The Tills are Alive
Are we All Right? Supermarket checkout staff love that you care!
You see that old hag flopped on a stool at the supermarket checkout, scanning groceries like a care-home Carabosse? The one you feel deeply sorry for? That’s me, that is. I’m SideSwiping (with the emphasis on the Ping), working my way to redemption, one bleep at a time.
But it’s a consoling place for an old hag to be, a supermarket till. For a start, your customers care massively about your welfare. You can tell. They start each encounter by asking if you’re All Right. (At least, I assume that’s how I should translate “YawwoightLuv?”) It’s most touching. Although I never know quite how to respond —
“I’m fine, thanks,” is semantically skewed ; that wasn’t the question.
“Yes, thankyou, I believe my state of health to be unworrying, as things stand,” tends to draw a further enquiry. Namely, “Yerwot?” — and then we’re at a whole new level of interrogation, which is just too much when you’re concentrating on keeping the right number of zeros in the price of a Ginsters Squidgeburger.
Pretending not to have heard the question sometimes works. More often, your actual shopper will dig in: “I said, Yawwoight?”
But you can teach an old hag new tricks. I’ve learnt that the acceptable response is “Yeah. Yawwoight?” They will Yeah this and the ritual is complete. You can hand over the receipt with the warm fuzzies at so much solicitude.
It gets better. Many are the customers who require further details on your state of wellbeing. They’re especially concerned that you might collapse under the burden of your responsibilities before the end of your shift. This clearly upsets them, for I’m often asked, in tones pre-set to sympathy, What Time I Finish. Isn’t that kind? Although it just isn’t fair that your accountants, your lawyers, your doctors, don’t receive this level of customer concern. I strongly suspect that, having exhausted their compassion on the drones at Tesbury’s supermarket, our shoppers would front up at their GPs and not even bother to ask the doctor What Time She Finishes.. Those poor, neglected professionals!
Kill me a lot, but there have been moments when my response of choice to being asked about my shift times, has been “And that’s your business for why, exactly?” But I need my job. Instead, I cite the first clock-setting that comes randomly to mind. If this produces anything more than two hours away, my customer will usually dig deep and reassure me Never mind, it will be over before you know it. If less, it’s “Not long to go now, then!” And they will feel the joy for me and bear their groceries home in triumph, goodness in the world done.
Speaking of doctors, supermarket shoppers are crash-hot diagnosticians. They will study you closely as you’re mellow-beeped into a state of semi-hypnosis, before they pronounce, with confidence, “You look tired, Luv”. (Yes, they always think it as “Luv”. This I know.) Sometimes, they’ll stake more on it: “I bet you’re tired, Luv.” Sometimes, less “Are you tired, Darlin’?” (They think Darling-without-the-G too. Another thing I know).
WTF are you supposed to say to that?? Other than remark that it’s another form of concern I’m willing to bet they don’t extend to astronomers or meteorologists, the empathy-limited basket-touters!? I have a default setting for it: I flash a smile radiating a smackerillion watts of non-tiredness. If I can be bothered, I follow with a feeble antijoke about not wearing enough makeup.
But it’s wonderful that they care. Saying which, I add a Note to Self: When asked if It’s Been a Long Day,
“Oh, twenty-four hours as usual, I expect” is NOT a good response.
As a by-product of their anxiety for the wellbeing of the checkout staff, supermarket clients are apparently running some kind of communal time-and-motion survey.
“Been busy?” is the standard research question. It makes me slightly panicky, because I never know if they mean me personally, or the shop. I tend to assume the latter. Though blast their Pringles multipacks, they will make it personal. It goes like this:
Me: Not really. Pretty quiet most of the day. (I don’t say “ — Since I arrived”, even if that was only six minutes ago, because then we’re back down the When Do You Finish? rabbit-hole).
Trolley Jock: Bet that’s nice and peaceful for you!
Er…………….?
Or it goes like this:
Me: Yes. It’s been heaving since we opened.
TJ: Oh good. Makes the time go faster, eh?
That’s right, I’m sitting on this stool just wishing my life away in shifts by the conveyor.
In the ongoing struggle to aid our welfare, customers Want To Help. Classically, when they have a trolleyful of goods, only a small percentage of which find their way onto the belt. They will shuffle up to the Perspex screen to explain,
“I’ve six of those and three of those and nine of that and eleven of that and five of whatever… I think. Didn’t want to make you lift all those, though.”
Wow, yes, what might six packets of Liquorice Allsorts, three tins of Whiskas, nine tortilla kits and sixteen of some things I don’t recognise but which are decidedly small and light do to my ancient, crony arms? However great the damage, that done to my ancient crony brain in trying to remember the inventory, while also addressing pressing issues like whether I’m Awwoight and what time I finish, is always going to be worse.
Supermarket customers, your care and compassion for us, the drones, touch us to the soles of those dayglo Crocs you can’t see. But please, rest assured, we’re coping. And if you really want to contribute to the retail weal, instead of “Been busy?” go in with a critique of the new stream from the RSC, the latest on the virology (we love virology!) or whether Justin Bieber should be allowed to go on living. Anything.
Unless, that is, you feel like telling us how much you appreciate our coming to work in These Strange Times. I remove my uniform stores Cloak of Clunky Sarcasm to admit that that sentiment, we genuinely appreciate. So Thankyou in advance.
