The Checkout Girl

by Tazeen Ahmad

  This is by far the worst form of humiliation I’ve witnessed in four months here.

  Another one of my regulars stops by. Last time we talked, work had been troubling him. He works for a company that supplies jackets to a high street store that now owe his company £700,000 which they can’t repay. ‘They’ve just been taken over, but we’re not going to get anything from that deal. We’ll be lucky if we get a few thousand back.’

  ‘So what does that mean for you?’

  ‘Well, redundancies, of course. There are eighty of us and a handful have already been released. In the short term there’ll be another ten to go.’

  ‘And are you likely to be one of them?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ he says, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’ve got three kids, and I’ve still got to put one of them through law college. Fortunately, I don’t have a mortgage any more, but paying college fees is like having a mortgage.’ He talks incessantly and nervously. Of the many customers who shared their recession woes with me, he seems the most perturbed of all. ‘It’s so quiet at work you could cut the atmosphere with a knife—we’re all just putting our heads down now.’ His shopping costs £105.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he says, looking at the total screen anxiously. ‘It’s a bigger shop than normal because of Mother’s Day. The kids wanted to spoil their mum, so I’ve bought extra bits. Can you check my Nectar points, please?’ He has £125. ‘Just take £7.50 off. I’m saving the rest for the rainy days ahead.’ And he leaves, his despair visibly dragging him down.

  Magda’s mum is at my till with her weekly shopping. I know she is her mum because throughout her time at my till Magda bombards her with one annoying question after another. When she proceeds to ask her mother for some tissues, Mum cracks. ‘I only came in for my frigging shopping, not to have you bothering me. Get your own tissues!’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum, my nose is dripping.’

  Mum obliges, but not before saying: ‘Next you’ll be asking me to wipe it for you.’

  A pretty curly-haired woman in her twenties walks past me on her own. She has learning difficulties and usually comes in with her prickly, short-tempered mother. Despite this, the young woman normally has a sunny smile on her face. Today, though, she looks quite lost. I look around for her mum and she is nowhere to be seen. The young woman leaves the store alone, still looking disorientated. I want to do something but am approached by a customer gesticulating wildly and ranting at the top of his voice as he piles his shopping at my till. He’s tall, stocky and rather fierce looking—to top it all, his tirade is in a foreign language so sounds even more threatening. And he’s shouting to himself. I lift the divider, while my stomach cartwheels, look up at him and meekly say hello. He turns to me, gives me a big smile and I catch a glimpse of the tiny Bluetooth headset in his right ear. ‘Oh, thank goodness!’ I splutter out. ‘I thought you were a nutter.’ There is a moment of incredulous silence as we both ingest my words. He then says: ‘Don’t be fooled by the earpiece, darling, I AM a nutter.’ And he roars with laughter. He relays my blunder to the friend on the phone.

  Rebecca pops by at 3 p.m. to say hello. She’s having her break only a couple of hours into her shift. ‘I hate it when they do that. I don’t need a break now—I’ve only been here a little while.’

  ‘Which till are you on? I can’t see you from here.’

  ‘Naughty corner—Till 26. I’ve been loafing all afternoon.’

  ‘You lucky thing. Can you believe where they’ve stuck me?’

  ‘They need to keep an eye on you—I’ve told them you’re trouble.’

  Two Cogs behind me are also teasing each other—about leaflet distribution. It’s the job everyone’s trying to avoid today. ‘The first ten minutes are OK—it’s a bit like a honeymoon period. You know, you’re really keen and putting yourself out there—and then after the tenth time of being blanked, you just want to chuck them all in the bin and run back to the tills.’

  I set myself a target to beat my personal best on items scanned per minute. I’m speeding through them when the Italian grandmother I’m serving shouts, ‘NO, TOO QUICK.’ The couple behind her stare at her with such ill will, I’m surprised she doesn’t come out in smallpox. Instead she stops to comment on the price, then the food, then the store. All the while she chatters away with her daughter, who’s being served at a neighbouring till. I stupidly forget to give her the cash-back she requested, close the till, and start serving the next customer.

