by Tazeen Ahmad
‘Your hair looks different—what have you done?’ she asks chirpily. Cog hair has to be tied up or tied back. ‘Oh, it’s just in a ponytail—I usually clip it back. Aren’t you observant, Hayley?’
‘Yes, I notice things like that—it changes your face. Right—you, my dear, are on till 6.’
It’s lunchtime on the baskets and that means trouble. Ten customers are queuing impatiently. I’m relieving a checkout guy and his printer has frozen, the supervisor bell isn’t working and his frantic waving has come to nothing. So I go to fetch a supervisor. The crowd starts to rumble. Clare strolls casually over—just the person for the job—and in a calm and leisurely fashion sorts the mess out. It takes four minutes. I’m quite sure we’re about to be pelted by tomatoes when Maya races across and takes over a till.
Two curly-haired blonde women with two sets of icy blue eyes and matching furry gilets try to push in. Not on this Cog’s watch. I tell them to go to the back of the queue. They comply. Cog—One. Basket customer—Nil.
Every customer I serve for the next ten minutes is seething. They refuse to say hello and ignore my apologies for the delay, but eventually I serve a customer who wants to talk. She has forty Pink Lady apples. ‘I’ve got to admit it is a bit of an addiction. I eat about five a day.’
‘Do you eat anything else?’ I say, looking at her stick-thin figure.
‘Well, they are quite filling. And at least I’m getting my “five a day”.’
‘You need some vegetables in there, too. You’ll get ill if you just survive on these.’ She gives me a fixed smile and goes.
There’s a green sticker on the till with more mystery customer propaganda. ‘We did it. New Year, New beginnings. MCM—only twenty-six left. Be a grinner, make us a winner.’
A dark-haired customer in her forties tells me she works at Budgens and travels a staggering fifty miles a day for the job. ‘We only get £5.73 an hour—it’s just the minimum wage.’
‘And you must spend at least half of it on petrol.’
‘That’s why I’m desperate to leave—it’s not worth it.’ She then says quietly, ‘Do you know if there are any vacancies here?’
‘Try in three weeks—they might start looking then.’ It’s roughly when I hand in my notice and if anyone deserves this job, it’s her.
The mum of one of the Cogs comes to the till looking shattered. ‘How’s your car-rental business now?’
‘Oh, it’s doing a lot better than before Christmas, but now everything else has got so expensive that we just can’t keep up.’
As per usual on Friday there are more Cogs on baskets than there are customers. We all try to avoid clock-watching, except for Nelly, who insists on providing half-hourly count-downs.
A checkout newsletter is sitting nearby so I grab it for a quick read. It’s full of Richard’s usual upbeat assessment of our customer service. He congratulates us all for passing after two consecutive years of failure. And he names the Cogs who made it happen. Then he announces the new rules of engagement. Shop-floor assistance on customer stock enquiries now has to involve offering an alternative, checking to see when the product will be back in, or looking in the warehouse at the back of the store. He talks about grabbing overtime while it’s available as there are likely to be reductions in this ‘on the horizon’ and says the last couple of checkout chairs are on their way. To which we all reply—‘Last couple? Where are all the rest?’
Tracey is having a bad day with her chair. Every time she gets off it, it shoots up in the air. ‘I’ll be headed to the moon in a minute.’ She decides to spend her shift standing instead. Michaela is also on baskets. A twenty-year-old femme fatale with thick caramel-brown hair she wears slung over her right shoulder, she draws pubescent males in their dozens. Today a Lynx deodorant-carrying teenager arrives at her till. ‘Oh, could I smell it?’ she says, offering him her open wrist. He sprays it on, hands shaking nervously and watches her inhale deeply. ‘Oooo, it smells of chocolate,’ she coos. Michaela is wasted here—she should put on her own erotic show.
Maya is also sitting with Tracey, Michaela and I. She offers us all a Murray Mint. ‘I got into trouble last time I took a chewing gum,’ I say.
‘Chewing is different—your face is constantly moving. But with a sweet you have a suck then you tuck it into a corner of your mouth. And then have another suck and then tuck it in,’ says Tracey, demonstrating the technique.
