The Checkout Girl

by Tazeen Ahmad

  ‘I’ve stopped going out for dinner and to bars and to the cinema. And I’ve started cooking from scratch. And do you know how much I saved this month? About £400 in total,’ she declares proudly. That’s an impressive amount, but I wonder what she does for fun.

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t need to worry about my job because I’m a key-worker and we’re not affected by downturns.’

  ‘So that’s a good recession-proof job then?’

  ‘Oh, definitely, and during recessions or when people lose their jobs they start training to be teachers. The only thing is, all these people who are in training now will be looking for a job in a year—they don’t know what they are in for. There’s going to be so much competition, they’re going to struggle to get a job.’

  Around two hours into my shift along comes a man with a lot of potatoes.

  So I say, ‘That’s a lot of potatoes.’

  He says, ‘Well, that’s not surprising, there are eight of us.’

  ‘Eight of you?’ I gasp.

  ‘Six kids, of whom five are boys; the eldest is seventeen and the last one is a two-year-old girl.’

  I stop scanning and look him directly in the eye.

  ‘Don’t tell me you kept going in the hope that you’d get a girl?’

  ‘It’s funny you say that, because that’s exactly what we did.’

  ‘And now you’ve the same size brood as Brangelina, minus the team of nannies and the billion-dollar fortune.’

  He laughs and starts packing his bags. ‘You don’t need a team of nannies to make it work, trust me.’

  ‘So what’s the secret then?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, I work night-shifts and my wife does day-shifts and we’ve never had need to pay for a child-minder.’

  ‘And I guess neither of you ever sleeps.’

  He laughs again. ‘That sounds about right.’

  Nevertheless, he seems like a very happy sleep-deprived dad of six. He takes his 30 kilos of potatoes and hobbles out.

  In supermarket world, the cheery are often followed close behind by the cheerless; heart-warming stories are followed by heart-rending ones.

  A man in his sixties comes to my till. Thick-rimmed black glasses sit on his weather-worn face and he’s wearing a bright blue cagoule. I ask how he is.

  ‘You don’t want to know how I am.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Well…my wife is sick and I spend all my days looking after her,’ he blurts out. ‘And it’s the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’ve had a shit day today and all I want to do is go and hide under a rock, but I’ve got to get food so here I am doing my bleeding shopping. That’s how my day has been.’

  It’s not fitting to say anything, so I say nothing. Besides, I’m totally out of my depth and he’s on a roll.

  ‘Do you know I’ve worked for years, and that job was a piece of piss by comparison, I tell you! And the worst bit is that the love of my life doesn’t even know that I’m there most days.’

  This is the exact reason why checkout girls should not, under any circumstances, ask customers how they are.

  ‘And do you know how much I get for looking after her week after week, month after month?’

  I shake my head, but I know it’s not going to be pretty.

  ‘A paltry fifty quid. Fifty quid to not go to work any more. Fifty quid to stay at home and lose every semblance of my former life. Fifty quid to not have anyone to talk to. Fifty quid because I love her and if I don’t look after her then who will?’

  I’ve scanned all his shopping but there is, unfortunately, no one behind him.

  ‘Then the other day my mate who works in a post office tells me that a woman with two kids who couldn’t speak a word of English picks up fifteen hundred quid every fortnight—fifteen hundred! I’ve given this country a million pounds in my lifetime in taxes and all I get is fifty quid. And these Romanians and Polish people who have been here just a couple of years get that much more. I mean, I don’t blame them, I blame the system…’

  And then to my utter horror his voice starts to break and he wells up.

  ‘…it’s just very hard to deal with. I don’t understand it.’ And there it is—a tear slipping down his crumpled right cheek.

  I know I have to say something, anything. There is, after all, a grown man crying at my till.

  ‘Oh dear, you are having a bad day.’

  It’s feeble, I know, but in the circumstances it’s the best I can offer.

