by Tazeen Ahmad
‘You get this training now, and then if you still make mistakes be it on your own head.’ I listen carefully, because customers, I’ve now learnt, will do anything to save money and often hand over out-of-date vouchers and coupons for things they haven’t bought.
As we are chatting, a Hijab-totting customer with a loud voice comes over and asks if we’ve seen a dummy lying anywhere. Hayley looks at her as if she’s crazed. The customer explains it belongs to her baby who’s sitting in a pushchair a couple of yards away. I tell her we haven’t seen it and after she goes Hayley says:
‘You do get some characters in here—it’s so multicultural. It can be a bit strange sometimes, can’t it?’ She looks at me and can see I’m listening carefully, so she adds hurriedly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I do really like it.’ I get the feeling she may have wanted to say more but decided against it. Nobody’s perfect.
I’m deep in my robotic routine when another Cog stops at my till to give me the lowdown on the latest MCM visit. Our mystery friend pounced on us last Saturday apparently, and we failed on the checkouts.
‘So the person on the checkout didn’t smile or make conversation.’
‘Right.’
‘So you can’t do that. You’ve got to be smiley and chatty.’
‘Right.’
‘Because what you did was you just passed the stuff through and didn’t smile or chat.’
‘Right.’ But it wasn’t me.
‘It’s not enough to just say hello and goodbye. You’ve got to do more.’
It wasn’t me…
‘Because if you don’t do it, it’s not good customer service.’
Does she think it was me?
‘You know, you’ve got to chat, ask them about their shopping…’
‘Right. So did THAT person not do more?’
‘Yes, you just went…’ She then does an impression of a bored checkout girl scanning and sliding.
It certainly looks like me.
‘Well…I mean…not you exactly…’ she finally corrects herself. ‘The person just did that.’
‘So she was kind of going through the motions?’
‘Exactly. So you know what I mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. OK, so don’t do that then, yeah?’
‘Right…OK.’
She then turns to the Cog behind me and has exactly the same conversation with her.
After this morale-boosting chat, I continue to serve my customers with as much sincere small talk as I can conjure up. Happily, most of my customers are in fine spirits. One regular, who has actually started skipping in and out of the store, is back again. He was living next door to noisy neighbours for the best part of a year; he finally called it a day and moved out about three months ago. The peace of mind it has given him was well worth the huge rent he has taken on—and explains why he’s always bouncing around like Tigger on speed.
‘How’s the flat?’ I ask him.
‘Oh, it’s great. Thanks for remembering.’ He grins broadly. ‘So wonderfully peaceful. I’ve been sleeping like a baby.’
‘I guess that explains the spring in your step.’
His bill comes to £6.66. It’s so tempting, but I fight the urge to blurt out one of my bad jokes. The number game has thus far only entertained me and falls flat with most customers I’ve had the poor judgement to thrust it on.
He digs into his wallet and says, ‘I’m not the devil, you know.’
‘Hooray!’ I squeal. ‘You speak the forbidden language!’
Like two over-grown primary school drop-outs who’ve just discovered basic maths, we start reciting all the two-, three- and four-digit numbers we can think of with any modern-day symbolism.
Catch-22 (me), 69 (him—he is a bloke, after all), 7.07, 7.47, 9.99, 9.11, 20.12, 19 followed by any two digits, he’s a history buff so has lots of four-digit facts that start with 17 and 18. On and on and on we go until our little number party is interrupted by a rather bewildered customer.
When I head back to the locker room at the end of my shift, there are grumblings echoing up and down the stairs about the mystery customer results. Other Cogs clocking out are not amused.
‘We all work so hard, no one is that robotic.’
‘What does the mystery customer want, blood?’
‘It’s unfair, and now we’re going to be watched closely again…’
And so on. Connor, one of the very few checkout guys, shares his gripe with me.
‘What are we supposed to do? People don’t want to talk.’
Checkout guys are mostly young students aged between sixteen and twenty-three who have not yet mastered the art of fine conversation—particularly not with the full range of customers we are required to serve. Even the girls in this category struggle, and it’s an unfair expectation. I didn’t realise how much one has to finesse one’s dinner-table conversation for it to be plausible and have an iota of sincerity—and then to have to tailor it to suit each customer—it’s a huge task. Rebecca tells me one young Cog who sat behind her last week asked every customer who passed through her checkout where they go for a night out. ‘That was basically her idea of good small talk. She was even asking old people.’
Saturday, 17 January 2009
Down at the till captains’ post, Michelle is telling Susie that she’s feeling poorly. Susie is sympathetic and says she can go home if she’s not up to it—which, by my reckoning, is very reasonable. I’m not convinced that Michelle really is unwell because as she turns a corner away from Susie, she glances back at me as if seeking assurance that she has pulled it off. She doesn’t want to be here—and it’s becoming quite obvious. I don’t think she’s going to last.
It’s so busy today, I can hardly breathe. Shrieking tots accompanied by over-wrought parents, disapproving couples in their fifties and sixties muttering to each other about toddler tantrums, and highly strung male shoppers gather at the basket tills. In every aisle there are trolleys so full that food is tumbling down the side.
