The Checkout Girl

by Tazeen Ahmad

  ‘They don’t need me any more because deliveries are down and the boss is doing it all now.’ Her shop totals almost £100.

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to live on £60 Jobseeker’s Allowance while doing a £120 grocery shop every week. It just doesn’t add up.’ She delves into her purse for her credit card. And then leans forward and whispers: ‘Are there any vacancies here?’

  ‘I don’t know actually. If you have access to the internet, then check there.’

  ‘I’ve been doing that and popping in and out of shops, but there’s just nothing around at the moment. I’m feeling pretty desperate about it all already.’ While she’s praying for a new job, another customer is hoping to lose hers. She’s been working at the Halifax for ten years. ‘Right now, there are no redundancies, but there will be in a year’s time. I’m absolutely desperate for it because, with my bonus, I’d get a nice little pay-off.’

  ‘And what will you do then?’

  ‘I want to go into teaching and mentoring disadvantaged kids—that’s where my heart lies.’

  ‘Well, I can’t imagine I’ll be saying this often, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed you lose your job.’

  One woman shows me the pictures in her paper of people queuing around the corner for jobs at London Zoo. And I get another recipe from an elderly couple who are buying soup ingredients for their Valentine’s dinner:

  Broccoli and Stilton. Fry the onions with celery, sweet potatoes and broccoli. Simmer with several bowls of water with a bag of bouquet garni, vegetable stock and season well. Purée with the melted Stilton cheese.

  Katherine is sitting at the adjacent till and she points to her daughter at the till captain’s post. Keeping it in the family again on the tills. Katherine’s daughter Helen is a sweet-natured, courteous supervisor who always closes tills on time and is never snappy.

  An hour before the end of my shift, Katherine leaves and Edith nips into her place. She’s usually on baskets but has been freed to sit on trolley tills for what she, unsurprisingly, sees as a pleasant change. We catch up between customers and she tells me about her six kids between the ages of one and sixteen. She works here two full days a week and is studying Economics at university. Nicola Horlick has nothing on her. She is the ultimate super-mum.

  Just before the end of my shift I see Michelle. She is in on a day off—again. She pops over with her adorable little girls. She looks happier than the last time I saw her and far younger than her forty-something years. Her shoulder-length blonde hair looks freshly blow-dried and she has on a full face of make-up.

  ‘I never see you any more,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, I was thinking that. Have you been sick?’

  ‘No, maybe it’s because of your hours.’

  That old chestnut again.

  ‘Yes, yes it’s probably that.’

  ‘What hours do you do now?’

  ‘Fridays and Saturdays. Six hours each day.’

  ‘That’s really good. How did you get it again?’

  She no longer disguises her shift-envy.

  ‘I had to change because of my kids—my mother was struggling to look after them.’ Edith joins in. ‘Did Richard change it for you then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, how you finding it?’ asks Michelle.

  ‘It’s OK. But it’s long. Four hours is a quick turnaround, but if you include the travel time and back, the longer shift feels like a full day.’

  ‘Yes,’ they both mutter in agreement.

  ‘There’s no such thing as the perfect shift—it’s just what works for your life,’ says a very sensible Edith.

  Seconds to go before the end of my shift and Betty is the bearer of bad news. ‘I’m not closing your till—relief is on its way,’ she says breezily as she passes by. Huge trolleys are coming my way so I figure if I take my time with the first customer then hopefully relief will be here just as I’m finishing up.

  6.35 there’s still no relief.

  6.40. No relief.

  I look up at 6.43, annoyed and ready to throw down the towel. A closing sign has been slipped in quietly at the end of my till while I wasn’t looking. I’ve been duped—again.

  Rebecca has come in to do some overtime and is wearing a beautiful red dress in aid of Red Nose Day.

  ‘Hey, lady in red, how are you doing?’

  ‘I feel like dog-poo. Not only did I not get a single Valentine’s card but I’ve just got a D on an essay.’