  ‘Oh no, cara mia,’ she says, returning seconds later, ‘you forgotuh to geeve me my taen poundsuh.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, let me just serve this customer and I’ll give it to you straight away.’

  ‘No problemo, let me go to the kiosky, get my lotto ticket and I come backa. OK?’

  Ten minutes pass and she’s still not back. Samantha closes my till and tells me to go for my break. I spiral into a cycle of panic-hysteria-panic. No one knows what she looks like apart from me and I don’t want her coming back, finding I’ve gone and thinking I’m a lying, thieving checkout girl. Samantha tells me I can wait for a minute or two longer, but the Italian mama still doesn’t show up. ‘Sorry, love, you’ve got to go now—I need to send the others on their break after you.’ I start dithering under my till, trying to find any excuse to give her a little longer to get back. Just as I’m about to throw in the towel, she strolls back casually to my till. I literally fling the money at her.

  After my break, just as I sit myself back down, Hayley comes over and plops some papers down on the belt. ‘Oh no, have I just had an observation?’ I say, panic-stricken.

  ‘You have, my dear.’

  ‘I knew it. Is that why I’ve been sitting here for two days?’

  ‘Well, I did it yesterday, not today.’ I think back to yesterday and my black mood, slumped lethargically in my chair, not caring who might be watching.

  ‘Oh well, give it to me—how did I do?’

  ‘You were absolutely fine. You did great, actually.’ They obviously caught me at a good moment.

  ‘You were polite, tailor-made your service and maintained a generally high standard of customer care.’ I’m so relieved I write exactly that in the comments box and sign it.

  Back at the tills, there are bag ladies flaunting their wares. There might be a recession on, but fashionistas need not despair; the designer bag with its thousand-pound price tag should move aside, the new IT bag on the block will cost only a hundredth of the price. Supermarket bags are the new way for customers to show off their latest arm candy and so now they bring in fewer of the jute and recycled bags sold by the stores themselves and more of their own cloth, canvas and vinyl bags. Bags with pink polka dots, bags with blue and purple flowers, bags that look like over-sized handbags, and even cute cheap bags imported from abroad. A customer has a très chic French shopping bag to pack her groceries in and tells me proudly that she picked it up in Calais. ‘I love using it and all the checkout girls comment on it.’ Other customers have popped in with classical ones. Today I see a lovely large blue bag with the vintage Sainsbury’s logo on it. The customer tells me she’s had it since the seventies.

  ‘You better hang on to that—I bet it’ll be worth something one day.’

  She laughs. ‘You’re having me on, aren’t you?’

  Michelle is sat at the till opposite and is asked to come off. She’s standing by Richard’s door and hisses to get my attention. ‘Have you been confirmed yet?’ she whispers.

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper back.

  ‘Wish me luck.’ And in she goes. Ten minutes later she emerges grim-faced and a little brow-beaten. As she makes her way back to the till she says, ‘Guess what? Another probationary period.’

  A customer has a small radio in her shopping.

  ‘Do you do the Basics radio any more?’

  Here we go again. I’ll cut to the chase: millions of items in the store. Cog only knows what Cog has to know—scanning, sliding and passing. A bit of aimless chat. No more. I tell her
this—although with a more delicate choice of words. I then scan the Kenwood Smoothie-making machine she has picked up. It’s £31.99. ‘Oh, I think I’ve picked up the wrong one. I thought it was £7.50.’ Sighs at the back of the queue. Supervisor to the rescue. Clare goes on the hunt. The customer behind is just one gas emission short of eruption. The woman then says, ‘Oh, I forgot my eggs. I’ll just get some.’ And off she trots. The customer behind her picks up a magazine in a pointed manner. The returning customer is completely unfazed. ‘I can’t WAIT to make some smoothies—what a bargain!’ she tells her boyfriend excitedly.

  Another of my regulars tells me she’s decided to cut back on her shopping. ‘I’m spending too much and I’ve got to make some cuts. I’ve got to work out where to make the cuts, though.’

  ‘Do you want to guess how much your shopping is today?’ I ask, playing the latest game I’ve invented.

  ‘Hmm, I could live with £100.’

  ‘Prepare yourself,’ I grimace: ‘£194.86.’

