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Supermarket
Soap
Daily life
behind the
counter
www.supermarketsoap.co.uk
Contact Us | The
Store Manager | 17th
August 2008: Eventful Nights, Idiot Idol, Trolleys For One Item, You
Cannot Pick Your Till, Girls Are Sometimes Worse Drunks Than Guys, The
Ultimate Stoner, Bring Your Cat To Work Day, Olympic Rattle Throwing,
Attempted Robbery and Going, Going, Gone? New Music Of The Day: Rude Fellows - L'uomo Invisible (anyone who makes music with an Adam And The Ants intro is great by my standards) Wow...I have had one hell of an eventful night tonight. From customers asking really stupid questions to being threatened with being robbed, tonight has been a lot of fun in a lot of different ways. And yes, I did say robbed and fun in following sentences. I sometimes wonder whether when The X Factor comes back on stage, people watch it and wonder if there is a Supermarket Idiot Factor too, and then go and see if they can get past the 1, 2, 3 or sometimes 4 judges. Tonight's first customer was a prime example. He came in with a trolley. Now, we are a petrol station, quite a small petrol station but probably bigger than average. Still not sure we should have trolleys though. So, this guy takes a trolley, wheels it around slowly and then emerges 20 minutes later with one, singular packet of chicken legs. Yup. A trolley and a 20 minute visit to the petrol station for one reduced packet of chicken legs. The next idiot customer walked across the forecourt over to our carwash, came back and asked me if it was open. The thing is, one of the rollers is broken because someone drove into the carwash with a bigger car than is allowed, and rather than their car getting trashed, our carwash did. Thing is, it's really obvious it's out of order. The rollers are bent, and there is a red light blinking on and off inside it. So I told her that the carwash was broken. She then frowned and said "Why? Can't you just fix it?" This annoys me so much. Especially when I am the only one on the shop floor. Yes, I'll just leave the shop unattended, fix a hugely complicated piece of machinery, and then come back to an empty store. People who demand unreasonable levels of customer service annoy me more than the people who ask whether we have the next day's papers in before midnight, and the people who untie the bundles of papers which are due to be returned to the suppliers. And then there are the other customers who really, really annoy me. We have three tills at work. At maximum, overnight, two of the three tills are open. Namely because we don't get enough customers to warrant opening more than one till. Personally, I think it makes sense that if there is someone in an SF shirt standing behind one of the tills, they are probably going to be serving from that till. And every single night we get people taking their stuff to another till and then going "Oh, right, you're there. Ok mate." Those customers aren't too bad. It's the ones who make a huge song and dance over having to move their stuff that they took to the wrong place. And it's even better when they complain that they've had to wait ages for you to serve them. One of those situations where you just smile, be polite, and think inside how much you deeply hate them at that moment. Which is exactly what I had to do to a couple who came in last night. The guy was great. A pleasure to serve. Which actually makes a change for a Saturday night because most of the guys who come in are doing their best Alpha Male impressions. I will get onto that a little later. Anyway, so the girl tries to kiss the guy, which every cashier without exception hates. We're at work. We're away from our partners. Last thing we want to see is a couple being all kissy kissy in front of us, reminding us that our partners aren't there and we can't do that. Anyway, the guy pushed her away and said "Not in front of people!" Which annoyed her to the point that she decided to take it out on me. So she tapped her foot whilst waiting in the queue. Supermarket Soap Cashier tip number 328: this will always result in us hating you at best, and you getting your change in many many pieces at worst. So I already had a dislike of this woman, and then whilst I scanned their stuff, she commented "Well I hope we're not going to be here all night. I wanted to actually watch that film tonight!" I forgot to ask which charm school she was attending. Then I committed a cardinal sin according to her rulebook apparently. I mixed up the numbers whilst telling her how much her stuff was. For this, I got a glare and a "Not your night tonight is it?" I smiled sweetly, pointed at the display and said "It is written there too". She dropped it and when I gave her the change, she exclaimed "Finally!" and stropped out of the store. Her boyfriend appologised for her, then followed quickly. It's times like that I am so glad that our customers cannot read minds. But then I had one of my highlights of the night. Strange things make me laugh, and as you may have noticed from this, strange things make it onto the pages of Supermarket Soap. And one of those