‘And if a manager walks by and sees the lump tucked into your cheek?’ I ask.
‘There is a knack to it. Maya and I have been here long enough to do it—I’d say it takes a good fifteen years. But girls, practice makes perfect.’
‘And what happens when you’re talking to a customer?’ Michaela pipes up.
‘Just nestle it in the side of your mouth. And even if they see it, customers don’t care.’
‘Yes, but with all the talking we have to do—it could just suddenly pop out,’ says Michaela solemnly.
‘Well then you can just offer it to the watching customer instead.’
Katherine is sitting opposite me, and has been off spending time with her uncle. She mouths to me that he is still unwell. She’s worried, but being the true professional she is, every time I glance over she is chatting wholeheartedly with her customers.
A construction man comes to my till. ‘Business is booming. I work on £30-£40 million houses. At that end of the scale there’s always work.’
‘So why are you shopping here? You should be in Harrods 102.’
‘I’m just here for the dog. The chicken and rice is for him.’
Trolley Boy wanders over to customers at my till intermittently. ‘I bet Barack Obama eats bananas,’ he tells one bewildered customer. And to another: ‘I bet Barack Obama eats jerk chicken.’ And then, ‘I bet Barack Obama drinks OJ.’ Every single customer is stupefied. And because his exceptional rhetoric cannot be matched, they don’t even try.
Today I dish out advice to a set of parents-to-be on childbirth, good hospitals and sleepless nights. I console a mum whose only son hasn’t got into any of their local primary schools, and give tips to the grandmother babysitting two out-of-control toddlers. A woman purchasing one bottle of wine is tense: ‘I’ve got to pack for my holiday and I’ve only got an hour. I’m not an alcoholic, I swear, but if I don’t down this bottle when I get in, I’ll cry like a baby.’
A mum with a three-month-old baby is buying jar food. ‘I’m exhausted and she’s not drinking any milk, so I’m going to give her puréed food. I’ve been told I shouldn’t, but I think she’s starving.’ I watch anxiously as she sits down in the café opposite my till and feeds the baby which doesn’t yet have the digestive system to cope with solids.
A dapper customer in his fifties arrives at my till with flowers. ‘Oh, three bunches of beautiful flowers for one lovely lady. Or is it—three bunches of beautiful flowers for three lovely ladies?’ And I throw in a wink for extra tacky measure. ‘Um, er…no…actually…they’re for my mother’s grave.’
Later, to a customer with a large stomach and a baby in a pram: ‘And how wonderful—you’re expecting another?’ I ask.
‘No, I’m not, actually. This is just my baby fat—I haven’t lost it yet.’
Two regular customers in neon-yellow jackets and filthy hands. ‘How come you guys are always so mucky?’ It’s that absent folly filter again. ‘We spend a lot of time on forklift trucks and they are filthy, the things we have to move around are filthy. You think it LOOKS bad? Well, it FEELS vile. We hate it, but after a while there’s no point trying to stay clean so we just wait until the end of the day and then have a good scrub.’
Samantha is in an obstreperous mood. She is called over to a till where a credit card isn’t working. When she arrives she says at the top of her voice, ‘It’s a man; what do you expect? They just can’t do things properly, can they?’ A boy at my till listening in asks his mother what she means. She squeezes his hand and smiles.
And Samantha gets away
with it because this is perhaps the only corner of the earth in which women rule.
‘Feed your family for a fiver’ is as big a hit with the customers as the Basics range. A fan of the salmon recipe seems to have stepped straight out of a Sainsbury’s marketing meeting. ‘The best bit is that you’ve got all the ingredients in your larder or fridge—stock cubes, rice, oil—so it doesn’t cost any more than the price of the salmon. I love it.’
And then in comes New Scientist bloke. I give him a warm smile. ‘Hello, New Scientist guy, how you keeping?’
‘Busy, too busy. How about you?’ He smiles back.
‘Good. How’s the van-driving business?’
