Читать книгу The Checkout Girl - Tazeen Ahmad - Страница 27

The New Year starts with grim news for the retail world—shop closures. There are more Woolies shutting up shop and now it’s Adams kids wear. I think the winners in all of this will be the supermarkets—they already provide the Woolies style bric-a-brac and low-cost children’s clothes. Rumours are circulating that Sainsbury’s may buy the Adams brand. One insolvency specialist has predicted the collapse of between 10 and 15 national retail chains by mid-January. Others are saying that at least 15-20 retailers are extremely weak financially and that one shop in ten will close in the coming months.

I’m in the locker room, squeezing my over-sized bag into my tiny locker when Michelle walks in. She’s a bit cool and barely says hello before heading down for her shift. I’m puzzled—I hope everything’s OK with her girls. Before I get on to my till I have a quick chat with a twenty-year-old student called Nick. I overheard him being reprimanded by a till captain a few weeks ago about a break issue. He tells me he’s been here a year—and he isn’t happy. He needs time off around his exams and this is proving difficult because he needs a job to get him through college. ‘If I don’t have a job after I finish college this place will be to blame.’

I talk to a man in his fifties who works as an eye consultant at a hospital. He tells me that jobs are being cut in the NHS and he shrugs his shoulders wearily, telling me he’s not sure that even his own job is safe. A checkout girl from M&S comes to my till telling me she never shops at M&S because it’s too expensive. She hasn’t noticed it getting quieter, although she’s well aware that the store isn’t doing too well. She has her bags for re-use with her, saying it’s a habit she’s had to learn after watching customers reluctantly cough up for bags. I’m turning into a bag obsessive myself. The supermarket insists we ask customers at the start of their shop if they are re-using their bags—the red prompt on my screen pops up before every transaction. And that’s where it starts to go wrong.

‘Do you have your own bags or do you need ours?’ I always ask, leaning down below the till in preparation to tear off some.

‘I’ve got my own, thanks.’ And then about a dozen or so emerge. For every bag a customer brings back they get a Nectar point. This is the main motivation for most customers.

‘How many do you have there?’

‘I don’t know how many I’m going to use yet, do I?’ comes the gruff reply.

So I ask them to tell me at the end. And then they (and I) usually forget. One customer this happens with asks me after I hand over her receipt whether I put her bag points on. She is hopping mad that I haven’t. I apologise but I had asked her to tell me how many she used. She looks at my name badge and storms off.

Right behind her are three generations of women from one family. This is something I see a lot, and today I comment on how sweet it is to witness. We laugh about how a simple supermarket shop can push mother-daughter friction to boiling point.

While many are up for a quick chuckle at the checkout, others use me like a drop-in therapy service. A pretty thirty-something blonde tells me the story of her life-long struggle to control her diabetes. It transpires that her sweet tooth gets in the way. I ogle the cakes, chocolate bars and bags of sweets she’s purchasing.

‘I comfort-eat because things at home haven’t always been great, you know?’ she says with a sad smile. ‘So every time I felt down or tired or stressed I’d just have a piece of cake and I’d feel better. Before I knew it, I went from being quite slim, to quite fat.’

‘You’re not fat,’ I say quickly.

‘You’re sweet, but I am.’

I’m desperate to take the goodies off the belt, but I’m neither her doctor nor her friend, so I wish her ‘Happy New Year’ and watch forlornly as she walks away.

One man in his late twenties is getting the weekly shop while his wife is at home tending to his three-year-old, two-year-old and one-year-old. I’m in awe. He tells me with three under-fours the couple no longer have any time for each other and it’s affecting their marriage.

‘It’s all our own fault, because we weren’t careful enough. She has these really heavy periods and so she has to take these injections to control her menstrual cycle because she bleeds too much…’

OK, that is far too much information.

‘And what happened was that she was on the pill but I reckon that either the injections were cancelling out the pill or she just forgot to take it and then when we fancied a bit of the ol’ Posh ’n’ Becks, that was it—wham bam…’

By now I’m far exceeding my items per minute.

‘The thing is that the doctor told us that, with every kid you have, you get more fertile, so the riskiest time to do it is straight after you have your last one. I mean, obviously all that breast-feeding stuff gets in the way, but I’m a man, aren’t I. I got my needs.’

He grins and I feel quite queasy. I’m no prude but there is a time and place.

After my shift I see Michelle three times: once at the checkouts, then in the locker room, and then when we do our usual end-of-shift shop—each time she gives me the cold shoulder. On the final occasion I grin and wink at her as we walk past each other, shopping baskets in tow. She barely makes any eye contact and grunts, ‘I can’t wait to get out of here.’

I head with my basket to Rebecca’s till for her take.

‘Do you think it’s me?’

‘Don’t be silly, why would it be you?’

‘I don’t know, she’s usually really friendly.’

‘Maybe she’s having a bad day.’

‘Or maybe she’s found out I’m the person who has bumped her request for a shift change?’

‘But it hasn’t been offered, has it?’

‘No, but so what?’

‘Well, she’d be silly to be annoyed already—he’s only considering it. You’re being paranoid.’

And with that she changes the subject.

‘Look I’ve got my own problems. I haven’t been assessed yet. Do you think it’s because they already know I’m rubbish?’

‘Well, that’s pretty obvious,’ I tease her. ‘It could be all that not-looking-at-the-customer stuff you do. It kinda gives the game away. Is your screen tuned into satellite TV or something, because every time I walk past you’re just staring at it?’

She chuckles. ‘No, I’m just staring at the time. It’s called clock-watching.’

Hooking up with Rebecca before I leave is the highlight of both our shifts. She’s anxious I’m going to leave if I don’t get my shift-change request approved. She’s right, I may have to.

When I get home I read a newspaper article about a forty-year-old woman who was asked for ID when buying alcohol in Tesco. She berates both the checkout girl and Tesco’s alcohol sales policy. The article is one-sided and I’m incensed. I’m desperate to write in and report the insidious way in which customers handle any request for ID. She may have been forty but judging by her photo (which I stare at for a while) yes, I may well have asked her for ID too.