by Anna Sam
(… and you want me to take your word for it?)
‘You’re joking!’
(… and the customer leaves without his shopping.)
‘Really? No one’s ever asked me for that before.’
(… OK, treat me like an idiot.)
‘No need, I know your boss!’
(… and my sister knew the Beatles!)
To some people asking for ID is a capital offence and they will get really angry and insult you when you refuse to let them purchase their whisky. And be ready to duck because they might throw their shopping in your face (even when it’s electronic equipment). They’re above the law, no doubt. Or on the run from the law maybe. Crazy at any rate (if they pay with a credit card admittedly the checkout girl doesn’t get all those details, but her boss does).
Others will show you some ID belonging to their friend or grandmother. The photo is a bit of a giveaway. Yup, those customers have really got the point.
‘Well, what’s the difference? And, anyway, my friend was here just a couple of minutes ago.’
‘Can’t you ask her to come back?’ Bizarrely, you didn’t see the friend.
‘She’s gone.’ Getting agitated, ‘For God’s sake!’
And the customer leaves you her shopping and rushes off.
In any case, never give in (even if you find them very attractive). If there’s ever a problem, particularly with an overseas cheque, your management will be quick to tell you that ‘you didn’t do your duty as a checkout girl’ and make you pay. Be an incorruptible checkout girl! (But you can laugh inside when you see Mr Jones’s face when he was twenty on his driving licence or that Mr Smith was bald two years ago on his ID card and today it’s visibly no longer the case …)
BLESS YOU!
Notice for Staff (following several complaints from customers)
Checkout girls, do you have a cold? Please stay at home. Even if your doctor can’t sign you off work because your cold is benign, stay at home anyway, you plague-stricken person! Why? Because you touch customers’ items with your hands, which are covered in germs, and you might sneeze at any moment and ‘blow your nose on their bread’!
Do you have a cold because customers are forever sneezing and coughing all over you? So? The customer is king. They have a right to give you their bugs but they do not want to get yours.
Enjoy your time off.
The Management
£19.99 PLEASE!
Beeeep!
CHECKOUT GIRL
£9.99 please.
The customer hands you a £10 note. You give him a penny in change and bless the inventors of such tricksy prices.
£9.99 instead of £10.
£19.99 instead of £20.
£99.99 instead of £100.
‘That’s a good deal! Quick, let’s buy it! Life is cheap!’ So say consumers every day.
You can also thank these inventors for all the wonderfully fulfilling moments you will have.
Instead of spending ten minutes cashing up, you will spend fifteen because of all the 1p, 2p and 5p pieces you will have been given during the day. And your fingers will be covered in a thin layer of copper mixed with … dirt.
More than fifty times a day you will have to answer the following questions and respond to the following remarks:
CUSTOMER
£19.99? Couldn’t you just say twenty?
CHECKOUT GIRL
Well, no. My job is just to tell you the exact amount to pay.
CUSTOMER
Can’t you round it up?
CHECKOUT GIRL
I’m not in charge, talk to the management.
CUSTOMER
Keep the change!
CHECKOUT GIRL
1p, how kind! But we’re not allowed to accept tips, however small and generous they are.
CUSTOMER
I’m fed up with all these little coins in my wallet.
CHECKOUT GIRL
Save them for charity.
CUSTOMER
I’m 1p short, can’t you let me off?
CHECKOUT GIRL
Sorry, I’d like to but it’s not possible.
… yes, it works both ways.
Not forgetting that ‘Nineteen-ninety-nine-please’ takes nearly twice as long to say as ‘Twenty-pounds-please’. At the end of the day the time lost must represent about two or three fewer customers served by the checkout girl. If I ran a supermarket, I’d be worried.
News Update (rumour and gossip)
According to the latest news, the Bank of England has run out of small coins. Too many people are keeping them at home in jars or piggy banks (how sweet …). They might be removed from the market. Yippee! Rejoice, dear customers, the prices might be rounded up one day.
MY TILL, MY LOVE
Did you think that once you were in the swing of things life on the till would be easy? You and your till are one, your gestures automatic, you no longer have to think, and you neither hope for anything nor fear anything? Be careful! A terrible danger awaits you: management could choose at any time to send you to the till at the petrol station to cover for a colleague. And then, panic! You will be completely lost.
In order to stop the shock being too violent and to prepare you psychologically, here are the main tests that await you.
A till that is completely different from the one you’re used to, customers who want to buy a bottle of camping gas, who come and complain because the petrol pumps aren’t working, who beep their horns like crazy people because you are too slow, who poison you with their exhaust fumes … Above all, don’t be overly polite, they hate that.