Every customer has their own theory about why the place is heaving.
‘People have just discovered they’ve got more money than they thought they had now that the expense of Christmas is over.’
Another says: ‘It’s because people are not eating out or having takeaways as frequently, so they’re spending more money on eating in—and they’re cooking! Makes sense, doesn’t it?’
Yes it does. But even eating in is costly. A young couple having French onion soup and lamb burgers for dinner have bought soufflé for dessert. They also buy other food that needs to be cooked from fresh. They end up spending £157.40.
The word of the day is ‘Basics’. Basics range, Basics vouchers—and customers are being told about it (by the likes of me) and encouraged to buy it (by Cogs handing out coupons). It’s cheap and cheerful but, according to Sainsbury’s, still ‘sourced with integrity’, and it’s selling. One twenty-something young man who is nifty in the kitchen is buying basic lamb mince. He gives me his recipe for simple burgers which he swears smell so good that they will ‘make your mouth water till you beg for mercy’.
Mix the meat with a touch of mustard, finely chopped onions, chopped peppers, a handful of oats and your own preferred seasoning. Finally a bit of salt and pepper, roll, flatten and fry. Within ten minutes, I promise you perfect burgers.
It’s not all good food and good cheer though. A Royal Mail employee comes to my checkout today. He’s distraught that there are cuts on the horizon.
‘They want one person to do several jobs.’
‘That’s just the way it seems to be now, doesn’t it?’ I say, not unsympathetically.
‘That doesn’t make it right though, does it?’ he snaps.
‘No, no, of course not.’ He’s misread me, but no matter, I’m long accustomed to misunderstandings at my till. A sixty-second conversation that attempts to delve too deep will drip with misinterpretations, and in any case I’ve become an expert at apologising and back-trackin
g.
One customer comes in especially to buy something from the Tchibo range ‘before it becomes history’. Tchibo’s demise has been well reported in the papers; it’s a German coffee brand that sells coffee as well as other consumer goods. It’s now scaling back business in Britain due to the recession and its presence in supermarkets will be gone this year. The Tchibo range has always struck me as a bizarre one—it’s the come-to-life version of the mini catalogues slipped inside the Sunday papers that offer a wide range of seemingly useful goods that you think you need but will, inevitably, never use.
Customers today repeatedly offer big apologies for forgetting their bags and it’s starting to get boring.
Dear Customer,
I know that you feel pretty lousy about forgetting to bring back one of the dozens of bags you’ve got sitting in some cupboard in the kitchen. But honestly, stop apologising. It may surprise you to hear that it makes no difference to me. Ultimately it’s between you and your conscience. Save the world for your kids currently standing at the till yelling, or leave it to rot—it’s your choice.
If it was up to me I’d just leave the bags on the till until you get your act together. But for those of you who forget bags in the car there is no excuse—if you really cared you’d just leave your shopping with one of the numerous happy-to-help Cogs in the store and nip back to the car.
One of my customers told me that in Ireland they have the same ruthless bag policy as M&S—if you forget, you pay. So stop making excuses and offering annoying over-the-top apologies. Just politely ask for a bag. We don’t need to talk about it.
Yours,
A. Cog
I have two Romany customers today who give me a hard time. But when the spectators behind try to support me, the check-out-chair socialist in me shushes them gently. The two women with minimal English spend a long time at the till. First they dispute who will pay. This takes a while to resolve. Then they decide to pay for their shopping separately. Next they accidentally muddle the shopping so the nappies, carrot soup and apples end up in the wrong person’s shop and then they blame me for it. I sort out their illogical mess with a bit of voiding on the till screen and rearranging on the belt. Waiting customers are not impressed. Then to reward me for my patience both women start to argue with me about the number of Nectar points they have left. Contrary to what many customers think, Cogs have no control over this and can only go with what the screen and the receipt say. I try to explain this to them but they look at me simultaneously perplexed and hostile. This goes on for a minute or two.
‘Look, she can’t do anything about it so will you just get your shopping and go?’ interrupts a woman from the back of the queue. Under normal circumstances I’d be begging for this kind of help, but I feel for how the language barrier has rendered these women incapable of querying a simple point. I turn to the woman in the queue and say, ‘It’s all right, I can handle it.’ I turn back to the women and point to the customer service desk. ‘Take it there and let them help you. Me? I can’t do anything. OK?’ They shrug their shoulders, pick up their shopping and give the waiting customer a steely stare before wandering off. The waiting customers make politically incorrect observations about them and I resolutely refuse to join in.
Not many tills down, I can see Rebecca and Louisa sitting together at the basket checkouts. Louisa has recently had her hair coloured and it seems to make up the main bulk of their conversation. Studying Rebecca’s face closely, I can see furrows deepening across her brows.
At the end of my shift I go over to say hello. Louisa gets up to take a toilet break and as she leaves she asks Rebecca to touch her newly coloured hair.
‘It feels really light, doesn’t it?’
Rebecca touches it with a conspicuous display of indifference while muttering such an unconvincing ‘yes’ that the customers standing by all laugh. I ask Rebecca how she’s coped sitting next to her all day.
