by Tazeen Ahmad
‘I’m still worried that the worst may come to the worst, though.’ Despite her concerns, she’s not price-watching and her total comes to over £170.
The Mauritian couple behind her split their shopping. He pays for the alcohol because his wife doesn’t drink.
‘Why should I pay for it?’ she asks.
‘Yes, all right darling,’ he sighs—before turning to me. ‘We men are born to suffer.’
‘Yes, it’s really difficult being a man in a man’s world,’ she retorts.
They tell me they’ve been shopping exclusively at Sainsbury’s for over forty-five years. Habit and good food are the main draw.
A customer wearing a red cardigan from the TU range has been in the shop since 12 p.m. It’s now 2.30. She’s beaten my record last week. ‘Are you kidding me? What on earth have you been doing here for two and a half hours?’
‘I don’t even know,’ she says, blowing a stray strand of hair off her forehead. ‘I feel quite hot and sweaty, now. Your stores are so big—it takes ages to get around. And ever since this bloody recession I’ve been paying more attention to prices, so looking at those takes for ever.’
Every single one of these customers leaves something behind at the till after paying for it because they are so distracted: egg lasagne, a recycling bag, some fresh chicken slices and a Nectar card. Today alongside the multi-packs of mixed peppers, carrots and root vegetables comes the inevitable lone garlic bulb. Why are you alone? I ask it silently. Where I come from, these are bought in multiples. But now four bulbs of garlic are making their way towards me on the belt. And I just know without looking up that the customers buying these are Asian.
‘Those garlic bulbs are the ultimate litmus test—even if I were colour-blind I’d have known you were Asian.’
‘Well, garlic maketh the Indian meal,’ says the wife, laughing.
They tell me they’re on a ‘forced holiday’.
‘It’s our end-of-year leave that we hadn’t taken, so we’ve got to have it now.’ Further digging reveals they’re not enjoying it much.
‘What about the being-together bit?’ I ask, bewildered, looking from one to the other. He shrugs his shoulders.
‘Yes, two weeks is a long time,’ she says, packing the shopping. ‘I guess that’s why we are here.’
Instead of at a Relate session, perhaps, like you ought to be.
There are moments of quiet and so I contemplate the large poster running the full length of the wall by the tills—crisp green salads in sparkling white bowls gaze back at me. The words Tasty, Fresh and Healthy torment my taste-buds and I start to drool. It’s almost 3.15 and I’m starving. Hayley is on shift so I know it won’t be long. She puts up my closing sign at exactly 3.30. I rush into the locker room and Betty is sprawled on a chair on her mobile phone. She has her legs stretched out in front of her so I have to step over them to get past. I shovel my tea and biscuits in the manner that my digestive system has now become accustomed to while watching the Cheltenham races blast from the TV in the corner. Trolley Boy is slumped in front of it on the sofa, still wearing the yellow sun hat, glasses and red nose. I’m not sure if he’s having a nap or engrossed in the race, but he doesn’t move a limb for all twenty minutes of my break.
Back on the shop floor it’s gone 4 p.m. and the school-run, post-work crowd are piling in—the Friday scrum intent on beating the Saturday rush. A cleaner who’s done with her scouring for the week tells me she is extremely busy cleaning two houses a day. On Fridays she only does one house and so gets to start her weekend early.
‘I don’t know why people get cleaners,’ she confides. ‘I certainly wouldn’t waste my money on one. People are so lazy nowadays. I’ve got one woman who’s got a massive house and she doesn’t work at all, and all she does is follow me around like a lost puppy. I think she’s just lonely.’
‘Is she elderly?’ I ask.
‘Oh no, she’s only thirty-five, but she just doesn’t want to clean her own house. So I go around the house, vacuuming, polishing, dusting and she moves from room to room watching me. I’d never get a cleaner—even if I could afford it. That intrusion in your house, the short-cuts they can take, poking around your personal stuff—not that I do any of that, mind you,’ she adds hurriedly. ‘But I tell you what—I know long before anyone else if the husband is having an affair. Or if the kids are smoking dope. Or if the teenager is having sex. Or if the wife is an alcoholic. All of it, I find out first.’
