by Tazeen Ahmad
‘No, it’s up to you to give them a fantastic greeting…’ she responds.
‘If you stopped those customers and asked them if they were happy with the customer service they got—’
‘It’s not about that, it’s about the customer service we see you giving.’
‘Look, all I can tell you is that I had just started my shift and it does usually take a few minutes to get into the swing of things—and despite all of that, each customer needs something different. And my scanner was playing up and so I had to ask a supervisor to come over—’
The manager leaps in again. ‘If your scanner isn’t working, you can’t let it show. Look, I’ve done observations so many times—I’m really good at them. I know what I’m doing and that what I’m seeing is right.’ I suddenly allow my reasons to run dry. It’s time to lay down the sword.
‘OK, I accept your observation for what it was. I still maintain that you don’t know how that conversation really went—what you saw and what actually went on were two different things. But either way, I accept it.’ I know I’ve stepped outside the norms of Cog etiquette and the impasse has to end.
‘It would have been very easy for me to say you hadn’t done anything, but I didn’t. It would have been easy for me to say you had failed…but I didn’t. I’ve assessed you before and you were very good—so…I’m actually going to give you a green.’ She passes me the paperwork and I’ve passed on everything except for my greeting. She asks me to add my comments. I resist the urge to write ‘Stick it where the sun don’t shine.’ Instead I scribble something faintly professional: ‘I treat every customer differently, depending on how they behave. It’s not always natural to give them a big “hello”. But I do accept Sainsbury’s policies!’ I try to lighten the dark mood that has descended between us, but she’s having none of it. Managers here aren’t used to being challenged—and I’m not quite sure what came over me. I struggle to get it out of my head and my interaction with every customer over the next hour feels even more artificial than normal. Fortunately one of my customers is a loquacious chap who lets me do all the listening.
‘I don’t let me wife come shopping any more. She ends up spending £50 more than me every time. She goes absolutely crazy, so I let her come once every three months. But then we spend the entire time arguing and when the kids are with her, they all spend even more.’
‘How old are the kids?’
‘Eight, ten and twelve. I had the snip, otherwise I’d have ended up having more. She’s so greedy she has no limits when it comes to food and when it comes to kids.’
A granddad spending the weekend with his two grandkids fails to recall their ages accurately, to the utter chagrin of the six-year-old and nine-year-old. ‘GRANDPA—how can you not know how old we are?’ says the six-year-old.
‘Give him a break,’ I say, ‘he’s already done time with your parents—you’re lucky he still wants to hang out with you.’
One of my regular customers pops in today—Harry the electrician—I call him the Electrical Philosopher. Like most of my regular customers he doesn’t immediately remember me—until I give him a little prompt. Customers will reveal extremely private details to me but forget me, my name and my face the moment they walk away. In any case, this personal curse has been a professional gain—helping me to sneak in and out of tricky situations unnoticed.
Harry’s having another one of his full-blown rants about modern life. Last week it was how family life has been reduced to nothing ‘because of time in front of the box’. Today he complains about the disappearance of good manners from public life. ‘I was coming into the car park just now. And a lady let me pass—so I thanked her. Then I let one car pull out. Did I get a thank you?—You bet I didn’t. Then I pulled over to the left for three minutes to let a woman slot in and park her car—did I get a thank you, then? Nope—nothing. What are these people teaching their kids? What kind of message are they sending to me? You do something for me—and in return I won’t even have the decency to give you a little wave. A little flick of my hazard lights, a smile—nothing. What kind of way is that to behave?’ He’s a twenty-first-century moral compass—part crusader, part spoilsport, part moan master. I love him—if he was prime minister he’d put the world to rights within twenty-four hours.
I decide to practise greetings the management way and one of my customers gets the Full Monty: a big smile and a ‘fantastic’ greeting. It fails miserably with the customer, who is in no mood for a chat. I’m in the middle of babbling inanely about the weather when Rebecca stops by. ‘Excuse me, madam, I’m a member of management here, can you tell me what you think of this lady’s customer service?’
Customer looks up alarmed and says hurriedly, ‘Oh yes, it’s very good.’