‘It’s OK I guess, until you hear the same story for the hundredth time.’
Now that Richard has sanctioned my shift change Rebecca and I will finish at the same time. I feel deeply indebted to Richard for being so accommodating about my childcare problems. He’s a good manager and manages downwards as well I’m sure as he manages upwards. Of all the people I thought I’d meet in a place like this, I wasn’t expecting my line manager to win me over so convincingly. So I pay it forward and offer to give Rebecca a lift back.
I’m shopping as usual and take it to a till where the Cog serving is a nineteen-year-old university student called Paulo. He gets called on to checkouts whenever they are short-staffed and hates it. Katherine is teasing him. ‘You hate it here because you lose your freedom, don’t you? On the floor you can do anything you want.’
‘No, no, that’s not true.’
‘Yes it is,’ she laughs, taunting him further, ‘and it’s worse because you can’t talk to any of the girls when you’re stuck here.’
‘No, no! Katherine…’ He smiles and starts to blush.
‘Yes, it is—I know what you’re up to…out the back…pretending to work…but just checking out the checkout girls…I know.’
This is excruciating and he is now a deep shade of crimson. It’s like being teased by your mum and so I force her to stop. She’s right, though; this is heaven, if ever there was one, for boys on the make. There are single girls in their teens and early twenties in every nook and cranny in this store; no wonder the boys spend all their time skiving in the back waiting for young Cogs to pass by to flirt with.
As I’m about to walk out of the door I bump into Danielle. She was the first person I met at the store so I have a soft spot for her. We talk about more of my customer service fears and she tells me, ‘I told Richard that you would be great at customer service very soon after I met you.’
‘Oh, right, so you’re to blame.’
‘Come on, girl, it’s not that bad. You’ll be fine. And anyway, you look clever and that’s all that counts. Not that you have to be brain of Britain or anything.’
Friday, 23 January 2009
The government is telling us what those of us on the front line have known for months: we are officially in recession. The economy has shrunk by 1.5 per cent, which means wages will be frozen, unemployment will increase and the variety of shops and shopping experiences we have enjoyed for so long will shrink dramatically. News from my employers states that there’ll be some restructuring at head office and the loss of 200 jobs. But this will translate into an increase in jobs elsewhere in the business by 3-4000 this year alone. Meanwhile I’m being blinded by notices in the canteen and the corridors about our last mystery customer visit and the big fat ‘FAIL’ that we achieved. Our percentage score was 79.5 per cent and we have five more visits to get our average up to 80 per cent and nail the bonus. I’m quite sure I’m not the only one who is struggling to care about the bonus that we may receive.
I’m on baskets and a regular from the car shop across the road pops in during his lunch break.
‘How’s it all going over there?’
‘Not bad, not too bad at all.’
‘Really? I thought the car industry was suffering?’
‘Not us. I mean it is quiet, but there are no cuts and we’re still selling, so nothing to worry about.’
Despite my numerous attempts to make him see the dark side, he plays down any talk of the recession affecting sales.
An office worker who pops in for lunch tells me she’s also becoming obsessive about the recession. ‘I’ve got really scared by it recently. I think I’m listening to the news too much. Do you know that the economist who predicted this recession is saying that it will take one and a half to two years before things get better?’ I see nothing but fear in her big blue eyes.
‘Yes, I heard that too, but another analyst said that this time next year the recession will be looking better. So it just depends on who you listen to, right?’
Behind her a dark-haired woman with a German accent joins in the
discussion. She works at a car-manufacturing company which makes lights for Chrysler and Volvo cars. She says they’ve had huge cuts since October and that more job cuts lie ahead.
‘It’s gone very quiet. I work in sales, and for the time being that’s OK. Touch wood.’
Not long after those two customers have left I serve a chap who works at BT. He tells me that, while it’s as busy as ever where he works, there are huge cuts ahead.
‘They just want more work done by fewer people—same amount of work but having to pay less. There is definitely plenty of work around, but why pay five people to do it when you can pay just the one idiot for it?’
After all the dreary recession tittle-tattle I need some supermarket idle gossip, so I eavesdrop on Sonia and Katherine discussing one of the fruit-and-veg boys.
‘Do you know, right, that I gave him a cuddle. But only…because I felt sorry for him. He seemed very upset about the fact that his granddad was ill, so when he asked I thought, all right then.’
‘You DIDN’T! You idiot. I’m sure he’s just trying it on.’
‘Well, do you know what I saw next? He then asked four other girls to hug him right after I hugged him—and all of them on the stairs by the canteen. Can you believe the cheek of it?’ My eyes widen by the second.
‘Euch. It’s creepy. When he asked me, do you know what I said? I said, “Get away from me! Try that again and I’ll put a complaint in against you,”’ says Katherine.
I admire Katherine’s balls. Sadly, I also fell victim to his get-a-free-grope ploy and complied when he asked. The whole thing has made my stomach churn a little, so I turn my attentions back to my customers. A teacher wants to tell me about how she’s saving a fortune through ‘recession-friendly cuts’ she’s made.