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Supermarket Soap
Daily life behind the counter
www.supermarketsoap.co.uk

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05.08.08: Laziness And Sunny Days, Take What You Can Before December!, Porn And Snacks, How To Treat A Girl, Shy Girls, Even The Police Steal and Pepsi Max Can Be Bad For Work Streaming Song Of The Day: Mishead Lyrics To "This Ain't A Scene" by Fallout Boy Free MP3 Of The Day: The Pretenders - Don't Lose Faith In Me Today's post is dedicated to Princess Chav.  Hope everything is ok, and my thoughts and prayers are with you. OK, so, today should be a fairly long entry.  I know it's been a while since I blogged last, but I have had a few personal issues to deal with, and a major case of laziness.  Ho hum, that should all change now.  Hopefully.  Hot weather is not condusive to blogging! So, first up, I came into work and walked straight into scandal!  For those who have been following since about last month, you will know that I've noticed a few irregularities in the finances.  Departments which don't exist taking money, and increasingly so.  Now I know there is no such thing as a victimless crime, but, I decided to see where this was going.  And I waited, and waited, and nothing happened.  Until last night.  Turns out Mrs DJ is really on edge because £200 just vanished from the takings when she was helping the cash office person cash up.  Do I think Mrs DJ legitimately stole it?  No.  Do I even think the cash office woman stole it?  Not entirely, and if she did, I think she was pushed.  She's a nice woman with too much to lose to steal it.  However, I think she's not above putting it somewhere for someone else to "find" if she was told to.  I think my final words on this little matter are that someone high up was very concerned about not getting his bonuses on time, and with a new kid has been spending a LOT on child care.  Perhaps money he doesn't have without his bonuses? Then I had one of the most random transactions I think I have ever had to deal with.  We get guys coming in and buying porn.  Miss C hates it.  So does Mrs DJ (who got rid of my beloved Bizarre...damn you!)  Personally, I think it's natural.  And if guys want to buy porn late at night, who am I to judge them.  It's natural.  And sometimes if it has a DVD, we get guys buying tissues, snacks and a porn mag.  Which always strikes me as odd.  I never eat snacks when I watch my videos.  Kind of distracts.  I digress.  So this guy comes in and gets a porn mag off the shelf.  And then goes and buys a 5 pack of Double Deckers (layer of biscuit, layer of nougat all wrapped in chocolate) and a Pepperami.  Now, it strikes me as somewhat odd things to buy at the same time as porn.  MY only theory is that he thought "OK, I'm going to get porn and I'll get snacks.  Oooohhhh...chocolate!  But I want something savory too.  Savory...savory...Pepperami!"  If anyone else has any other thoughts, please, share. And for the next month it is School Summer Holidays.  Joy.  It means we get a ridiculous ammount of kids coming in every night because they have nothing better to do.  But it does also mean I get an insight into their little lives.  Take for example the guy who came in last night and was chatting about his new girlfriend.  It was actually kind of sad.  Now, I may not be an expert in how to keep a girl happy, I mean, just ask my girlfriend.  But I am an expert in presents.  Even if I am sometimes (read most of the time) assisted in this by the latest issue of GQ.  So, this kid comes in and is talking about how he is planning to wow this girl at a dinner.  Turns out said dinner is at a pub.  Wow.  This guy could tutor me on dates!  But the thing that I had to try so hard not to laugh at was the gift he has bought this girl.  One of his friends said to him "Are you going to get her flowers as well?" and he turned and snapped "No!  Damnit.  That necklace wasn't cheap you know!  It was £24!  And like I said, I am taking her to The Ship for dinner, that's going to be at least another £60!"  Kind of blows away my idea of presents.  This said, there is no way I am buying my girlfriend jewellery ever again.  At least not without her being present.  The last time I did I bought an engagement ring for her, which subsequently turned grey when she wore it.  Although, random presents for her have all been around the £30-£50 mark... I do quickly want to mention a new theory I have on customers.  I used to think that stoners were the best customers, but I have been rethinking this and I now believe shy girls are the best customers.  Point in case - the girl I served last night.  I told her how much her stuff was and she gave me the money and said thank you.  Then thanked me again when I packed her bag.  And again when I gave her her change.  Now, we have a lot of these stupid little £2 off shopping in the Isle Of Wight vouchers to give out.  And I swear my stack isn't getting any smaller.  So, I decided to be nice and gave her one, even though she didn't have £20 of fuel.  She blushed and said "Thank you very much!  You're so nice!  I'm actually going there at the weekend."  So I told her that if she used it there then she got 5p off every litre of fuel she bought and she blushed again and said "Wow...thank you!"  Far and away the best customer I had all night. We have a little deal going with the cops.  They get free hot drinks from us, and in return they come to our store a little more often than perhaps they should.  Works well.  Especially when they stop little kids coming to our store at stupid o'clock.  Anyway, there is a cute, short, slightly podgy Scottish cop who is really nice, and she asked if she could make a hot drink, so I told her to go ahead.  Then there was a the fat, ever so camp, New Zealand cop, who is also really nice although does rather patronisingly call me "Dude" at least once per sentence.  And he asked if he could make a hot drink.  So I grinned and said "She can, you can't."  And he grinned and said "Well...I'm a cop, so, f*ck you, I'll just steal one."  And as he made his hot drink, his little radio which tells him where to go buzzed into life (we used to block them, then got told not to.  True story) and told him to go to a shout.  He lifted it a little and said "Oh, f*ck.  Shut up."  Bless Kiwi.  We like him. Lastly, I have decided that Pepsi Max is almost as bad for me as Dr Pepper.  Although without the chattyness.  What a lot of people don't realise is that the way I am at work is very much a persona.  It's not me at all.  It's actually based a lot on a barman I am friends with in Gran Canaria, who is one of the most popular people at the place he works.  Well.  Popular and hated at the same time.  I'm taking a laptop this year so I shall blog about this guy really often.  Anyway.  Sometimes I overcook it a little.  Mostly when I have had too much caffeine and sugar.  Which poses a problem because to get the best performance, I use a lot of caffeine and sugar.  So, since I knew we had a tough delivery ahead, I decided to eat a glucose bar and drink a Pepsi Max, which apparently has way more Caffeine than regular Pepsi.  I completely forgot I had a coffee at 8pm.  And another at midnight.  And for the first hour it was fine.  I worked like the devil and got 130 cases finished in an hour.  And then people I knew came in.  That more or less ruined my performance.  Well.  Slaphead ruined my performance with one little line.  "Go and tell the bread driver to hurry up, I've got things to do."  So I jogged outside, and told our regular bread driver who I normally joke with, in a Spanish accent.  "Hola!  My boss, he say, can you hurry up, he have important things to do."  Then jogged back inside.  And then the other brand of bread turned up.  So I jogged outside and said to the permanently grumpy driver exactly the same thing.  A string of swear words could be heard as I jogged away.  This blog entry was powered by just enough Pepsi Max and a large hot chocolate.  Permalink |

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