  ‘Well, you asked, so I told you.’ He picks up his shopping and without a further word walks towards the exit.

  Out of sheer terror I don’t talk to the next three customers I serve.

  Soon a train driver with job cuts on his mind comes to my till. He drives overground trains.

  ‘The recession won’t affect me because they always need drivers and people always need to get from A to B. But you should see the cuts they are making at a number of over-ground stations out of King’s Cross.’ ‘They’re just getting rid of ground staff, it’s been ruthless. And the thing is, we’re being told it’s because of the recession, but I reckon that was always the big plan for the company that bought Thameslink.’

  Not far behind the train driver is a woman in her fifties with no such recession woes. Dressed in a fleece and jodhpurs, her freshly highlighted blonde hair is tied back neatly in a ponytail. She’s just about to drive to a local riding school where she will pat her horse on the back and take him out for a ride. She tells me that she came in here because she can’t bear to stop off at the Tesco closer to the school as ‘it’s full of riff-raff. There’s a much better clientele in here.’ After she leaves, Katherine, who is sitting with me at the baskets, does a marvellous impression of her.

  It’s so quiet today we’ve been gossiping and giggling most of the afternoon. Against my better judgement I take a stick of gum she offers that comes with a warning: ‘Just don’t chew it when a customer or manager is close by.’ I take it cautiously, because we’ve been told it’s rude to chew. But if it’s good enough for the supervisors, it’s good enough for me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them all munching sweets. Both Sonia and I are chomping away happily when a manager pushing a trolley passes by.

  ‘You two—with gum in your mouth. Take it out and put it in the bin, please. Now.’ Our faces flush and we mutter threats at Katherine as we throw the gum away. My metamorphosis into a Cog is complete.

  There is a brief flurry of confused activity when a supervisor comes over asking if we had seen Fatima cash up. Her shift ended a couple of hours ago, but they can’t find her cash. Usually at the end of our shifts we empty our tills, pop the money in a canister and send the money up to the office. Her canister is missing. Sonia and Katherine tell Samantha they are sure they saw her put the money away.

  As usual during my shift, Betty is on. She comes over to talk to Katherine and blanks me completely. After she leaves Katherine and I exchange notes on her. She tells me Betty is pleasant with her because she’s friends with Katherine’s neighbour. But Katherine is no fool. ‘I know what she’s really like. Why be nice to me just because you’re friends with my neighbour? Why not just because I’m a nice person?’

  A few minutes before the end of my shift I see Susie talking to a young student called Grace a few tills down. From where I’m sitting I can tell she’s just had an assessment. She looks crestfallen by the time Susie has left. When it’s time for me to go home, I pick up some milk and take it to her till.

  ‘Hi—how are you?’ I ask brightly.

  ‘I’m OK…I had observation today.’

  ‘Oh, really? How did it go?’

  ‘Not well at all. Susie was nice about it but, you know, I wasn’t very good.’

  ‘Why? What were you not doing?’

  ‘Apparently I look down too much and I’m not talking to customers enough. But I…I…just don’t know what to say to them.’

  Grace is seventeen, almost six foot t
all with large hazel-coloured eyes and long eyelashes that she tries to hide behind. She’s gorgeous, but really uncomfortable in her own skin. I’ve developed a soft spot for her because I remember too well what it’s like to be a gauche teenager—the painful self-consciousness and crippling shyness. The refined small talk we’re expected to initiate day in, day out requires the kind of skills that a tongue-tied teenager is a long way from developing. And she has not yet grown the layer of thick-skin required to bounce off the inevitable rejection that comes from customers in no mood to chat. Coming of age is excruciating enough—let alone before a stream of obtuse customers unmoved by a young Cog’s best attempts to appear urbane.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, OK? Just chat when you can think of something to talk about.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she says distractedly, not looking at all comforted by my words.

