The Checkout Girl

I spend much of my shift looking out for Richard, but, as expected, I don’t see him. After clocking off I hunt him down. He’s in the canteen with the usual posse of pit bulls and I ask for a private word. He takes me to a quiet office and we have a quick chat about my progress so far. Richard is one of a rare breed these days; a touchy-feely manager. I know my request for changing my shift is pushing the limits of new Cog protocol, but I have no option. I explain my childcare problem and he reminds me I had accepted the hours offered, but then promises to look into it. Finally he says:

‘We will support you anyway we can—put it in writing, suggest your alternatives, be as accommodating as possible, and Personnel and I will look at it and see what we can do.’ His response is heartening; he tells me not to worry and that we will sort something out. He is head and shoulders above all the managers I have had over the years. And I’ll bet my last bit of spare change that he’s the reason so many checkout girls have stuck it out here for so long. He’s considerate, courteous and proof that you don’t have to be bad to be good.

I go to Rebecca’s till for a quick chat before I leave for the day. The customer Rebecca is serving wants to do a split payment and Rebecca asks me how. Before I can help, the customer jumps in; she’s a former Tesco employee. She tells us she was there four years ago, earning £7.50 an hour at the age of sixteen. Rebecca is outraged and asks, not for the first time, ‘What am I doing here?’

Before I leave for the day I see a notice in the staff toilet called ‘Talkback’. It reads: ‘There is a popular misconception that Tesco pay more than we do. It’s not true. We also pay for fifteen-minute tea breaks, Tesco don’t.’

Saturday, 13 December 2008 (#ulink_837719c2-0f45-56f5-92a8-9bc18174c4ee)

Two weeks to go till Christmas. I go in today after the worst bout of flu I’ve suffered in years. I’m shaky, dizzy and can barely breathe. My chest is congested, but I am too much of a coward to call the absentee line again. I called in sick yesterday and it didn’t go down well. The manager at the end of the line interrogated me and left me with the distinct feeling that he didn’t really believe I was ill. So today I go in.

I see Michelle as soon as I walk through the doors. She tells me that when she had to call in sick she was reminded, in no uncertain terms, that she was still on probation.

‘But when you’re sick, you’re sick. You’re only going to contaminate others.’

‘And it’s not as if you get paid sick leave here, is it?’ she adds.

I take my painkillers, put my head down and get on with the job. I can’t think straight so struggle to talk to customers. I opt for cursory greetings, ask about plastic bags and Nectar cards, and send them on their way. Nevertheless, I do end up chatting to another Cog. She tells me she works thirty-nine hours a week at the store plus an extra eleven hours cleaning. ‘I’ve got to pay the bills somehow.’ She’s only just started at Sainsbury’s after finding it impossible to meet her growing monthly expenses.

That’s not a problem for the numerous ladies who come to my till with their designer bags. Today I count seven luxury-end bags. But designer bag or no designer bag, everyone loves a bargain. One of these upmarket ladies tells me she queued up to shop at Woolworths’ closing-down sale and picked up some knocked-down bed sheets.

Christmas gift shopping has started at the store and Mamma Mia! is in virtually every woman’s trolley, so I share with them the one nerd fact I’ve picked up recently: it’s the fastest-selling UK DVD of all time. According to Justin King’s latest newsletter, Sainsbury’s alone sold 200,000 copies in its first week.

He also reminds us of the importance of ensuring availability of stock, delivering great customer service and doing our job well in the build-up to Christmas. He also says the new ads with Ant and Dec and Jamie have gone down a storm.

Just before the end of my shift, I’m asked to close my till early. I’m taken aside and told that I was being assessed today. My heart skips a few beats, but somehow I get a green despite my minimal customer interaction. Ayesha reminds me that the mystery customer is most likely to come in on a Friday and Saturday so I’ve got to be on the ball. I point the finger at my ill health and add creepily, ‘I really do love talking to customers.’ Ayesha and Susie make sympathetic noises, but they’re not convinced. In a shameless attempt to save my skin I ask them to reassess me soon.