  ‘WHAT??? Oh my goodness. I feel quite faint.’

  ‘Do you want me to check your nectar points?’

  ‘God, yes!’ She takes all £5 off and when I give her the shopping bill it’s almost a metre long.

  I’ve got an hour left until I am out of here and the chatty customer at my till has £74.60 worth of shopping. He hands me a voucher which gives him £6 off a £60 shop. The voucher isn’t valid until the following day. ‘I’m sorry, you can’t use this until tomorrow,’ I tell him, handing it back.

  ‘You can put it through. I’ve done my shopping for the week now,’ he says firmly.

  ‘No…I’m afraid I really can’t do that.’

  ‘They did it last time.’ He pushes the voucher back on the till towards me. ‘Go on, just put it through.’ I decide against my default position (calling a supervisor) and try to hold my ground.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t.’

  ‘Look, I’m telling you that one of your colleagues at the other end did it, and you can do it too.’ He is gritting his teeth, suddenly no more Mr Nice Guy. I’ve died and slipped into a bad Guy Ritchie film.

  ‘If I do it, I could lose my job. It starts tomorrow, so that’s the best time for you to use it.’

  ‘Just do it. I’m not coming back again this week. That’s my shopping done now.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Call your supervisor,’ he finally says. Phew.

  Helen comes along and tells him the same thing. He then silently tucks the voucher back into his wallet, abandons the shopping trolley, complete with packed shopping and storms off. Helen shrugs her shoulders, cancels the transaction and takes the trolley full of his groceries back to the shelves.

  It goes very quiet in the last few minutes before I leave. An Irish lady wants to talk. She was a pub landlady for fifteen years and she likens her job to mine. ‘I bet you, people tell you incredible things here,’ she says, her eyes twinkling knowingly. ‘You’re full of the secrets of the world, aren’t you, darling?’ I smile.

  ‘You’re not just some silly little checkout girl. You’re their therapist, mother, daughter, sister, friend, financial adviser and doctor too. Am I right or what?’ I smile some more.

  ‘You’ve got a face that makes people want to tell you things. It’s what one of my punters used to call a Nice-Cup-of-Tea face. I’d pour them a drink and they’d pour out their life story.’ There’s a fine line between a Nice-Cup-of-Tea face and my Ask-a-Stupid-Question mug, but I take her point, and put one such foolish question to my final customer.

  ‘Look, can I ask you something that’s been bothering me for weeks?’ I pick up his one lone courgette. ‘Why is it that every single customer, without exception, always has one of these in their shopping?’

  He’s bemused. ‘Because…they’re going to eat it?’

  ‘No, no, you don’t get it. I’m a good cook. I cook for my kids. I cook for my friends. But courgettes…they’re kind of a nonfood. It sort of doesn’t matter what you do to them, they just don’t taste like food. The texture is non-existent. The taste is forgettable. But everyone’s buying them. Am I missing something?’

  He rises to the challenge almost immediately.

  ‘Yes, you definitely are. You just don’t know what to do with them. Stop thinking too hard. Keep it simple. Cook them on their own with garlic. Cook them in a tomato sauce with chicken. Throw them in a risotto. They’re not a nondescript, part-of-the-furniture kind of vegetable. Once you know how to cook them, you won’t look back.’ I’m not convinced, but I love the fact that he tries to advocate the virtues of the not-so-cool cousin of the cucumber.

  Rebecca and I drive home together. She’s exhausted from her seven-day weeks but doesn’t want to rock the boat. ‘You’ve got to say something—you’re burnt out.’ I tell her.

  ‘I know, I know, I should—I’m starting to lose the plot,’ she says, rubbing her forehead. And then she pinpoints the exact moment at which the screw well and truly came loose. ‘This customer was in his thirties and really very good-looking. So I just told him straight up, ‘You’re actually a very handsome man.’ And he blushed a little but, you know, looked quite pleased with himself. And so I continued scanning his shopping and telling him what a lovely face he had—and THEN…I don’t know what came over me, but I said, “But by the look of these sanitary towels I can tell that you’re not single”.’