Customers 1 – Checkout girl 0
Are you trembling? It’s not over yet. You will witness moments straight out of disaster films:
Everything was quiet that day but the arrival of a young man at breakneck speed changed everything. He tore into the petrol station at 100 miles an hour, stopped at the pumps and took down a fire extinguisher.
‘Hey, he’s stealing it!’
Incredulously I jump up. He notices me. Stopping in his tracks, he points in a particular direction. I look over and notice with horror a parked car with its bonnet open and flames coming out of the engine just next to the bottles of gas (a perfect parking place).
Panic! The only thing I can think to do at the time is call security. By the time they arrive the driver has contained the fire. And all the while customers continue to fill their petrol tanks …
Customers 2 – Checkout girl 0
Don’t worry, you will also see great spectacles (theft, holdups etc.), and violent scenes (two drivers grabbing each other because neither wants to give way).
Customers 3 – Checkout girl 0
Just a word on what to do when these things happen: don’t give in to panic and call security straight away (and if you are keeping score, do it discreetly).
Beg and plead not to be sent to cover for a colleague the day before the start of the holidays or long weekends. You might not survive that ordeal. Between the pumps, the noise of the cars, the screaming children and the insults of customers rushing to drive 500 miles, the struggle will prove to be particularly difficult and unequal.
Customers 4 – Checkout girl 0
Ah yes, the life of a checkout girl is full of unexpected events and dangers. So, a piece of advice: don’t rest on your laurels. Vigilance should be your watchword.
On the other hand, one advantage awaits you at the petrol station. You will have your own personal loos (with a door) only a few feet from your till (including a flush which leaks and smells). Isn’t life great?
Customers 4 – Checkout girl 1
And there are other reasons to celebrate your trip to the petrol station. If you survive the experience you will have lots of stories to tell your friends and, in particular, once you’re back at your till in the store you will think you’re in paradise. The insults, fights, horns and hold-ups will be nothing but far-off memories.
NB: I advise you not to read the fol
lowing, particularly if you have been feeling fragile recently. But I feel obliged to write it. It would be profoundly dishonest of me to stay silent about... the other disagreeable surprises that await you.
When you become a checkout girl you should understand that you risk having to work:
On the customer service desk
At the entrance to the store. This is not as complicated as you’d think. You just have to find a few good arguments to shut up customers who come to complain that one of your colleagues didn’t want to give them a bag, the music is too loud, the prices are too expensive, the meat counter is not properly signposted or stocked (there’s no Welsh lamb), there are too many customers, etc. Nothing too complicated, you see. Of course, you will also need to master all the subtleties of refunds, exchanges and organising loyalty cards. Child’s play really … after several weeks of effort and a smile for every challenge … if all goes well.
On the credit desk
I can’t find the courage to describe what awaits you if ever … in short, your mission will be to get your customers into more debt. But if ever you manage to do it you will be bursting with pride for the rest of your life. You will feel a bit as if you work in a bank.
In the Office
The great privilege of this post is that you will have practically no contact with customers. Nice, huh? The disadvantages: answering the phone, having to count the money in the safe and using the computer to find the bar codes of items when the checkout girls don’t have them, preparing rotas and knowing how to answer any question that comes your way in three seconds. Not for everyone, I know. Especially if the computer gets stuck … but that never happens … well, almost never …
At the culture and/or multimedia centre
The good news is that this doesn’t exist in all supermarkets. More good news: if it does, the customers are very nice (they almost all say hello and smile) and sometimes ask you for advice. No need to panic. You just have to tell them if the latest Coldplay album is better than the last Oasis one, the latest Bruce Willis film better than the last Harry Potter, the last Harry Potter book better than the latest John Le Carré. OK, giving your opinion is exactly the opposite of what is required of a checkout girl and you’ll need courage, time and a few brain cells to listen to, watch and read a few new releases in this area (don’t be too zealous about it though). But if you manage it, euphoria will light up your life and you will miss your till a little less.
That’s a fairly exhaustive summary of the dangers which lurk. Keep calm. And, I should have said this at the outset – sorry, what was I thinking? – these posts will only be occupied by checkout girls who request them and who are really motivated. Management only uses the best ones (the ones with degrees or who are regularly No. 1 on the league table … or however it is they judge. It all depends on your manager).