I hand in my letter for Richard and wonder if this impromptu assessment has anything to do with my request to change my hours. Then I head to Rebecca’s till for a quick end-of-shift gossip session.

‘I’ve been waiting for one assessment and you’ve already had two.’

‘That’s probably because you’re so kick-arse at this they don’t need to test you.’

‘Far from it, it’s the most unnatural thing in the world for me. I just don’t believe that they want to talk to us.’ She looks at the middle-aged man she’s serving and asks me to dare her to ask him what he thinks about our customer service policy.

‘Excuse me, sir, can I ask you something? Would you like me to engage with you?’

‘Pardon?’ He says looking baffled.

‘Would you like me to talk to you, ask you how you are?’

‘Well, if you want to, but I’m not that bothered. Why?’

‘We’re told to, and I wasn’t sure if customers want that from us.’

‘Well, I always find it odd when you lot ask how we are and when we ask you back you get caught off guard. Or when you offer help with packing and we say yes—you look put out. It shows it’s just superficial.’

‘But is it nice when we do it? Does it leave a good impression?’

‘Sometimes I just want to get out of here as fast as possible. And to be honest, I’m usually in a bit of a coma when I’m shopping. So chat to me, don’t chat to me—I’m not bothered.’

Wednesday, 17 December 2008 (#ulink_9ecaf56a-6470-5160-993e-648f4a2c5b59)

I miss the place so much this week I go to my local Sainsbury’s on a day off. My shop comes to almost £90. And I react in exactly the same way as my customers: shock, horror, ‘really??’ Followed by frantic bill-checking afterwards. As a result, I resolve to live a little and pop into Morrisons. I buy a packet of frozen peas, frozen vegetables, pizza bases, bread and milk and it comes to just under £7. That is cheaper. I need to stake this place out, hunt down items on my regular shopping list, get to know the store despite there being no obvious attraction. If I could, aged fifteen, go out with the sweaty boy with pimples and over-sized glasses, I can do this. OK, so that relationship only lasted for a third of an hour, but it was good to step into my discomfort zone. And if it saves some pennies, I’m up for the challenge. Customer service here really sucks, though. The checkout girl barely looks up. No matter, in these times I’d rather save some pennies than get a pleasant smile.

The Sunday Times has run an exposé on workers’ rights at Amazon. Endless shifts, long weeks and terrible pay. They get £6.30 an hour, which is the same as Sainsbury’s. But the big complaint is about those who are punished for being ill; taking a day off sick results in one penalty point. A worker with six points faces dismissal. Thank goodness I don’t work there.

Thursday, 18 December 2008 (#ulink_33803b0d-d375-5911-b020-7533ccbe2346)

The first hour today is really quiet. A few people come through the tills, but most of the time I’m just twiddling my thumbs. I read Justin’s newsletter and he says that Woolworth’s demise has had a knock-on effect because Entertainment UK—who supply Sainsbury’s with DVDs, CDs, games and books—is part of the Woolies chain. He talks of stock supply challenges, but states they are now working with three new suppliers. His outlook is eternally upbeat and it’s obvious to see why. Sainsbury’s prospects look bright, they’ve cornered their market fairly well and may yet ride out the hard times ahead.

But while the view from the top down is looking good, at the bottom where the wheels of the supermarket turn silently I’ve noticed a quiet indifference. Most of the newsletters sit unread and the internal magazine is usually only thumbed by me—my colleagues clock in, do their duties and clock out—and my questions about the future of the supermarket and its success are met with lethargic shrugs or bemused stares. ‘It’s just a job,’ I get told.

During a quiet period I get sent to the bakery. Sarita, a young Asian checkout girl, shows me the ropes. She turns out to be a great source of gossip, although I notice some bitterness in her tone compounded by the fact that she never smiles. As we get our hats and aprons on she tells me that two Cogs have been sacked this week—one of them for stealing. It is the stupidest thing to do because there are cameras right above the tills.