  I splutter the sip of water I’ve just taken all over my driving wheel. Ignoring my half-choke, half-guffaw, she continues.

  ‘He just went really quiet. And I’m thinking, “Oh dear, Rebecca, you’ve gone too far this time.” And there was this awful, deafening silence and then he said, “You’ve missed your vocation in life, haven’t you? You were meant to be a comedienne.” But by that point I was just chucking his stuff down the till—just DESPERATE to get him out of there.’ I’m laughing so hard I have to pull over.

  Monday, 23 March 2009

  I go to my local supermarket with the children today and buy three doughnuts on a 3-for-2 offer at a reduced price of 15p each. The Cog was too busy talking to the kids to notice that not only did she charge me full price for each doughnut, I didn’t get one free either. I don’t waste my time with her and go straight to the customer service desk. She gives me back the overcharged money but still charges me fifteen pence for each one—I’m still not getting one for free. It’s only 15p, but I’m not going down without a fight. I try to get her attention but she turns away. She serves another customer, and takes a phone call despite knowing that I’m still there. She wants me to go away but, as we’ve long established, I’m going nowhere fast. ‘I’m sorry, but you charged me for all three—the offer says 3-for-2.’

  She doesn’t take my word for it and calls a colleague and asks them to go check the price. This whole process takes fifteen minutes. She hands me back my overcharged 15p and doesn’t apologise. I leave, angry. I allow myself to think self-righteously that Cogs like her give us all a bad name.

  Wednesday, 25 March 2009

  Turn on the radio today and Justin King is talking about how Sainsbury’s is defying the economic downturn. True. He says the store is helping people manage their household budgets with their ‘Feed your family for a fiver’ recipes. Also true. And that there has been a 60 per cent rise in sales of the Basics range. Definitely true. He also says more money is being spent in supermarkets and less on takeaways and restaurants. Absolutely true. He adds that people are cooking more and the family meal is becoming more of an occasion. Nothing but the truth. He says that their profit increase is because they are selling more items to customers and not just due to inflation, which doesn’t ring entirely true.

  Friday, 27 March 2009

  Near the clocking-in machine are the words ‘WE DID IT’ cut out of gold paper. It names everyone who helped the store meet its MCM target. Just for a laugh, I look for my name. It’s not there. I laugh. The Cogs are all talking about it downstairs and I hear some say that you
only get the bonus if you’ve been here a year—‘so don’t get too excited.’

  My first customer is showing off her quaint Sainsbury’s totes from the seventies. ‘My mum and I bought them together back then. They’re faded, but they are still going. I love them. They’re a whole lot less dowdy than the recycled bags they sell today.’

  A woman in her sixties asks me how to persuade her kids to have a family. ‘They’re thirty-two and thirty-eight and I keep telling them they need to marry and settle down because I want grandchildren. But they’ve always got excuses lined up. The latest one is it’s not a good time to have a family because of the recession.’

  ‘And by the time the recession passes—they’ll be infertile,’ I jest. She looks up, alarmed. ‘I mean, probably not infertile as such,’ I back-track. ‘You know, there’s always IVF and, er, sperm donation and…erm…surrogacy and…’

  She leaves in silence.

  One man buys nothing but eight packets of multi-pack powdered soup. ‘Convenience food is just too convenient—and I don’t have the time to cook.’ But there are so few nutrients in there, I tell him. ‘Unless you’re prepared to come round and cook for me, I’ll be walking out with these.’

  A customer buying three separate newspapers grabs my attention but her onions take my breath away. ‘I think there might be something wrong these onions,’ I tell her. ‘They smell too strong.’ We check and they ARE off. She’s blown over by my first-class olfactory sense. ‘I can tell what someone’s had for breakfast even if they’re standing five feet from me. It’s been a life curse—exacerbated like you would not believe during pregnancy.’

  ‘You’re like Grenouille in Perfume,’ she tells me.

  ‘Except without the serial-killer instinct,’ I add.

  ‘Well, I’d guess that would depend on who you’re serving.’ I laugh.

  ‘So why are you reading so many newspapers? Only journalists or people with no life do that kind of thing?’ I ask, scanning the Indy, Times and Guardian.