Visitors Since 22nd April 2008:

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

16.05.08: Wierd Customers, Moody Supervisors, Strange Happenings and Late Finishes

Streaming Song Of The Day: Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

Free Download Of The Day: Cut Copy - Hearts On Fire

The Manager's Special Offer(Beta feature - offer available for this visit only...probably...)

This is going to be a really short post because, well, absolutely nothing happened last night. It was dead, we had few customers, and everything went really smoothly. Not condusive to good blog posts!

We had one of our worst customers back last night. He walks around just muttering to himself. His internal monologue has become external. So, he wanders around the store, muttering, then comes up to the tills and plonks his shopping on the wine rack. He then turns and says "I need £10 electricity, and for that I need my electricity key. Yes. So, that's in the car. Yes. So, I'll go get it, ok. DON'T TOUCH MY SHOPPING!" Instead I look under the counter to see if the hammer is still there. Unfortunately it isn't. Then he comes back and does the thing which fully deserves a hammer attack. He tells me how much everything is. Customers like that make me want to scream "I tell you how much things are, you don't tell me!" And then he asks for a receipt. And says "Give me the one with all the prices on it, not the cr*ppy one". I'll ram it down your throat as well, yes sir? And then he inspects the damned receipt in front of me. Now that is just humiliating. You see, there are things in retail that just "are". One of these said things is that if a customer asks for a receipt, it is for one of two things - you either need it for a refund at work, or you need it because you don't believe we charged you correctly. Anyway, everything was fine with his whole 3 items, and I hadn't overcharged him, so he put everything away, did a preflight check, then left. But not before saying "Oh hello sweetheart" to the woman behind him, who then asked me who he was. I simply replied "Gotta love the eccentrics".

The Blonde Bombshell was in a foul mood again last night. Yay. And guess who got the brunt of it? Yup, me, because I was the only one working with him. He complained that I didn't work the crisps which were in the cages in the loading bay, and when I explained that he told me he was working those cages, he snapped "Yes, and I work chiller, and I work some racking too!" I pointed out that, actually, I had worked 90% of the racking, because all he had worked was the soft drinks, whereas I had worked the crisps, sweets, coffees, cereals, cakes, and alcohol sections, as well as doing the newspaper returns. He snorted and said "Yeah, is nothing, you just finish jobs when you say you have, ok?" He also has this new, really annoying habit of addressing me as "Yo!" Oddly, he didn't like it when he was kneeling down, and I stood over him, standing straight and as tall as I can (about 6 foot) and looked down and bellowed "yo!" in my deep voice. He said "Why you call me like that? Why you not call me Blonde Bombshell or Mr Kravitz?"

There is something strange afoot at work. And I don't like it. People are changing shifts all of a sudden. I think it is linked to the witch hunt to get rid of me. Shame it won't work. The Hero has been asked to work 4pm until 12am, and has agreed, and now The Blonde Bombshell has been told he is working from 12am until 8am. If they want to play this game, I'll let them. We did it before (except with 10 hour shifts) and it fell flat on it's arse. Namely because we were just standing around doing nothing when we had small deliveries. Perhaps they also (misguidedly) think that it will stop me from blogging wherever I am blogging. It won't. As Ponytail (no longer with us) once said, when the rules of the game change, it's not about working harder, it's about working smarter. Same applies to this blog. I'll simply use the time to walk into town and get a nice sandwich from Tesco and a coffee at Cafe Nero and blog there instead.

Lastly, I had a bit of a late finish this morning. It got to 7:10am, and I decided that since my ride was outside, I was going. Queen Chav was on the phone to someone (could have been anyone, think it was Number One Son) and was chatting for what seemed like forever. Anyway, I bought my cigarettes, said goodbye to her, and she just ignored me. So, I took that as a signal that it was fine for me to leave. I'm not sure if I've mentioned our "flexitime" we have at work. Basically, if you are management, you can turn up whenever you want and leave whenever you want. Lower than management get the same deal, except you have to turn up when you are scheduled to, and you have to leave when management say you can. Even if this is past the time you are scheduled to leave. Oh, and overtime doesn't exist any more...
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