I serve a couple more customers then Hayley closes my till and tells me to go in to see Richard. I’m waiting outside his office when Barbara walks past. She does a double take and I can see she wants to ask why I’m away from my till, but I avoid eye contact and she skulks away.
Richard is carrying out my three-month review.
‘So why should I keep you on?’ he asks.
‘Because I love working here and I was born to do this.’
‘Oh, stop bullshitting me. Seriously?’
I don’t have an authentic answer to this question, but I give it a shot. ‘Because I’m good with customers, it’s what you want. It’s important to Sainsbury’s that we know how to talk to them and I know I can do it well…’ But he has stopped listening.
‘Well,’ he announces in an unexpectedly grandiose style, ‘I’m pleased to tell you that we would like to confirm you.’
‘Oh, that’s great,’ I say with as much conviction as I can feign.
‘Did you ever doubt that you’d be confirmed?’
‘Not for a second.’
He then shows me my pitiful items per minute: I’m averaging about thirteen. It’s so dismal it makes us both laugh.
‘Talk, but keep scanning,’ he tells me gently.
He congratulates me on my various strengths—attendance, performance—and asks about my shift change and if things have settled at home. I then make a ridiculous mistake.
‘If the others ask about my shift change, is it OK to tell them?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Never you mind, can you just tell me if I can tell them without ruffling feathers?’
‘Tell me who’s asking.’
‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘I’d really like to know who wants to know.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s important I know who isn’t happy with their shifts.’
‘I AM not going to tell you that.’
He asks persistently and I stand my ground. He starts guessing names, and I still don’t cave. I soon realise thirty people joined at the same time as me and there are one hundred Cogs in total. He could guess all day and still not get there. No thanks to me and my big mouth. I change the subject. ‘Have you taken note of my comment about chairs?’ I say, pointing to some notes I had written on one of my assessments. ‘The chairs here really suck.’
‘New ones have been ordered, so yes we’re across that.’
‘And what about the delay in coming off your till at the end of a shift?’
‘Well, look—I don’t know it to be a problem. But if it is, you need to tell me who is doing it so I can talk to them directly.’
He adds, ‘I won’t tell them it was you—I’ll handle it as confidential feedback.’
‘Can’t you just have a general word?’
‘No, because they’re not all doing it.’
‘That’s true, but then not all the checkout girls are making mistakes on coupons, yet you retrain all of us.’
‘Tell me who the main culprits are and I’ll handle it,’ he says firmly.
‘No way.’
Fortunately another supervisor comes in and then they both tell me to think about upgrading to the kiosk or customer service.
‘No thanks.’
‘It’ll be good for you—then you can do different things,’ says the supervisor.
‘I’m very happy where I am, thank you.’
‘But it’ll help you move around and up.’
‘Thanks but no thanks,
’ I say steadfastly.
I’ve exhausted a good thirty minutes in his office and so the rest of my shift ends quickly.
As I leave, a Cog is boasting about her shining star. She stood at the door with a bucket and was told that if she managed to raise in excess of a hundred pounds she’d get one. I hear her trumpeting her feat to anyone who will listen. But her success has left Sharon at customer service seething.
‘I’m really surprised they gave her one. It takes a lot for them to offer anyone a shining star here.’
Saturday, 14 March 2009
I wake to news this morning that the Sun has launched a competition to find Britain’s Best Checkout Worker. The paper calls them the unsung heroes of the supermarkets who cheerfully greet every customer as if they were their first. I make a mental list of the Cogs most deserving of winning. While flicking through the paper I turn to page 35 and read Captain Crunch’s column and the ‘Basket League’. Justin King has mentioned this in one of his newsletters, so I know it’s important to the supermarkets. Today Sainsbury’s is second at £9.32 for a basket full of food essentials. Morrisons is in the top position at £9. I wonder how many customers will think 32p is a small cost to pay for first-class customer service.
