear them talk as I often do, you wouldn’t abandon them to the pitiful confines of daytime television, supermarket dwelling and the odd un-gratifying hobby (read: gardening, kids, cooking and interiors), but realise that as a demographic they are under-utilised resource of our time. I hear that you are somewhat occupied with a little economic crisis, but perhaps you could find a way of tapping into them? We may all be better off if you did.
Yours,
A. Cog
One such person makes her way to my till today. A mortgage broker turned housewife. ‘The mortgage market is dead,’ she declares soon after I instigate conversation about house prices. ‘My husband is still working in the same industry, but lending mortgages in the public sector for key workers, civil servants, police, who can all borrow at zero per cent interest. That market is still very much alive and well. The rest of it is dead. Dead as…’ she looks at the packet of beef steak I’m about to scan ‘…dead as this piece of cow in front of us.’
‘So when would be good to buy again then?’ I ask, passing the dead cow over.
‘Two years. Don’t buy now, and don’t tell anyone you know to buy now. Wait. Because prices are going to fall so low it’ll make your nose bleed.’ She leans forward and whispers, ‘By more than 30 per cent.’
‘WHAT? As much as that?’
‘Oh, definitely. And if anyone you know is going to buy, tell them only to go for it if they can get 30-40 per cent knocked off, otherwise it’s not worth it.’
She says this with such conviction I’m too intimidated to argue with her. And despite my promise to myself, I’m frightened witless by her statistics. It would bring my own home down to almost the price I paid for it seven years ago. And it goes against what we’re being told will happen. Reports say we are almost at rock bottom so by the end of the year the only way is up. How can she be right?
If the mortgage prophet isn’t terrifying enough, there are others to help fuel the Dread Factor. Take the carpenter. He tells me that, while he is still getting work, he’s no longer getting the big jobs.
‘It’s just little jobs here and there. No one wants to spend big money on renovating at the moment. So I’m just doing repairs and shelves and things. And if I’m really lucky, the odd kitchen-cupboard door.’ He winks. Despite his jesting and upbeat manner, I sense a marked pessimism in his words and not least in his choice of groceries; everything he buys is reduced.
As the afternoon passes, the mood gets gloomier. Shoppers today are subdued and, when they talk, they grumble. One customer complains that as a regular shopper she’s noticed our food prices have all gone up. She tells me that she also shops at Tesco and finds it much cheaper there.
‘I do prefer the food here, but I’m starting to find it very expensive to shop in here.’
Thankfully, elderly shoppers who’ve lived through more recessions than I’ve scanned fair-trade bananas don’t want to talk about money. They buy their favourite rich tea biscuits, fruit loaves and Red Label tea and smile politely at my faux American attempts to ask ‘How are you, today?’ True, many are half deaf, but often they are unexpectedly lucid. Some of the best repartee I’ve had has been with a customer in their seventies commenting, usually, on my hopelessly disingenuous customer service style. However, I’m starting to realise how elderly shoppers are increasingly being crippled by the demands of the modern supermarket. They come in during the week and avoid the weekends for fear of being trampled by the rush. I don’t blame them, only the brave and foolhardy set foot into a supermarket on the weekend.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Fatima is at the customer service desk. She has a permanent spring in her step and is the polar opposite of Clare. She’s been here for six years and has a cosy-big-sister-appeal about her. She took me under her wing within a few weeks of my starting here and pulls me into a bear hug every time I see her. I don’t know how she keeps up her all-singing, all-dancing, love-to-serve-you act throughout her shift, and it’s exhausting to watch. I think I’m just jealous. She was made for customer service and floats through customers’ demands as if they were offering her deluxe spa days out rather than a dressing down for damaged items or receipts that show they’ve been charged for items they haven’t bought. She is the sunniest personality in this place and I stop to talk to her as often as I can in the hope that some of her eternal optimism will rub off on me.
‘Hey—how are
you?’
‘I’m really well. Happy to be here. Lal, la-la lah-la…’
She is so off the wall that it makes me laugh.
‘What are you doing on the customer service desk?’
‘They’ve just trained me up and I’m here doing me thing. Lal, la-la lah-la…’
‘I know you’re not madly keen on checkouts, but this can’t be fun either?’
‘Y’know, it’s all right. Not too bad at all. Can’t complain. Lal, la-la, lah-la…’
‘Come on—it’s all right! How can it be all right if all people are doing is moaning?’
‘It’s fine, honestly. People aren’t as grumpy as you think. Lal, la-la, lah-la…’
Hmmm. I doubt that, somehow. As I wave goodbye and walk past the cold-food aisles, I can still hear her singing.
Betty is in charge when I start my shift. Unfortunately I have to call her over within a few minutes of starting to serve. The customer at my till forgot to pick up some jam and wants someone to get it for her. So I press the supervisor’s button and watch as she strides over. I smother a snigger as the waiting customer watching Betty approach remarks to her husband in a hushed voice, ‘Blimey, look at the face on her!’ When I ask for the jam, Betty looks as if I’d just asked her to wipe my nose. She is, however, a true professional and hurries back with the item in less than a minute.
Betty may have to up her game though, because there is new blood on the shop floor. Hayley is a definite high-flier in the making and has the personal skills to match. During my tenminute conversation I can see she won’t be a supervisor for long; she has a manager’s room with her name on it in her sights. She’s thirty years old with long curly black hair tied back sensibly in a bun and thick black-rimmed glasses that sit just below the crook of her nose, and she has a truly likeable, down-to-earth way about her. Within a minute of talking to her I can tell she has an old head on young shoulders; as good an egg as the organic ones in the far corner of the store. We exchange a few niceties, talk about the store and people-watching, and share some personal anecdotes about our family lives. She then gives me my coupon and voucher training. Apparently we Cogs have been accepting too many inaccurate ones and it’s led to a shortfall in the tills.