‘Don’t worry, she’s not really management,’ I say, laughing.
‘No, I insist I am,’ says Rebecca. ‘Did you find her genuine?’
The lady relaxes. ‘Hmm, I’d say so-so.’
After my break I’m taken off the tills so I tidy up, do some reverse shopping and pack away hangers and security tags. I’m stopped repeatedly and have to remind myself to offer alternatives. I make them up. We’ve run out of maple syrup so I suggest honey.
‘No, it’s maple syrup I want. If I wanted honey—I’d just buy honey, wouldn’t I?’ says the customer, not entirely unreasonably.
One lady asks me if we have soya milk originals in the back.
‘I’ll need to just go and look.’
‘OK, come looking for me,’ she says and wanders off. My ferreting in the back proves to be unsuccessful and I come back to find the customer. I search in aisle after aisle, looking for a large mass of blonde hair. After fifteen minutes and walking up and down the full length of the shop twice, I give up and go back to my reverse shopping. She comes looking for me some five minutes later and accepts the substitute I picked out randomly. I then watch her at the till buying my big fat bluff.
I’m putting some nappies back when I pass a Japanese woman with her English husband bickering by the baby milk. ‘No can come tomorrow, too busy for the shop,’ she says.
‘No can come tomorrow?’ he mocks rather unkindly. ‘If it’s important enough, you CAN come tomorrow.’
‘But she says no guarantee.’
‘Well, why don’t you just try to see what happens? Is that too much to ask?’ he asks caustically.
An eight-year-old boy standing on the side of the trolley his mother is pushing nearly collides with me. ‘Be careful, James,’ says Mum.
‘YOU’RE THE ONE DRIVING, YOU BE CAREFUL,’ he shouts at her.
I can’t locate where Instant Apple Tea should go back on the shelf and bump into Jane, who makes an admirable effort to find it for me. ‘Just dump it there,’ she says, pointing to the Yorkshire Tea. ‘See, look, gravy granules have been dumped on the coffee shelf.’ We all do it.
Ayesha asks me to close David’s till and send him over. Supermarket code for he’s just had an observation. He comes back looking downtrodden and tells me he got a red. ‘Customers don’t want to talk—what am I supposed to do?’ He’s right. They only talk to me because I corner them into it.
I get stopped by a woman who mumbles something to me about our flower section. ‘I’m sorry, do you mean flower or flour?’
‘FLOUUUUUWERRRRRR,’ she growls, lacing the first half with arsenic and rolling the r at the end somewhat unhelpfully. I’m scared, I’m not ashamed to say, so don’t ask for more clarification. I lead her to the flour aisle, praying silently. She walks a step or two ahead even though I’m supposed to be leading her.
‘I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure if you were saying flour or flowers.’ Adding the plural in a bid to see if that helps elucidate further.
‘Well, at least you answered me. One of your colleagues seemed like he had a hearing problem.’
I’m really proud of myself today. I manage to stay off the tills for a solid 150 minutes—almost half my shift, and spend a lot of time talk
ing to Rebecca. I cash-up seven minutes early for the first time ever.
‘It’s not fair, why don’t I ever get taken off?’ she asks me.
‘Because you are too good at the customer service malarkey.’
On the way home I tell her about my fisticuffs with the manager. ‘It sounds to me like the two of you should have taken it outside for a full-on catfight. I’d have paid good money to watch that show.’
I know I have to share some big news with her.
‘Look, I’ve got something to tell you and I don’t want you to be too upset.’
‘Why…what is it?’ she asks, looking at me concerned.
‘I’m leaving.’
‘What do you mean, leaving?’
‘Going, quitting, clocking off, hasta la vista…’
‘NOOOOO.’
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t do that to me, you can’t.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘NO. I won’t let you. How can you desert me? What am I going to do without you? How can you do this? NOOOO!’ She says laughing and shaking me by the arm at the same time.
‘Pull yourself together, woman,’ I say, giggling. ‘We can’t turn into those people who will only stay somewhere because their mates work there. You’ll be fine—you already have so many other friends there.’