The customer service desk phone rings throughout the day and there are back-to-back tannoys promoting ranges, new deals and sales. Short-tempered parents are fighting off shrill demands from their children for the snacks sitting by the basket tills. One mother shouts ‘NO’ so loudly I jump out of my chair. I serve a man with a baby under the age of two. He’s buying three children’s films that I’m quite sure the child is not old enough to understand. Dad tells me the toddler refuses to play with any of his toys and will only watch DVDS. In the same breath he says, ‘But then he doesn’t really watch the DVDs either, he switches it off and then puts on another, then switches it off and switches on another—paying very little attention to one or the other.’ A woman says ‘my son is an animal’ describing the six-year-old running from one end of the store to the other. Another accompanies her twelve-year-old niece, who is wearing a full black abaya and bright pink headscarf while rolling around the supermarket on her trainer skates, tripping over one customer and then bumping into another. One customer has a baby (maximum age eighteen months) dressed in head-to-toe pink, sitting in a pink pushchair, cuddling a pink bunny. She is buying Alice in Wonderland on DVD.
Nelly is on with me. She seems to live at the basket tills. She’s due a lunch break soon after I arrive and she stops Danielle, who is walking towards the supervisors.
‘Tell them I’m going for my lunch.’
‘Tell them or ask them?’ enquires Danielle.
‘Ask them, I suppose.’ Say Nelly as she ties her long hair back in a ponytail.
‘I thought that’s what you meant,’ says Danielle.
Nelly gets her break. When she’s on tills I know I’ll be getting off on time. Her mother pops in for a shop with Nelly’s three grown up kids and they have a quick chat. As she walks off, Nelly says, ‘Just look at her.’ I turn to see Mum of Nelly pushing an over-full trolley. ‘She says she won’t, but she always does. She can’t help herself,’ says Nelly, referring to the trolley that is in danger collapsing under the weight of £200 worth of shopping.
From where I’m sitting today I’ve got a clear view of the customer service desk where the most attractive Cogs are placed. Today there are giggles galore, flirty banter and suggestive eyelash flutters all around. The girls do a lot of hair flicking and the boys lean in to steal a smile. That is where a love story or two has got on course, but also where hearts have been broken. Sarita, who sometimes works on customer service, attracted the attention of her trolley boy ex-boyfriend at this very desk. Fast forward a year, and he couldn’t hold her attention for much longer. She moved on to a young man working on beers, wines and spirits.
‘Where are my vouchers?’ I get asked for the millionth time.
‘In your bag or pocket,’ I respond automatically.
‘Did you give me my Nectar card back?’
‘YES!’ I reply through jaw-achingly gritted teeth.
This usually concludes with customer frantically checking purse/pocket and the bashful presentation of errant card.
Mother’s Day cards start coming down the belt. ‘When is it?’ I ask in a blind panic.
‘Tomorrow, of course.’ But I’m sure it is next week.
Eventually a colleague passes by.
‘Excuse me, when is Mother’s Day?’
‘Next Sunday, love.’
‘And you’re sure about that?’
‘I’ve ordered the flowers, darling. If I’m not sure, we’ll be in big trouble.’
I amuse myself by not correcting the next ten customers.
One young man with a mammoth smile and a handsome face is buying flowers, a ‘Congratulations to my wife’ card and a ‘New baby’ card.
‘Oh, how lovely—congratulations!’
He laughs: ‘No, no, it’s not for me. I haven’t had a baby, it’s my best friend. He’s too tired to nip out of the house so he’s asked me to get it, secretly and all, you know, on his behalf.’
‘How you men pull off half your stunts, I will never know.’
Trolley Boy rolls by with his yellow sun hat, bizarre spectacles and red nose.