  ‘Well, you look stunning, so if nothing else I’m sure you’ll pull.’ And with that I race out into the car park to get home to my own Valentine.

  Saturday, 14 February 2009

  Richard is handing out the till keys this afternoon while crooning about his Cogs. ‘All my new girls are lovely. They’re all my princesses.’ Only he can pull off a line this cheesy.’

  Among the newer Cogs there is unrest. Rebecca, Magda and Michelle are all talking about the twelve-week probationary period. None of us knows yet if we are being kept on. I’ve figured that no news is good news, but no one’s listening. I think they’re expecting a graduation ceremony and then perhaps a crown of some kind.

  At Grace’s till opposite me two shoppers are arguing over the time that one of them is taking. Grace is in the thick of it.

  ‘Calm down,’ shouts the customer she’s serving. ‘There’s a problem on my receipt and it’s not her fault or mine.’

  ‘Well, just hurry up, will you?’

  Grace looks over her shoulder nervously for a supervisor.

  ‘Can you just calm down so she can sort it out. Just stop shouting,’ hollers the customer that Grace is serving.

  ‘You stop shouting,’ bellows the waiting shopper.

  Supermarket wars rock—they’re the highlight of my day. There is a long wait and then Susie arrives and takes one of the shouting customers away. Grace looks like she’s survived—just about.

  Mums and their kids are in. Some with two and others with three. I read an article today that declared that couples need to opt for recession-friendly family planning. So I gauge opinion.

  ‘Once you’ve got the cost of two, the cost of three is not that much more.’

  ‘I’ve got two boys and I’d love to have a third child. But it’s going to be too expensive during this recession and I can’t afford to be off on maternity leave now.’

  ‘Two is better than three, definitely. The financial cost of two is enough as it is—computer games, DVDs, Nintendos, etc.’

  ‘With just my two kids I get free time to myself. I play tennis, I have coffee and don’t have to worry about money. Spare cash goes on me, not a third little thing crawling around. Although, I have to tell you, if my husband had been up for it I would have gone for it in a heartbeat. But then I see women at the school gates with a third child in the pram and I just feel sorry for them and their bank account.’ She changes her mind so many times, I lose count.

  Hayley sends me on my break a highly considerate three hours in. I bump into Adil and he’s unhappy about his hours. Like all the other students, he doesn’t get enough time to study but needs the money. I tell him to threaten to leave; it may just do the trick. While enjoying a quiet coffee and chocolate bar, I start thinking ahead to when I will leave.

  Dear Supermarket Boss,

  I’ve only been here just over three months but it’s been an eye opener. Your workers are fine people. Can I just make some requests for them based on what I’ve learnt so far?

  1. Get them proper chairs. Hunchback of Notre Dame is not a good look.

  2. Adjust the hours for students so they don’t flunk all their exams and spend the rest of their days here—unless that’s your grand plan.

  3. I don’t care much for bonuses myself, but could you be more generous with them? A couple of extra hundred pounds won’t mean anything to you but would make a world of difference to a Cog.

  4. Your profits are increasing every day. How’s about paying them slightly more than a pitiful £6.30 an hour?
Most of them blow that straight after their shift while doing their shopping in your store anyway, so it makes good business sense; the more money they have, the more they’ll spend in here.

  5. Don’t be so strict on the no-chatting-to-other-colleagues rule. When they are serving a customer, admittedly it’s not on. But when it’s quiet, let them make friends. Otherwise they will curl up and die like the vegetables in the waste crate at the back of your warehouse.

  6. Finally, as soon as their shift ends, send them home. I bet they will reward you with greater loyalty.

  Yours,

  A. Cog

  Just before the end of my shift, Susie offers me overtime, again. I turn it down again. And then Hayley closes my till ten minutes early. I can barely believe it. I LOVE her. Rebecca and I drive home together and we talk D grades, Valentine’s Day dateless-ness, studying, working, mothering. She’s not doing well. On the upside, she’s knocking the competition sideways with her customer service.