‘Not like you—they’re not like you. They’re not sensible like you.’ And she throws in some mock-sobs for humorous effect. Her full-blown act of simulated fury is followed by her grabbing her shopping bags, slamming the door and saying archly through the window, ‘You’ve let the side down!’ before ‘storming’ off. Still laughing, I watch her go. Then a sombre thought flicks through my mind: I wonder if she’ll feel I betrayed her when the truth comes out.
Friday, 10 April 2009
I spend the morning devising and revising reasons to give Richard for resigning. I hope he’ll just shrug it off. I keep going over the different permutations of every excuse I may make. I arrive and walk straight into his office. He’s on the phone but invites me to sit down while he listens to what seem like endless messages. Meanwhile my heart is thumping so loud, I’m convinced it’s echoing in the room. Eventually he puts the phone down and smiles at me.
‘How are you? Everything good with you?’
‘Yes, everything is just fine, I…’
‘Good, good, I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I’ve got some bad news, well, it’s not bad news for me, but…but I’m…I’m leaving.’
‘Oh.’ He looks at me fixedly, his green eyes not blinking. All my rehearsals go out the window.
‘It’s, it’s just time for me, you know, to…um…move on—and you know it’s not you…you’ve been fantastic, but I…I…I guess I just want to do other things.’
‘Yes, of course, course…’ It feels like a teenage break-up.
‘And I know you’ve done so much to accommodate me,’ I race on unsteadily, ‘but you know I’m keen to just do something else…I’m so sorry.’ He’s been sitting very still staring straight at me, absorbing my words in eerie silence. He’s a fireball of energy so it’s the longest I’ve ever seen him not move a muscle and I wonder for a second if he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open. ‘Well…’ he suddenly bursts out, ‘obviously I’m really disappointed. I can’t pretend I’m not. But you seem very convinced…’
‘Yes, I’ve definitely made up my mind,’ I say as definitively as I can. If he starts to persuade me to stay, I might just end up staying.
‘Is there any point me trying to…’
‘No, definitely not.’
Suddenly the store manager walks in. ‘There are customers pouring in and there are no trolleys at all, Richard.’
‘OK,’ says Richard firmly, ‘Just give me five minutes.’
‘Well, it’s pretty bad out there. So really you need to…’
‘OK, just GIVE me a minute,’ says Richard sternly and the manager walks back out. Richard rolls his eyes and turns back to me. ‘Well, you know there were ways I wanted to develop you, but if this is what you want to do, then of course I understand. Are you going on to something else?’ he asks tentatively.
‘Er…no.’
‘OK. Well, I hope you feel your time here has gone well. You got out of the house and away from the kids and hopefully it gave you the confidence to get work and get out and about, didn’t it?’ He is so obliging—it’s quite unbearable.
‘Yes, of course—and I just want you to know…’ I start to feel a little stream of emotion open up ‘…that you are such a great guy…a brilliant manager, and that I don’t have a bad word to say about you…’
I can’t stop. ‘…You know, you hear about places like this and how awful they can be, but really you’ve been great—with the kids and everything so…so…thank you.’ And thus my mushy, unseemly resignation speech ends.
‘Thank you. You’re sweet. I DO try to do my best. Oh, give me a hug,’ he says, opening his arms. So I do. It should be one of those truly awkward moments, like watching a boss burst into tears in a meeting or walking in on your boyfriend’s dad on the loo. But actually, it’s rather comfortable: just a Cog and her manager locked in platonic embrace.
Within minutes Hayley has heard I’m leaving and pops over to my till to wish me luck. If my colleagues are being wonderful, customers are typically letting themselves down. A thirty-something woman and her friend arrive with full trolleys. And start unloading. ‘Get me a packer,’ she shouts from her end of the checkout. A packer? I’m the only packer around here. She turns back to her shopping and will be unable to hear me unless I shout. Which I. Will. Not. Do. When she eventually turns around again I ask her:
‘Do you mean you want ME to pack?’
‘NO…I WANT a packer.’ She’s not old, infirm or with kids. She only has one trolley of shopping and a friend with her. It’s an unspoken rule at the tills—customers that come in twos help each other pack.