‘You look gorgeous. I love your hair,’ he tells one of my customers.
‘Thank you,’ she says, flicking her hair back and smiling widely.
‘I like it red, it really suits you.’ He flashes her a flirty grin and she blushes.
Two minutes later, up rides a Little Red Jacket in the Hood. I quietly open bags for her and her mother and listen to them bicker in a foreign language. The discussion seems intense so I silently scan their goods willing them away. When she pays I give her the change and say in a friendly voice, ‘There you go.’ She takes it and I close the lid on my cash till, turning to serve the next customer. I suddenly notice she is still standing there and is staring at me. I look at her nonplussed and wonder if she has forgotten something. ‘Isn’t “thank you” part of your vocabulary?’ she lashes out.
Did I say thank you? Didn’t I? God, I can’t remember. My mind was switched off during most of the transaction so the frantic helpless searching I do into the dark recesses of my memory is neither helpful nor fruitful.
‘You could have just said “please” couldn’t you? Or a “thank you” maybe?’
I stare at her blankly, trying to think of a clever riposte.
‘In all this time you didn’t say thank you or please even the once,’ she states.
I shrug my shoulders.
She then turns on her heels and storms off.
I suddenly find myself shouting:
‘WELL, NEITHER DID YOOOOOU!’
I am now, officially, tragic. And shouting at her doesn’t even make me feel better because she doesn’t seem to have heard. It’s a double disgrace because customers, alas, have been watching. The bloke at the front of the queue pulls a sympathetic face. I’m still all caught up in the heat of my humiliation when he says, ‘People think they can talk to shop staff like shit. It happens to me all the time.’
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
UK unemployment has risen above two million for the first time since 1997 and economists are predicting it will go above three million by next year. The TUC says there are now ten jobseekers for every vacancy advertised in UK jobcentres. The Bank of England has also warned that Britain is heading towards a 1930s-style recession. I know that it’s not just media scaremongering; my experience at the tills is reflecting the same shift.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Molly is at the front door, handing out leaflets, and she gives me a glum smile as I pass. I can see Clare at the basket tills, not supervising but actually serving. It must be busy today.
The discounted shelf to my left is over-flowing and customers are crowding around it—a bent tin and a half-open cereal box are lying on the floor. I k
now I should pick them up, but my legs have already moved on. In the biscuit aisle, the sales assistant grins as I grab one of his chocolate samples and pop it into my mouth. I’m so tired from being up all night with sick children that I pray for till 27 where I can doze in peace. But I’m on till 18. Right. In. Front. Of. The. Supervisors.
My first customer has a loaf of white bread that falls apart as he tries to pack. Barbara comes over to replace it and quips ‘Lost your loaf, love?’ to me. My second customer is buying two different newspapers and the Investor’s Chronicle. ‘You’re certainly reading this at the right time,’ I say, scanning it.
‘Well, if I’m not going to be making any money, I’d like to know how those who have it are doing so.’ He smiles. His shopping comes to £21.69 and he only has a £20 note. ‘It’s that bloody magazine that did it,’ he says, paying on his credit card.
It’s the lunch hour so customers are throwing their shopping down, opening bags hastily and looking emphatically at their watches. I’ve fast learnt the only way to control their behaviour is to draw attention to it. ‘You’re in a rush, aren’t you?’ now always prompts an apology. ‘It takes too long to get your shopping done these days,’ I say next.
And ‘I’ll get you out of here as soon as possible,’ has them eating out of my hand.
One of Tracey’s customers has come in especially to see her. An elderly lady who has been ill but wanted to let her know she is now feeling better. Tracey responds with great concern, but as lovely as she is I know it’s not totally genuine. Following close behind her is what I now call a ‘professional customer’—a Type-A. This customer knows their rights and makes sure YOU know that too. They don’t so much give instruction as bark it. They are the equivalent of a nineteenth-century schoolmaster. If you don’t stand to attention even when their back is turned, expect some figurative cane-whipping.