As Sarita talks, it becomes clear that she hates being on tills. ‘The supervisors have got their favourites and there is a lot of backstabbing—you’ll find out.’ She says that the customers are ‘horrid’ and the more she talks about them, the clearer it becomes that she actually hates them. Her advice to me is ‘just keep your head down and don’t get involved…everybody finds out everyone’s business and then interferes. I got some training at the cigarette kiosk and I told one person—by the time I went down everyone knew.’

She says all of this with little prompting or interruption from me. I’m starting to feel rather perturbed by the picture she paints of this place, until it transpires that she’s going through a hard time right now because she has just broken up with her boyfriend who works in the store and is the son of one of the supervisors.

‘I let business and pleasure come too close together and now I’m paying the price.’

I spend the next thirty minutes packing cookies and noting that the place is a mess. I find myself putting cookies into paper bags and leaving traces of chocolate behind on all the packs I touch. It’s not unhygienic, but the packs look really grubby by the time I’m done with them. For the next two hours I seal buns, baps and hot-dog rolls under the supervision of Sarita, only to find an hour later that I’m sealing them in packaging that is not sufficiently airtight to prevent them from going stale, so I redo them all.

I meet Marcus, a third-year Business Studies student Cog. We start chatting and he tells me he doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he graduates. He’s going to stick with this until he figures it out and ‘rides out the recession’.

I’m sure I hear my name called but Sarita assures me it’s someone else. Later she rushes to get me and says the supervisors are furious because they’ve put out three calls for me. I race to the tills. ‘I couldn’t hear you because the music in the bakery is blasting,’ I tell Susie while trying to catch my breath. She smiles, not looking remotely convinced.

The first lady through my till is a lady in her late sixties. She complains about her no-good thirty-something son. ‘He’s trained as a graphic designer but has been out of work for eight years. He’s lazy, doesn’t help around the house and I’m his financial crutch. And now we’ve got this recession and I’m more stressed than ever. He’s doing some charity work and he reckons that’s doing enough. But where’s the money going to come from?’

It strikes me that at her age she shouldn’t have to worry about taking care of a grown man. Despite her own woes, she’s shopping for her ninety-nine-year-old neighbour who is house-bound and virtually bed-bound. ‘She’s ready to go,’ she says to me meaningfully.

An architect comes through my till and tells me that work is still madly busy. ‘Credit crunch or no credit crunch, it’s just not quiet now, not even with Christmas. If the recession is going to take effect, we’ll be the first to be affected. But hey, so far so good. So let’s see.’

A man in his thirties tells me he’s decided to rent out his home because he can’t afford the mortgage; he’s found a place to rent nearby instead. With rent rates sky high at the moment, the rental income he’s getting is covering the mortgage on the house he owns and some of the rent on the place he’s staying in.

The rest of the afternoon passes without event. Thursday is often a staring-vacantly-into-mid-air day. When I look across at the other Cogs, I see them all doing the same.

Friday, 19 December 2008 (#ulink_2f69df5e-edbd-54c4-b539-8a0485f7ca1f)

For the first time in six weeks someone comes through my checkout and, when I tell them the total is £72.97, they actually say, ‘That’s not too bad.’ Her entire shop is from the Sainsbury’s Basics range.

Everyone is starting to ask about their reward points. I redeem as little as £2.50 up to a staggering £130 for one couple who have been collecting their points all year. Now the yuletide spending has begun and the Christmas gift shopping is well under way—they’re all buying beauty gift packs by the dozen: soaps, creams, bath oils. It’s the thought that counts, but if you ask me, it looks like a pretty thoughtless gift. And just as I’m wondering what constitutes a deep and meaningful gift, a woman comes over and piles packets of cake cups, cake mixture, marshmallows, smarties and cake icing on to the belt.

‘Are you having a party?’ I ask.

‘Oh no—this lot are my Christmas gifts. I do food hampers.’

‘That’s a great idea!’ I exclaim.