Читать книгу The Checkout Girl - Tazeen Ahmad - Страница 9

I am yet to have my ‘Think 21’ training—selling alcohol, fireworks and other age-restricted goods—so until then it’s the shop floor for what I now call ‘reverse shopping’. Sainsbury’s staff call it ‘shopping’—picking up the goods dumped by customers at the tills. Never again will I have a last-minute change of heart leaving a poor Cog to put the unwanted product back. The one three-quarters-full trolley I have takes me two whole hours. After staring aimlessly upwards in a vain attempt to find an aisle that looks like it might be home to the items in my trolley, I find myself going distinctly doolally. I spend more minutes than is healthy carrying cans of Air Wick air freshener, Fairy Liquid bottles, baked bean cans, 3-for-£15 DVDs, a size-16 leopard-print blouse, an over-priced cuddly reindeer and 2-for-1 cookie selection boxes. Despite asking for guidance, no shelf can be found for the truly homeless—the Peppa Pig umbrella, a bag of mixed nuts and raisins, the rogue Christmas light and Pantene shampoo for thick and glossy hair. They go back to the trolley by the supervisors post and next time I look they’ve vanished.

Adil gives me a heads-up on the mystery shopper.

‘They will always ask for something at the other end of the shop to see if you will just point them in the right direction or actually take them there—which is obviously what you need to do. That’s inside information—use it well.’

I get my chance today. A smartly dressed, well-spoken lady in her sixties approaches me while I’m loitering in the household cleaners’ aisle and asks me if we have any Christmas biscuits other than the ones in the aisle across from us.

‘Yes we do, at the other end of the sto—’ A moment’s hesitation and I know what’s expected of me. ‘I’ll take you.’

I’m not a hundred per cent sure I’m taking her to the right spot, but if I look confident enough I may just pull it off. As we walk from one end of the store to the other, I do the maths. She is definitely retired, which makes her a prime candidate for mystery shopping. I’d better do some talking.

‘Are you doing your Christmas shopping?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘I wish I had the foresight to do mine so far in advance.’

‘Oh, you’re probably too busy working. I know what it’s like. Before I retired’—BINGO!—‘I used to work for Sainsbury’s…in IT as a project manager.’ DOUBLE BINGO!

She tells me she was there for ten years. I take her to the aisle, show her the biscuits, ask her if she needs anything else and leave her to it.

Back to the trolley and more reverse shopping. A middleaged man asks if I can help him find a particular brand of toilet roll. I show him and ask if there’s anything else he wants. He grunts what may or may not have been a no. Even my toes curl when I cringe.

If I’m trying too hard, one of my fellow newbies isn’t trying at all. Young, dark-haired and plump, she sidles up to me with a customer close behind her.

‘I’ve only been here two weeks and this chap is asking if we have any walnut whips. Do we?’ she asks.

‘I’ve only been here a week—I don’t know.’

‘I don’t know what to do with him. Should I tell him to go to another shop?’

‘Maybe take him to customer service or a till captain?’ I suggest.

She wanders towards him and fobs him off.

Meanwhile, as I’m trying to locate the rightful home of Garnier hair conditioner, a Korean family stop me. It’s Dad, Mum and their teenage daughter.

‘We need something for her hair,’ says Dad. ‘What you recommend?’

‘Oh boy, I’m no expert but I’ll try.’

‘You know more than me, I’m sure,’ grins Dad.

‘What are you after—shampoo? Conditioner?’

‘Make her hair straight. It’s wavy.’

‘You want serum for her hair?’

‘No sticky, for straight.’

‘Oh, so you want sticky stuff to make it straight.’

‘No for straight, like this.’ He indicates using his hands that he wants her hair straight. And his English seems to have got progressively worse.

‘OK, so you want to make her hair straight, right?’

Dad looks at me with exasperation. ‘No.’

I look at her hair and it’s wavy and kind of frizzy. Why am I talking to her dad? This must be mortifying for her. I look her straight in the eyes.

‘You have wavy hair and it’s sort of flyaway, so do you want something for frizzy hair?’

Dad jumps in, ‘No, for the straight, to make it.’

I ask her again: ‘What are YOU after?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispers.

‘Do you want shampoo…conditioner…mousse?’ Come on, girl, give me something. Anything.

She says nothing. They get fed up with me and send me on my way.

Before my shift started I did some grocery shopping. I picked up a packet of Country Life spreadable only to see a sign when I clocked in stating that it was being pulled off the shelves and we weren’t to let any customers buy it. I point this out to another Cog and she tells me to let customer services know. At the end of my shift when I take my butter back, they simply say it would not be scanable if it was withdrawn. They give me a refund and return to their conversation.

I catch my reflection pushing a trolley today and, for a second, think it’s someone else.