Being a cashier is...interesting, which is really no surprise. Grocery stores themselves are interesting places. You'd be surprised at how much it takes to run a grocery store, or maybe you wouldn't. Maybe it's just not something many people think about all that often. One interesting thing was how quickly everybody was willing to bond with one another. My very first day, I had people introducing themselves and asking me how long I'd been working. Make no mistake, it's not a display of workplace politeness. Everybody just wants another contact they can add in case they need a shift covered. I knew a couple of people who worked there already, so I didn't feel completely alone, but it was neat to meet other kids my age from all walks of life and chat with them during slow moments. It took me a little while to get the hang of working a register, but this was only because I didn't work very often. I changed my hours a lot, always trying to accommodate for my meager (but prevalent) social life, the stressors of eleventh grade, and my own personal need for "me" time. Different shifts have their varying pros and cons. Working in the middle of the day on the weekend merits chaos, long lines, huge orders, impatient families, but it goes by incredibly quickly. Working weekday afternoons is a little better, slower, but you're guaranteed to have enough time to read every splashy tabloid cover at least twice. Nighttime is the best and worst, simultaneously. It's always slow as hell, especially after seven. And those after-seven people are usually weird as hell. Either they're the smart yet crazy ones who decided to do their major grocery shopping late at night after everyone else has gone home, or they're those who forgot something and needed to run out quickly. If you're working until ten on a typical night, a lot of your time is devoted to mopping floors, organizing plastic bags, wiping down registers, or collecting baskets. Tedious stuff.
I'm not one for small talk anyway, so I guess cashiering was a strange profession for me to choose. I never really chatted with most customers who came through my line, just quietly rung up their orders. I got really good at bagging, if I must say so myself (nobody else really commented on this fact, but I was always careful to put like things together, make the bags a reasonable weight, and not crush any produce). Mainly I was just focused on not screwing up. It's a little bit of a whirlwind, especially when the place is busy. There's a premeditated list of things you have to say to/ ask the customer--"Hi, how are you?" (or something of the sort), "Did you find everything ok?" (or something of the sort), "Do you have a VIC card?" (or something of the sort), "Paper of plastic?" (or something of the sort). You have to make sure everything rings up, be on the look-out for coupons that might be stuck to products, recall or look up various four-digit PLU codes, communicate with your bagger (during the rare occasions that you have one helping you), process the customer's payment, scan all coupons, call over a manager to help you if a coupon doesn't scan (this happens literally every time), print the receipt, STATE, don't ask, that'd "we'd be happy to help you to your car today!", and congratulate them + partake in a paragraph long statement ("You have a chance to win five hundred dollars worth of free groceries if you fill out this survey online which is basically a chance for you to recall how badly I may have screwed up while checking you out today blah blah blah!) if a survey prints out with their receipt. And you have to do all of this pretty quickly. Nobody likes a slow cashier, but nobody really likes to help bag. It's funny. I digress.
Here are a couple things I did wrong:
- I never actually took the time to recite that aforementioned statement about the survey. They don't care. It was two parts defiance, ten parts my own laziness.
- Sometimes I accidentally asked if a customer needed help out to their car, which doesn't sound bad but we're really supposed to make it a statement, as if I actually would be happy to help you out to your car.
- I rarely carded anybody, and whenever I didn't, I could tell that they were a little offended, and whenever I did, I could tell that they were a little confused. It was so frustrating! I just never got it right.
- Sometimes I just simply forgot to give people change which is a stupid thing to do, but not many people paid in cash so it was a break from the normal routine. Natural. Stupid.
- Sometimes I'd miss coupons on things and customers would complain. My bad--sorry I didn't notice the teeny tiny microscopic sticker on your rotisserie chicken.
- Often a customer would leave a bag behind and then it would automatically become my fault and we'd have to comp them if they came back for it later. Sorry you missed your fucking avocados.
- There were a few times, when I'd just started working, that if something didn't scan, I'd just kinda give it to them. Which is what you're supposed to do anyway, but I'm pretty sure I've given away seventeen dollar cuts of meat before.
- I never really got the official 411 on where things are in the godforsaken store, so when customers asked me I usually said something to the extent of "Um....try four...or maybe ten. Either one."
- Never learned how to work U-Scan, never wanted to.
- Did you know Harris Teeter legally can't sell alcohol before 12 on Sundays? I didn't.
So, Harris Teeter was a weird experience, I think that that much is definitely clear. But my time spent as a lowly cashier did teach me a couple of things. First and foremost, it was my first "real" job, with tax deductions to a physical paycheck and an ugly uniform and a little name tag. I had been technically employed before this, yes, as a swim coach for my neighborhood's swim team, where I earned a significantly heftier amount of money (and arguably gained much more valuable life skills). But my dad was my boss and I knew most of the families that I worked with quite personally. So, while it definitely counts, it also doesn't. Harris Teeter was my first job with people I didn't know, in a not-so-welcoming workplace environment, with a clock I had to punch into, specific things today, an actual coalition of management, a break room, khakis, shifts, a clock that I watched desperately. Even though the fine art of cashiering isn't an exactly desirable or prestigious profession by any means, I did learn a lot. I was responsible for myself. I was responsible for my little register and all the customers who came through it. And even though I was only working for the money, that's a pretty justifiable reason to have a job as a high school junior. I paid for my own gas and most other things. I did a lot of thinking at work, grappled with a lot of big decisions and personal conflicts (scanning items gets pretty monotonous). There were rare (and beautiful) occasions when I did actually connect with customers. Whenever anybody bought everything bagels or cajun crab dip, I was always quick to express my love for such items. Some people were very kind. Others just didn't care, and I don't really blame them. One story that sticks out is this younger guy that bought ground elk meat on a Sunday night. I didn't even know we sold ground elk meat. When I mentioned this, he responded with the same sort of genuine wonderment, admitting that he had never tried elk meat and was buying it on a complete whim. We had a good laugh. I hope one day to be that spontaneous, to someday be content enough with life that when I stumble upon ground elk meat in the grocery store I'll go "hm, why ever not?"