‘Yeah, it’s good, but I’m working too hard…’ he pauses for effect, ‘…to meet anyone.’ And he looks at me in a way that can only be described as meaningful.
‘I’ve got two teenagers and I get some time with them, but most of the time I’m just working and, well, just can’t…meet anyone…’ Deep look in the eyes again. There’s a moment of toe-curling awkwardness and I keep looking down and scanning. For once I am totally lost for words. ‘So, how about you?’ he asks.
‘Married with kids,’ I reply, more quickly than is necessary.
‘Oh yeah,’ he says, looking at my left hand. ‘I should’ve seen the ring, I guess.’ And then we both say nothing. I scan. He packs. And off he goes. I barely know the guy, but I feel like it’s the end of a beautiful friendship.
I’m pondering our little ‘When-Harry-Met-Sally’ moment when I’m interrupted by a customer laying into Maya.
‘I’m sorry, I just can’t give you any change. We’re not allowed to do it,’ she is saying to a customer at her till.
‘That’s ridiculous. I just want a couple of fivers and some coins,’ he’s yelling.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t do it.’ Maya is going red in the face and has pushed herself and her chair away from him. The customer gesticulates wildly. ‘It’s just a little transaction. I don’t understand why you can’t do it.’
‘Please go to customer service and see if they will help you,’ she says, now standing up. He grabs his shopping, sending the other plastic bags at her till flying, and goes over to the customer service desk. He doesn’t queue and stands at the side of the desk trying to get Sharon’s attention—still shouting and thrusting a £20 note at her.
The customer I’m serving tuts. ‘I know what it’s like—I’ve been working in Tesco’s for twelve years. The public can be so rude and unreasonable.’
‘Has it got worse, then?’ I ask her, still a little distracted by the yelling at customer service.
‘Oh, definitely, and the things they get annoyed about are so ridiculous. If you haven’t opened your till, or because you’re doing something else, or you’ve forgotten to put their points on their cards—or anything. Sometimes I think I should just stop and say, “I’m sorry, I’m not perfect, I have so much to remember I can’t always get it right.” But then I think, what’s the point? It’s not like they’re going to feel sorry for you. You’ve just got to keep your mouth shut and grit your teeth, don’t you?’
‘Did you get any training there to deal with it?’
She laughs. ‘You got to be kidding! Managers don’t care about that. It’s awful, just awful how people can be.’
As I walk over to hand my keys in, I see a customer trying to bully a Cog who is cashing up into serving him. He only has two items. But she’s done for the day and it’s too late. He talks loudly, stands at the belt with his items and keeps going at her. She stands her ground but is red from her neck up.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
I bump into Rebecca in the locker room and we’ve both got back pain and wonder if sitting at the tills is doing it. As we make our way down, she gives every Cog we pass a warm hello. We get to the checkouts and I’m sat right in front of the till captains—again. Am I having yet another observation? I decide not: it’s only been a week since my last one. And it gets so busy I can’t worry about it until later. My first two customers speak no English and one of them struggles to open a plastic bag. I show him my finger-lickin’ trick. He can barely contain his excitement and grins broadly. The crowd behind him is heaving and impatient so I gently usher him on his way. A couple with two trolleys’ worth of shopping spend ten minutes loading and then make their way over to the top end of the till. I ask how many bags she has and start scanning her food. ‘You’ve got so much fresh food here—I bet you’re a good cook.’
‘I am, actually. I’m a chef—I work in a school.’
‘Aha! You know, I could tell—you’ve got lots of different kinds of food here and it all needs cooking from fresh.’ I ask her how she’s managing rising food prices.
‘Oh, there’s definitely an increase in prices, but I have to buy organic.’ She has six large bottles of organic milk. ‘It’s expensive but worth it, I think, for the health benefits.’ She also has organic meat, organic chocolates and organic bread. I ask her husband how he competes with such high standards in the kitchen. ‘I don’t even bother,’ he says, laughing. Her shop costs her £221.59 and she doesn’t flinch.