  Saturday, 24 January 2009

  Reports on the radio this morning say that it’s no longer a recession but a 1930s-style depression. It will be 2010 or 2011 before things start to look better and the economy starts to grow again. The more I learn about this recession, the worse I feel. Thankfully there’s no evidence of this dismal news in the store and it is a wonderful escape from the melancholy of the outside world. There is a tangible upbeat atmosphere in the air, and to top it all my favourite family stop by on their way out to say a quick hello.

  Rebecca comes to my till and is up to her usual tricks. ‘Excuse me, madam, I’m assessing this young lady and wondered if you could tell me what you think of her service?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ says the startled customer, ‘she’s very good.’

  We collapse into a heap of prepubescent giggles. It doesn’t take much to amuse a Cog in a place like this. I do, though, appreciate the fact that the general public is always benevolent enough to respond in the affirmative, regardless of how poor or imperfect my service has been that day.

  Not for the first time, a customer asks me if they can take someone else’s Nectar points. I’ve become increasingly hopeless at dealing with this so turn to Tracey behind me and ask her.

  ‘Tracey, she hasn’t got a card and the customer behind her wants me to put her points on her card—can I scan it?’

  ‘You can do it. Just as long as you are not the one to suggest it. If one customer asks the other—just do it.’

  ‘But we were told in training not to do it.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t do it then they’ll start getting cross with you. It’s not worth it. Just don’t ever suggest it yourself, but if they offer each other—it’s nothing to do with you—just do it.’

  I tell her about a customer I served last week and how I banged on about a rule being a rule.

  ‘I know…it was pretty sad of me. Apparently some other checkout girl had done it, she said, so why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘That was probably me,’ laughs Tracey.

  My next customer is full of the joys of spring.

  ‘Ah,’ I say, picking up the birthday card to scan, ‘someone’s turning eighteen—that’s a great age, isn’t it?’

  A perfunctory smile.

  ‘The weather has been improving, although it’s still very cold, isn’t it?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Oh, these are lovely,’ I say about the Petits Filous on the belt. ‘One is never enough, is it?’

  Silence.

  ‘I never know how to peel a butternut squash, you’re left with arm ache at the end, aren’t you?’ I say, scanning, sliding and passing the offending butternut squash. I cut my losses. She hands me her Sainsbury’s staff discount card and the sound of pennies dropping clangs inside my head. She knows the drill—and can’t be bothered. Last week I was in her sensible black shoes. I was running late for my shift but I wanted to get some of my shopping done first. The Cog who served me didn’t know I worked there and so on she went, on and on. First it was, ‘Aw, do you have a kitty cat?’ prompted by my cat litter, then ‘I like this bread too.’ And then, ‘Skimmed milk is so much better than full fat, isn’t it?’ and ‘Always better to buy recycled toilet paper than any other,’ and so on. I wanted to tell her to shut up and get on with the scanning, but didn’t. Quickly, quickly, quickly, I had the urge to tell her, but didn’t. Instead I blanked her numerous pitiful attempts at checkout idle chatter. It’s faintly ridiculous—one Cog unknowingly chatting up another.

  I ask one man about his plans for the weekend.

  ‘No plans, no fun. This is my bill-paying weekend when I pay penance for all the fun I’ve had this week. It’s time to deal with the mortgage and shopping bills. It’s also time to remind my family that we are in a recession.’

  Another couple tell me about their nineteen-year-old son who works in the warehouse at Sainsbury’s. He’s training to be an electrician and desperately needs an apprenticeship. ‘There is nothing to be found, which is worrying. But there is one piece of good news about the recession: at least now is a good time to be training,’ says Dad.

  Other customers, especially older men, have a little of the war-time spirit in them. ‘Even if we are talking a depression like the thirties, let’s not forget they survived it—so will we.’

  ‘There needs to be a correction. There is day and there is night, ups and then downs. If we didn’t have this recession I hate to think where we’d end up a few more years down the road.’

