Читать книгу The Checkout Girl - Tazeen Ahmad - Страница 8

I put my uniform on for the first time. I haven’t worn polyester since the eighties so it takes some adjusting to. When I look at myself in the mirror, I want to ask where the pasta sauce is. Unsurprisingly, Husband falls about in hysterics. Once he has composed himself he tries to take a picture. He’s laughing so hard the picture is blurred.

Today is till training. A solemn-faced, gum-chewing supervisor trains a few of us including Rebecca and Adil, from the general merchandise department, who has spent months avoiding his turn on the tills. During those six hours we learn about the slide, scan and pass technique that we’re told Sainsbury’s has developed to avoid staff getting back pain and attempting to sue the supermarket. We have to aim for seventeen items per minute (IPM); ‘If you don’t maintain it, we’ll find out,’ says our plain-speaking till trainer. All our actions are accountable; CCTV, electronic monitoring, assessments, secret observation, clocking in and out, customer and colleague feedback. With cameras in every nook and cranny there is no escape. ‘In places you least expect them,’ the trainer tells us ominously. Let that be a warning to us all. If they are doing their job, by now they must have caught me putting things back on the wrong shelves, sneaking off to the loos to send text messages, secretly sampling food and gossiping with Rebecca in quiet corners. In the bathroom there’s a sticker on the door with the contact details for a whistle-blowing helpline: If you see something wrong then say something right. One number. One website. Riskavert.co.uk/rightline. When she leaves us for a minute, Rebecca and I start singing Rockwell’s ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’. Yet, despite the ethos and attire, this isn’t the eighties and the message is clear: no one gets away with dragging their feet.

Our trainer talks coupons, reduced-price items, fruit-and-veg prices, cards, sub-totals, split payments, cash payments, fraud, removing security tags, till maintenance, voids, mistakes, price checks—by the end of it my brain sizzles from information overload. When it comes to Nectar cards, customers get two points for every £1 spent. After you’ve got 500 points, you get £2.50 off. By this calculation you have to spend £250 before you get a couple of pounds off. When I look at my own receipts I still can’t make head or tail of it.

At Boots you get four points for every pound spent and each point is worth one pence. Isn’t that a better rewards scheme than Nectar?

Adil is a super-bright young politics student who works here part-time. He gives me the lowdown after three years in the job: ‘This Sainsbury’s branch never used to take induction quite so seriously but things changed after the store failed a number of times on customer service. Sainsbury’s know they can’t compete with Tesco on value so they’re trying to compete on customer service.’

From an employee point of view, though, everyone I’ve talked to so far speaks highly about working here. ‘If you’re nice to everyone, everyone is nice to you,’ I hear, over and over again. I also overhear one young staffer tell another how intimidating they find their manager. All the managers are pretty intimidating; they charge down corridors, sour-faced and with little time for pleasantries. My direct manager, Richard, is the exception.

I’m to go back on Sunday for Day Two of my induction. Already I feel like I’m working here full-time.