  I switch the radio on after she gets out and I’m told that white-collar jobs will face the biggest cuts during this recession—and that this downturn will be deeper and larger than any of us expect.

  Tuesday, 17 February 2009

  It’s my day off, but I pop into my local Sainsbury’s and, after being served at the checkouts by a man in his sixties, I stop by customer service and give his name. She writes it down and I see a star shine just for him. I’m going to start doing this on a regular basis; it’s the least my fellow Cogs deserve.

  Friday, 20 February 2009

  Today’s headlines are too dismal to dwell on: an increase in repossessions and the deputy governor of the Bank of England thinks that we’re headed for a ten-year recession, making it the worst this country has seen for sixty years.

  I pop into the canteen for a quick coffee before my shift and Adam is there, drowning in paperwork. He’s being moved around the store but like any former professional he’s turning the art of the most menial of tasks into a masterpiece. His key aim is to make himself indispensable. Now he’s on newspapers and magazines. He has to make sure they’re on the shelf by the time the shop opens at 7 a.m. Today he has one quibble:

  ‘Like everything at Sainsbury’s, the worst part about the job is the customers. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, to pick up a magazine from one place and dump it at the opposite end, leaving a poor sucker like me to silently scream NOOOOO?’

  Adam is so terrified of losing this job that he’s making himself as flexible as possible—all the positive talk and mock cynicism is a cover-up for the fear of being out of work again. He is too clever to be rearranging pet-lovers’ magazines.

  When I get down to the tills, I’m sent to the baskets. But the fear has faded. I realise that here, time flies. Sitting and chatting with fellow Cogs means that it is never dull. I notice one of the young newbies is being trained up on customer service by Molly, and she looks terrified. Half an hour later she ends her shift and comes to the basket tills with her shopping. I eavesdrop on her conversation with the older Cog serving her.

  ‘How you finding it, love?’

  ‘It’s all right, a bit scary though.’

  ‘Yes, some of the customers can be quite difficult there. They’ll buy a magazine and then bring it back for a refund half an hour later. They’re trying it on, and you’ve got to be quite tough.’

  ‘I can imagine that,’ she says, screwing up her face.

  ‘Don’t let me put you off, though.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ she says unconvincingly, ‘but it’s true I’m sure it’s not the best place to work. And I can tell it can get a bit frantic over there.’

  Within the same hour Molly from customer service pops over during her break.

  ‘How’s it going today?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ve been training people up for customer service, but I just don’t think they’ve put the right kind forward. They’re training them up all wrong. You really have to be the kind of person that can stand up for yourself. And to be honest, they’re not.’ Molly is a tough cookie, but I’ve seen her shed tears a number of times since I’ve been here.

  It’s heaving in the store today and the first two hours of my shift are chaos. Parents are pouring in with their kids and there is nothing but half-term stress and tension in the air; bickering, squabbling, snapping and much wrangling. Every transaction ends with a parent asking me to take something out of the basket because ‘I’ve no idea how that ended up in there. I did say “No”,’ followed by an irritated glance at the child beside them. Other kids are luckier and there is some toy purchasing. One woman buys a toy fitness centre for her daughter and it costs just under a tenner.

  ‘I’m buying it to keep her busy over the next few days. It’ll keep her out of my hair and, let’s face it, it’s dirt cheap. In my day, toys like that cost a small fortune. I suppose that’s why all our homes are bursting at the seams with cheap plastic toys.’

  Hayley comes over with an assessment form for me to fill in with my feedback about working here. I bite the bullet. I complain about absent and broken chairs and having to stay extra minutes at the end of my shift. I also make sure I mention my colleagues’ supportiveness and comment on my growing confidence in handling customers. Being as supremely paranoid as I have now become, I spend the rest of the afternoon convinced that the supervisors are discussing my notes. And I feel grossly unjust to Hayley, who always takes me off early and never needs reminding about my break.