Although I have plenty of anecdotal evidence and physical artifacts of my time at the good ol' Teeter, my favorite relic are the two poems I was able to write as a commentary on the things I saw as a cashier. I titled them both "An Ode to Register Nine" (parts one and two, respectively), in regards to the actual register nine at the Stone Creek location Harris Teeter, which is almost never in use unless the store is exceptionally (and I mean, like, apocalyptically) busy. Part One has been pasted below. Part Two will come to you later.
AN ODE TO REGISTER
NINE
people don’t buy each other enough flowers.
there are plenty of loaves of bread and
cases of beer; bananas, potato chips,
cat food, Coca-Cola.
but the floral department suffers
under the weight of our collective
predispositions.
most faces are blurs—
mere smudges on the proverbial clock
that counts down until closing time.
there’s a shrunken old man with a half empty cart
and a hand full of coupons
and a tall, smart-looking woman
who’s perfume temporarily cloaks the stench of produce
and forces the reality that
yes, there is life beyond the cold gray register,
believe it or not.
it’s true—
most people blend into the harsh fluorescents,
but some do stick out;
they leave a bad taste on the tongue,
or a smile ghosting the lips,
and it could be something small,
like the flair of their signature
or the bags under their eyes,
but, for some reason,
these people exhibit some idiosyncratic resonance
that could smell like sour milk
or taste like fresh coffee.
for example:
a man comes through the line,
sad eyes and a wrinkled shirt,
and in a hushed tone,
he speaks to his son
about visiting mom in the hospital that evening.
he jumps when his phone rings.
and his son looks so lost
even though he hasn’t let go of his father’s hand.
the man doesn’t need a bag for the bouquet of flowers.
they’re the third bunch he’s bought this week.
in another line,
a woman drops a tray of Asian food
and rice explodes across the floor like confetti.
she lets out a string of unholy words
and life goes on.
all so cyclical.
the man says thank you and leaves
his son at his side,
a little bit like an anchor,
a little bit like a ball and chain.
to stay sane,
one might try imagining lives for each individual grocery.
a pop-tart, grabbed on the way to school,
a bottle of wine,
sneakily procured from the refrigerator and shared on a
roof,
a thank you card filled with false words.
or else one might succumb to the easier thoughts:
like, I know that it’s my job and all
but why aren’t you helping me bag your three hundred dollar
order
when there is a line four people deep behind you,
able-bodied sir?
but thanks for shopping with us and have a great evening.
across the store,
a girl pulls a boy close in the cleaning supplies aisle
and kisses him with purpose and lingering desperation—
she was smart enough to know that
separation based on rate of movement wasn’t limited to
existence
in chemical solutions
and that if she let him drive home,
he’d go too fast.
he’d skid.
he’d crash.
for every “thank you”
there’s an accompanying
“I’m sorry”
trailing behind.
after a while
you begin to learn the circadian rhythm
of this corporate giant.
Saturdays and Sundays
are for families and roommates—
snarky remarks, shoulders squeezed, paper bags.
Monday through Thursday
are for the weathered pros,
zipping through aisles with unbridled efficiency.
keys jangle and phone voices carry.
Friday nights are for the lonely,
the tired,
falling apart in frozen foods.
and you
you, standing so close to the cans of soup,
your head almost in your hands,
because you saw that girl with the Band-Aids up her arms
scan that woman’s boxes of cereal,
and that man with his young daughter whizzed right past you
with the assuredness of somebody
who knows the aisles as well as he know the spattering of
freckles
on his daughter’s smiling face
because he can’t bring himself to tell her that mom’s
never coming back.
and you just can’t stop noticing everybody else’s pain
and that’s enough to make you dissolve into tears
in the canned foods aisle.
but you also can’t stop seeing the beauty
in everything but yourself
and that’s enough to make you lose your mind.
you were a traffic light lover—
the parking lot was too safe for you
but the city avenues
made you sick
and the plastic bags in your hands
made you sicker.
so you quietly hope you’ll
bleed to death in a public restroom
or fall off of a balcony,
somewhere,
and land, mangled and at peace,
amongst tailored flower beds.
for now, however,
you lay beside the silence a thousand times
and you dry your eyes on jacket sleeves
and waxy receipt paper;
you pretend that it’s okay that inside
you’re waging a war against some asshole with
absolutely no sense of urgency.
you frequent the grocery store,
maybe because of the familiarity,
or because of the conformity,
but, for some reason,
the linearity of it all
always made you feel much better.
until tonight
when you caught sight of your reflection in the deli display
and only saw a ghost.
then everything suddenly sucked again
and you sought solace
among the New England clam chowders
and lobster bisques.
you leave abruptly
you pass the desolate floral department, the bakery,
the stacks of baskets.
later, a streetlamp laughs at you
as you pass, much too fast.
and you can’t stop thinking about anything else.
and it’s beautiful and it’s sad
and you hate yourself and you can’t explain why.
No comments:
Post a Comment