things tonight was a stoner. Nothing really surprising there! He wandered to the counter with a kilo of potatoes in a daze, looked at me and took a step back, then smiled and said "just these mate". So I scanned them, and then he uttered "And a pack of red slims". But of course. Why go through a middleman when you have the munchies when you can make your own crisps or chips! Plus I had what is possibly the strangest customer to date. And I see a lot of strange people. The guy had been wandering around the shop for a while, and when he came to the counter he opened his jacket. And I thought I saw a toy cat. I was mistaken. It was a real cat. Yes, someone had brough their cat shopping with them! I mean, why? Why wouldn't you leave it in the car? Better yet, why would you bring it with you at all? I don't even get the people who bring their dogs to the store at 3am anyway, so why bring a cat? Plus the cat kept trying to get onto the counter, and the guy managed to keep him off it. Shame. I like cats. Now, a saturday night would not be complete without rattle throwing from a drunk. And this woman should win an olympic gold medal for her efforts last night. She managed to throw her rattle all the way from the counter to the door. She stropped in, and came up and looked at the barriers over the alcohol section, then stropped over to me and said "what? I can't buy alcohol?" I politely but firmly said no, which she didn't seem to understand. Because she said "can't you even do me a bottle of wine?" Since she had been the latest in a long line of customers last night who had asked that I said "No alcohol means no alcohol". She lost her temper. "And precisely what PC notion are you protecting with that stupid rule?" I told her I thought the directors were taking a moral stance on binge drinking. "I know it's not your fault. But I don't care! What's the f'ing point of you being open if I can't buy alcohol!" Yes, because our purpose is you. Oh, no, wait, it's selling petrol. Alcohol is actually a dismal fourth in sales. Behind petrol, cigarettes, and ready meals. So as she stropped out, I muttered "Pick your rattle up, it's by the door where you threw it". Now I did mention I got robbed. I may have been building up the suspense just a little. I went to the cash machine at 3am because my card was declined (wrongly) at the tills. So I checked my balance, which was more than healthy, and then went back inside. Or tried to. There was a kid who stood in front of me as I left the machine. He demanded that I gave him my money. So I ignored him. And he yelled "Oi! Come back here and give me your money! Mate! Give us your money!" I ignored him then saw that there was a massive queue. So I went back to the cash machine. And my would be robber was still there. "Oi, you was just here. You just used this machine. What you here for now? You wanna rob be is it?" I ignored him. "Oh! Balance, £23,000." I smiled and said "Nice." "Nah mate, just kidding. Yeah, back off mate or I'll cut you!" I laughed to myself, then stopped suddenly and looked right into his eyes and said "Kid, I have a bigger, sharper knife in my pocket which I use every damned day. Try it." He stopped and looked at me and said "Yeah, alright mate, stop threatening me, yeah? I was just f'ing kidding!" Thing is, even the police have commented on my knife. It does look evil. Six inch blade and where I tried and failed to snap a piece off the blade which it is designed to do, it failed and ended up giving me a wildly curved blade but razor sharp tip to it. It's awesome, and banned from work. But hey, I have the safety certificate for it, so I do as I please. Lastly, I fell at work. I am so embarrassed. I never fall. One of the few things I am glad about during my "rehabilitation" for my autism. They gave me co-ordination physiotherapy, as I had no co-ordination from year dot until thirteen. But where I was growing and developing at the time, my co-ordination is actually stunning now. And I love to balance on things. The side effect is that I never trip. If I look like I am going to fall, I always right myself. But not when my foot is stuck in a basket. We have these stupid wire mesh baskets for crisps underneath the sandwich section, and we all hate them. I have personally killed two in the last six months. They got revenge. I rushed away from where I was stood, avoided some boxes on the floor and caught the end of my boot in the basket and just went down. And concrete floors are hard. Fortunately I took Judo as a kid, and I know how to fall. Hurt like hell but just my palms and my wrists hurt, and that was only for a few minutes. And because we were short staffed at the beginning of the dayshift, I didn't get to file an accident report. Ho hum. I'll do it when I get in tonight. I already prepared one on my USB key which never leaves my neck. And there is one on my computer. And another on Google Documents. And another in each e-mail account I have. Why so paranoid? SF is a dangerous place at the moment. People are getting away with a lot. I hedge my bets. Permalink | |
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