  Katherine starts her shift an hour after me and sits beside me at the checkouts. Her favourite uncle is sick so Richard has given her some time off so she can spend it with him. We have a little rave about Richard, but Katherine is herself a supermarket star. Of all the Cogs that work here—and most of them are pretty good with customers—she is one of the best. She treats every customer like her first, charms the grumbling ones, and is sparkling and animated company no matter how slowly time passes. Across from us on customer service is Liza. She’s a twenty-year-old single mum to a lovely, articulate four-year-old boy. She’s studying graphic design at college, working here a few days a week while raising her little boy. This supermarket is sitting on the shoulders of hundreds of mums, young and old alike. Today I watch her tackle every customer with tact, grace and confidence. It’s hard to believe she’s only twenty.

  I serve a customer working at a car auction site around the corner. ‘If you read the papers, everyone’s going on and on about the car business being dead, but we are busier than ever. Fortunately for all of us, it hasn’t got quiet at all.’ Right behind her is an ex-Morgan Stanley employee. He lost his job a year ago. ‘I’ve got really down about how much time and effort I’ve put into looking for work. But there are thousands, just thousands, applying for a single job. The most depressing thing is you often don’t even hear back from them…You work all your life, pay your taxes, put in your hours, and for what? Nothing.’ He tells me his wife is supporting them both, but it’s a struggle. ‘I’ve decided to stop stressing about it because it was starting to drive me crazy. Now I just keep an eagle eye on what I’m spending.’ His shopping costs him £28.89. The woman behind him is listening in and after he leaves she shares her story.

  ‘I lost my job this time last year too. I tried to see it as a positive thing and started calling it early retirement. But you know, after a year of being out of work, it’s really hard. I can’t bear to call myself unemployed.’

  We’re interrupted by a loud smash behind her. A young man carrying too many groceries in his arms drops two bottles on the floor. There is cider and fabric conditioner all over his suit and a puddle is growing at his feet. The bittersweet smell quickly fills the air. He’s mortified but runs back down the store, half-drenched, to pick up replacements.

  While the mess is being cleaned up, Hayley tells me to go on my break. As I’m heading off, I bump into Lesley. I say a quick hello even though she wants to stop for a chat. I only have twenty minutes for my break and, if I stop to chat to her, I won�
��t have time to eat my lunch. I walk into the locker room and am met by the sight of Betty sprawled on a chair talking to her husband on the phone. They are dissecting their relationship and she continues to do this loudly despite the fact that I can hear every word.

  I wolf down my food—I’m famished because my shift starts just before lunch and I have to wait until the late afternoon to eat. I wonder what the others do on this shift pattern. Richard told me that he prefers to spread the twelve-hour shifts over three days rather than two, and I think it’s because it’s more cost-efficient for them. There are no breaks in a four-hour shift, while those who do it over two six-hour days take a twenty-minute break each day. That means the supermarket loses forty minutes if they spread the hours over only two days. It’s all above board, but seems a little unethical.

  When I return, it’s gone very quiet. So I pick up the green folder with information about Sainsbury’s various initiatives that sits by the basket tills and read about Active School vouchers. Samantha, the Queen-bee of the till captains, passes by and asks me what I’m reading. I show her and she says, ‘OK, but don’t read that if a customer wants serving.’ She passes by again ten minutes later and there are still no customers around. She makes it clear that she’s not impressed that I am still reading it, so I quietly put it back and return to twiddling my thumbs.

  Dear Supervisor,

  Idle hands make light work. That’s why you crack the whip every time it’s quiet at the tills. You don’t want us to sit around on our half-wrecked chairs doing nothing in between serving customers. That’s why you take us off and send us to pick up hangers, security tags, do some reverse shopping and stack a couple of shelves. But look—I’ve tidied the invisible mess around my till. I’ve put some more plastic bags out. I’ve got a cloth and spray and done some dutiful cleaning of the checkout. There is NOTHING left to do. So I’m reading about Sainsbury’s so I don’t look like a total twit next time a customer asks me ‘What kind of equipment can a school buy with these vouchers’ and ‘How long do you run this scheme for?’