  ‘I’m not worried about it. I’ve seen a couple of recessions and eventually we all get through it. There’s a lot of hysteria about. What’s the worst that can happen? We’ll all tighten our belts for a while. We need to do that anyway—we’ve got too used to spending too freely.’

  With only minutes to go till the end-of-shift o’clock, I’m doing some reverse shopping and notice that every Cog on every till is talking to their customer—even Michelle is so engrossed in chat that she barely notices me when I pick up leftovers dumped at her till. On my way out I’ve filled my basket with milk, bread and eggs when we bump into each other in the dairy aisle. She cracks a joke about the fact that we are both shopping.

  ‘So have you heard yet—are you staying on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you staying here past your twelve weeks?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so.’

  ‘You know, after your probationary period—have you passed?’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ It’s probation talk again. ‘Well, I’m not sure if it is twelve weeks yet. But I guess I am staying on or they would have said something. What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know, no one has said anything yet. I think so. I hope so.’

  It’s fair to say she has a pretty complex relationship with this job. On the one hand she loathes it with a passion as it keeps her from her kids. On the other, she’s desperate to stay on and lives in fear of not being kept on.

  I give Rebecca a lift home and we gossip about the other girls. She has been working every day this week and looks exhausted. When she’s not here she is either studying or working in her other job, and I give her some advice on asking for a change in shifts. Despite being as burnt out as she is, she’s worried that she hasn’t had an observation yet, which she thinks translates into bad news. Much as we mock the work we do, she’s as worried as the next person about being out of work. It is hardly surprising, since up to three million people are expected to be unemployed in the UK by the end of 2009. Almost half will be under the age of twenty-five. Average student debt upon graduation is now almost £20,000. University graduates are going to be hit hard by the financial crisis. That’s roughly half of my colleagues at the supermarket walking away with huge debts and few job prospects.

  Friday, 30 January 2009

  On the radio on my way in, the headlines focus on the protests in France about President Sarkozy’s handling of the recession and my first customer stands on his soap box for five minutes lamenting the state our country is in. I smile politely but say nothing.

  ‘But do you know why people—voters, I tell you—are really angry? This government saved th
ose who wear bowler hats, not those with hard hats. And that’s why, despite the fact that I’ve voted Labour all my life, next time they won’t be getting my vote.’ He’s still going when I start serving the next customer. Even though I’m now sorry I asked, raw anger like his is not uncommon. When he finally leaves, I resolve not to stoke any more fires and don’t talk about the recession again for a full hour.

  During a moment of peace at my till, there is high drama at the customer service desk. Molly has burst into a flood of tears. She’s in her early forties, originally from Italy and tough as old boots—and a permanent fixture at the customer service desk. A few of the supervisors have gathered around to comfort her. Someone pressed the panic alarm and all the managers are at the front of the store. I have no idea what has happened, but from where I’m sitting it looks terribly exciting.

  In the shopping baskets today are home dye kits galore. People are now choosing to lean over their own bathtubs, staining their hair various shades of strawberry blonde, deep mahogany and magpie black rather than go to the hairdresser’s. ‘When you can pay a few quid for DIY hair, why spend £90 at the hairdresser’s?’ says one customer with hair so brittle it looks like it may disintegrate any second.

  I’m serving an attractive woman in her thirties. She tells me she’s recently divorced but has a six-year-old and seven-year-old to keep her ‘cheery’. She’s struggling with her newfound status, but is trying to keep positive for the sake of the kids. Suddenly a ‘friend’ rushes over from another till to say hello.

  ‘Hi, Colette, how are you?’ Her eyes are so wide with conspicuous insincere sympathy, I find myself almost retching.

  ‘I’m fine, Margaret,’ says my dignified divorcee. ‘Can’t complain. The kids are good too.’ She’s packing intensely to avoid dear Margaret’s unblinking stare.

  ‘Yes, yes, you look really well. We’re all so proud of you,’ says Margaret, not looking too proud at all. The searching intensity of her stare suggests she’s looking for a little crack in Colette’s regal display of strength.