Behind her is a lady with a large trolley full of shopping. Her mood matches the black dress she’s wearing. She has her back to me as she loads her shopping. I wait. She eventually comes over to my end of the till and throws her bags down. ‘I’ve got four bags,’ she tells me brusquely. I ask about her day as she packs. She gives me brief responses. A Cog passes by and asks if she wants help loading the rest of her shopping on the belt. ‘No,’ she snaps.
‘Are you having a difficult day today?’ I ask with not-entirely-sincere concern.
‘Yes, I’m tired and I’ve got to look after my grandkids this afternoon,’ she says curtly.
‘You look too young to be a grandmother. How old are they?’
‘Four and six—a boy and a girl. The boy is the one that’s a handful—he’s too active.’ She’s still making very little eye contact. ‘But they’re good kids.’
‘Yes, I’m sure they are. It must be tiring—you’ve already done it once and now you have to do it all over again,’ I say sympathetically, even though I feel sorrier for the poor kids lumbered with grumpy granny this afternoon. ‘Hmm yes.’ She’s barely listening. I decide silence may be the best approach and so slide, scan and pass quietly—she’s obviously in no mood to talk.
‘Why aren’t you helping me pack?’ she suddenly barks.
‘B-b-because you didn’t ask me. Do you want me to help you?’
‘Yes please,’ she says sarcastically.
‘It’s just not one of those things we ask automatically any more.’
‘Well how come the others always ask me? They see my shopping and offer straight away.’ I acquiesce and silently pack. After a couple of minutes, Susie comes over and asks me to close my till. It’s only been about thirty minutes into my shift. I lock my till and a manager I don’t know too well takes me into Richard’s office.
‘Right,’ she says as she sits down, ‘I wasn’t impressed with your customer service so you are getting a red. You were not interested, you didn’t make any effort and you showed very poor customer service,’ she bulldozes on while I try to compute events.
‘Look, can I just say something?’ I interrupt eventually. ‘I’ve been here less than thirty minutes and have only served a couple of customers so far—so I really don’t know what you mean.’
‘Right, well, you weren’t trying to engage your customers. You didn’t do what you were supposed to…’
‘I’m sorry, but which customer did you observe me not talking too? My first two customers didn’t speak any English and the one after that I could probably tell you her life story.’
‘Right, let me get the till captain.’ She gets up to go to the door and calls the supervisor on duty in.
‘This young lady,’ says Manager in highly condescending tone, ‘disagrees with what I’m telling her.’
‘Look,’ says the till captain, ‘I
saw you sitting like this—’ and she puts her hand to her cheek and leans on it, hamming up a bored face.
I actually had my hand curled up under my chin while waiting for customers to turn around and don’t know a Cog alive who would have the audacity to sit as she is suggesting. Not even in my local supermarket. No matter, though—I know that the supervisor has to kowtow to the manager, so I let it ride. ‘And when I saw you,’ she continues, ‘I said, “That’s not like her. She’s always so ready to chat.”’ I smile even though I feel like throttling them both.
‘I really think you misread the situation. I was just waiting for the customers to turn around. And I WAS serving ones who don’t speak English; it’s very difficult to engage with them, so you just do the basics as politely as you can.’
‘No,’ says the till captain, ‘that’s where you’ve got it wrong. You’ve still got to do the same with them and treat them like the mystery customer.’
‘Well, I don’t know how you do that beyond doing what I did. And certainly in terms of the other two—’
The manager dives back in the game. ‘Well, I saw the Italian lady put her bags down and you just asked her how many bags she had. I didn’t see you give her a big smile or a big hello or anything.’ This is so preposterous, I suddenly want to laugh.
‘But you don’t always have to say hello to be friendly. You can sometimes just have a different interaction and it can still be good customer service, can’t it?’ I ask, looking from one face to the other.
‘Look, I don’t mark someone down if they are ignoring the customer just because the customer is difficult. It would have been easy for me to mark you down, but I—’
I barge back in. ‘My customer was actually really difficult, but obviously you couldn’t see that from where you were standing.’ The manager then starts to talk over me and I suddenly find myself doing the same.
‘It’s not natural to always say hello—I’ve got to see how each customer behaves before I decide how to deal with them.’