However, there is another kind of promotion (generally short-lived). With a bit of luck and real skill (that your store will be happy to use when it needs it), you can get yourself a proper job: you can work in the aisles or work in the Office to replace someone who’s on holiday for a few weeks or months (accident, maternity leave, long-term sick leave, etc.). You’ll love that. Finally, you get to leave the till to do something you like. But don’t rest on your laurels – when the person you are replacing comes back, there’s no chance of keeping the post that you liked so much …
These replacements will never last for more than a few months. To be clear, fewer than 5 per cent lead to a permanent post (yup, hurrah, career development for checkout girls in supermarkets is close to zero – heaven forbid that you might actually be given some responsibility). So when it’s the turn of other girls to replace someone, you won’t have any reason to be jealous. They won’t be paid more than you and won’t change status. ‘Till assistant’ will continue to be written on their pay slips. And if they look down on you a bit during the replacement period, once they’re behind the till again they will go back to being the checkout girls they always were.
OK, you can breathe easy again. In the end it’s more frightening than dangerous. But the petrol station? Sorry, that threat is very real, even if you never ask for it. So be aware!
By the way, have I mentioned the self-service tills (more profitable than even the most badly paid checkout girls) which might replace you altogether one day? We’ll talk about that when you’re feeling better.
GAME OVER
Have you been working for a few hours non-stop? Do you feel tiredness coming over you? Careful! You are soon going to experience the ‘Little Beep Moment’, a great moment in your day. Let yourself go and embrace this unreal minute.
The store is very busy. Trolleys are bumping into one another in ever greater numbers, the wheels grinding and creaking. All around you harried customers come and go incessantly. The loudspeakers crackle out the latest special offers and the background music becomes insistent.
The ambient noise is getting more and more unbearable. Your maximum threshold has almost been reached. All that’s needed is one more loud noise and you’ll be tipped into another dimension. It’s the yelling of a child that does it. For about sixty seconds you exist in a parallel universe.
The noise, the conversations, the music … it all stops. Customers, colleagues, the entire supermarket disappears. Now there are only the beeps of the till in answer to those of the neighbouring till. And suddenly you feel like a match is on, as if a virtual tennis ball were going back and forth between you and your colleague. You’re playing Pong!
Then, after that furious game, it’s on to Breakout, the famous game with bricks. Your hands are the paddles and the items are the balls that you have to send to the other side of the till without them falling over or, worse, bouncing off other products. If that happens an enemy ball might appear, as dazzling as it is effective (if the customers agree to play!) … But in general it’s OK. The levels are quite easy! The only real problem is when the shopping makes a 3D brick wall.
Then comes the final boss (the big monster at the end of the level) which irredeemably appears at the time of payment. And there you have to be quick. To beat him don’t forget to shoot him with his loyalty card and whatever payment method the boss uses and finish him off with a ‘Goodbye-thank-you’, accompanied by a glittering smile.
But be careful because some bosses have secret weapons like Unreadable Cards or Unreadable Cheques.
Sixty seconds later and the muffled sound gives way once more to the usual noise.
You have just experienced what I call the checkout girl’s ‘Little Beep Moment’. It generally happens when you have passed your six thousandth beep of the day. Sometimes, too, you will become Pac-Man (chased by ghosts, endlessly consuming the same little dots) – generally, after your three thousandth ‘swallowed’ item.
DID YOU SAY BAR CODES?
Who said that your job as checkout girl was monotonous? Don’t forget the customers. Thanks to them the days follow on from one another but are never the same. They will never cease to surprise you.
Like the one who came to my till without any items, just a list in his hand. He gave it to me and I saw that he had scrupulously noted the thirteen-figure bar codes of all the items he wanted to buy (about twenty of them). Here, I said to myself, is a customer ahead of his time. Did he hope that by the time I had scanned his bar codes an employee would be outside in front of his car with his order ready? Or did he expect home delivery? Or had he applied the principle of ‘large items can be collected at customer service’ to all items in the store so as to be more practical?
I never knew. When I refused to scan them he replied, irritated, ‘I always do it like this!’
Really? Sorry but I don’t work in a cyber-supermarket. Give me their address and I’ll apply though (think about it – a piece of paper is much lighter than a family pack of beer!).
And just so you don’t live your whole life behind the till without knowing, this is what the figures under the black bands on the bar codes mean. The
standard is thirteen digits (for very small objects there are only eight). The first two or three figures indicate the country of the company’s headquarters (from 300 to 379). The subsequent numbers give the family, product brand and any other information needed to codify the item. The bar code is unique for every kind of product. Now you’ll never scan another bar code in the same way, right?
STRANGELY STICKY
One day you may be fortunate enough to come across this guy. He looks really nice. He says hello and even smiles. And he puts his shopping down on the conveyor belt properly.
Ten out of ten!
I scan his yoghurts, bottle of wine, ham, cheese and packet of crisps … and feel something sticky.
‘Strange,’ I say to myself in passing, ‘no jam or honey coming up.’