‘Well…we don’t. We don’t usually have packers. But if you want help, I can pack for you,’ I say to mollify her.
‘Huh! All right then,’ she says, clearly put out. I start packing and she stands nearby opening bags. When I scan and pack it takes three times longer than normal. After a few seconds, her friend shouts down to her. ‘Didn’t they get you a packer?’
‘NOO! Disgusting, isn’t it?’
I look at her in disbelief.
‘Can’t believe there’s no one here to help the disabled.’ I almost choke.
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise…are you OK?’
‘I’ve got a back problem,’ she says, leaning her hand into her lower back and scowling for effect.
‘Well, look, if you want me to get you someone, then I can try—it’s just very busy today.’ I look around and can’t see any available staff.
‘I think everyone might be busy,’ I tell her.
‘Well, get me a manager to pack then,’ she demands. Ho, ho, ho—this WILL be fun. I summon Hayley over.
‘This lady would like some help packing,’ I say, stifling a wicked smile. Hayley’s eyes dart from the customer to me and back to the customer. She’s puzzled but a true professional. ‘Yes, of course,’ she says, and starts to pack. The customer then leans against the till opposite mine, folds her arms and stares into mid-air, still scowling. Hayley, with her back now to the customer, pulls a face and starts opening bags. We chat as she packs. Once she’s piled all the bags into the trolley she turns back to the customer. ‘Are you all right then, love? Not feeling well?’
‘It’s my knees.’ What happened to her back? ‘Can you get me someone to push my trolley out?’
It’s less a request and more a decree. David is summoned. He has to stand to attention for ten further minutes until her friend has also finished her shopping and he then pushes the trolley out. I find out later that he emptied her shopping into the car too. She doesn’t say thank you once—not to me, not to Hayley and not to David.
While some packing is left to Cog
s like me, others wouldn’t trust their own mother to do it. One such man is at my till with his wife and daughter behind. He shouts orders at them: ‘Put heavy things at the bottom!’ And they mock him behind his back. He actually empties the bags they’ve packed and repacks them.
One of my customers has a pregnancy kit. I struggle to get it out of its security container. A little scandal lasts me a long time, so I’m desperate to get the story. The couple’s faces give nothing away. But there are two kits in the box, which by my calculations equates to please-let-there-be-a-little-blue-line. I try to pull it apart and it’s decidedly stuck. The Cog next to me has to help. Once it’s out I apologise and they exchange a private smile. Always the opportunist, I leap in: ‘Would it be good news if you’re pregnant?’
‘Oh yes, definitely,’ she says.
‘I thought so—your double kit gave you away.’
‘We’ve been trying for months—and I’m now a few days late, so I really hope so…’ she says, looking at me eagerly.
‘I’m sure the fertility gods are smiling down at you.’
‘Well, as long as they’re not having yet another laugh.’
‘Good luck,’ I say.
‘Thank you,’ they reply, both grinning broadly.
‘Please come back and tell me,’ I add pathetically to their backs. They don’t hear me. It’s the most agonising part of this job—the endless cliff-hangers and tantalising unfinished stories. She’s not the only customer with pregnancy news. A customer buying the magazine I’m Pregnant unwittingly shares early bun-in-the-oven news with me. A gentle grilling reveals she is only five weeks gone. As is often the case, I know before most of her family and any of her friends.
A customer with a fresh tan, smart suit and a swagger thinks it’s fun to mock Cogs. ‘Do you need some bags?’ I ask as he piles his trolley-load on.
‘And how do you expect me to carry all that back—with my bare hands?’ he scoffs, flashing his freshly whitened teeth in a cheesy smirk.
‘You could try, but I wouldn’t want it to ruin your manicure,’ I suddenly find myself saying. He’s taken aback. I’m taken aback. I’ve crossed a line, but he deserved it. I smooth things over and learn that he’s just ‘jetted in from the States’. He delights in sharing endless tales of his ‘remarkable life in Manhattan’. A photographer by trade, he’s working in advertising, which he says has been untouched by the recession: ‘I’m still rolling in it,’ he tells me shamelessly.