YouTube Song Of The Day: Use Somebody covered by Paramore
Jamendo Album Of The Day: Avid (Demo) by 10 Cent Sunday
Supermarket Soap's Manager's Special Of The Day: 10 Portion George Forman Grill In Black - Was £119.98, Now £38.50
I had a great start to tonight's shift. Probably the best start you can imagine. Up flounces this extremely attractive girl, with a huge smile. And by extremely attractive I mean podgy, freckly, with long brown way hair and looking more than a little geeky by the way she is dressed. Anyway, I ask her out of courtesy whether her fuel is on pump 5. She's the only customer, the only car, and there is no-one else with fuel. She shakes her head and says no, it's the other one. I smile and she coyly says "No, I'm joking, it's on 5." Anyway, then Slaphead opens another till and I ask why he's opening it. He replies it's in case we get busy so someone else can jump on and help. She asks if that happens a lot, and I said that it did. So she says she's sorry, and hopes the rest of our night is quiet. And then walks away. And then stops and blows me a kiss, giggles and flounces out. I just have one question - why can't all customers be like her?
And then I had the pain with the pleasure. The pain being Chatterbox. The guy did not stop talking from when I arrived at 10 25pm until 11 10 pm. Now, I freely admit I am a talkative person, but ironicly, I cannot stand talkative people. They really annoy me. So I told him that if I won the euromillions next week, the first thing I will spend the 115 million on is paying the fine for thumping him. He then said I looked like The Rock out of WWE. And began singing solid as a rock for 10 minutes. I told him I was more like The Undertaker, which he agreed on.
But then we had some kids in. I say kids. Turns out they were brothers and 21 and 23. I know this because I ID'ed them. Anyway, the reason I mention it and the reason I say they were kids is because they were barely higher than the top of the counter. Not quite midgets or dwarves, but really short for their age. Now, they say it's not the job, it's who you work with that makes your job good or bad. I agree. Because Miss C walked past as they went to get a sandwich and said "Awwww! Hobbits! You're serving hobbits!" And that was it. I could not get the image of Hobbits at the bar in the first Lord Of The Rings film.
Of course, the best thing about my job is the day shift. Approximately half of them are going to college, paid for by The Chicken Company. Nice deal. Anyway, it is just a shame that litracy is not part of any of their courses. I know this because I wrote a note saying not to use the car wash on program 3, it will break, so don't sell program 3 tickets. There are notices on the checkouts saying "Do not sell £7 car wash tokens." When I left, the car wash was working. When I turned up at 10:30pm, it was broken. They'd sold 17 £7 car washes over the course of the day. I just hope when they placed the call, they told them that illitracy broke the car wash.
But the star of the night was by far the customer I had earlier tonight. He swaggered in, waved 2 £5 notes in my face. I asked if he had petrol and he sneered "Yes!" I asked which pump and he said "I have petrol, I don't give a shit which pump it is." Now, Saturday is a doss day for us. We do nothing. So I decided I had had enough of this moron. So I said "Ok, let's see, there's a pump with £124 of fuel, you can have that one, since you don't care. £124 please sir." He almost leapt out of his skin, ran to the window and yelled "Pump four, pump four!" I guess I got his attention.
Permalink
6th February 2010: It's What You Say And The Way You Say It.
YouTube Song Of The Day: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) by Marilyn Manson (if you haven't heard it, don't write it off)
Jamendo Album Of The Day: Mind The Jump by Noqturne
Supermarket Soap's Manager's Special Of The Day: 2010 Rayzor Rose Tinted Snowboarding Glasses/Goggles - Was £69.95, Now £13.99
Wow. Tonight has been good! Really good. I've had lots of funny customers. I've had a few laughs with The Bombshell and The Scotsman (although right now I can hear them outside the door being all cliquey) but it's been a good night.
My first customer though was a bitch. She waited until the middle of me packing her bags (something I am not obliged to do but do for most customers) to inform her partner that "Ugh! Something stinks in here." She then turned and looked at me, looked back at her partner and said "probably him." Bitch. But the thing is, she looked like she had just crawled out of a cave. Her hair was straggly and unstyled and her nails had nail polish on them, but it looked like it had been left to just fall off over the last few days. And she had her nose pierced. Nothing against piercings but nose piercings rarely fail to make someone look classless.
The second mentionable customer was just strange. She came in with £6 of petrol, and asked if she could split it between card and cash. We get this every so often and it isn't an issue. So, I told her it was fine. At which point she hands me a tenner. Now, I could be being dense here, or maybe it was her, but she wanted to pay £4 in cash, and £2 on the card. Why! People like that really annoy and aggrivate me.
We also had the Friday Drunks in. They are regular features of a weekend shift. These ones were just an extra 10% annoying. First they blocked the door whilst a blonde with a helium voice swayed in the breeze claiming she hadn't drunk anything tonight. Yeah, right. Then lil miss helium ran in heels around the store screaming and trashing the place. Unfortunately she did it right in front of The Bombshell, just as he had entered a particularly black mood. He yelled at her, she yelled at him, he told her to F off, and her boyfriend stepped in. He was thrown out. Then Miss Helium threw things at The Bombshell, who in return called her an F'ing bitch and hit the panic alarm. Which got the police involved. Miss Helium was taken away screaming at The Bombshell who laughed and said "Bye! You no F'ing come back F'ing bitch!"
Permalink
5th February 2010:
Friday Karaoke Song Of The Day: My Favourite Game by The Cardigans
Jamendo Album Of The Day: To Get Home Before Night Comes by Steven Dunston
Supermarket Soap's Manager's Special Of The Day: Black Silicone Waterproof Watch - Was £9.99, Now £1.99
Tonight has been interesting. The Bombshell has been in a good mood. Miss C is in an acceptable mood too. And we've had a few quite dim customers.
For example - the guy who came in and bought toothpaste and asked for a VAT receipt. Strange. Miss C offered that he was here on business and maybe needed to claim it back. But hoodies are rarely, if ever businessmen.
And Miss C is on the warpath with The Bombshell. She hasn't been invited to his wedding. Neither have I. But then, I don't care. She does. She asked him if it had got lost in the post, and he said that none of his invites have been lost. The Scotsman and Slaphead have both been invited to his wedding. But then, as if management are going to allow 3 of 5 night shift members to have a week off together. I don't see it happening, and if it does, I'll lodge a complaint.
Then there was the war. The Bombshell refused any help with the chilled stuff, so Miss C and I worked the ambient together. An hour and a half later we were chatting about something and he yelled at us that we were lazy and should have finished. I retorted that the meat and produce were a piece of piss and I knew that because it used to be my department. He yelled there were two of us, I looked at what he had left to do and saw that he had a cage and a half of stock still to work. I yelled at him that he couldn't argue we had things to do, and a lot less than him, when he had things to do.
Permalink
1st February 2010:
YouTube Video Of The Day: Space Oddity by David Bowie (The 1969 original)
Jamendo Album Of The Day: The Commons by David Rovicks
Supermarket Soap's Manager's Special Of The Day: Elizabeth Arden Stack Your Color Box 3 Tier Make Up Box - was £150, now £31.24
Wow. Last night was just a strange shift. It was as if everyone swapped heads. The Bombshell was grumpy and depressed. The Scotsman was happy, joking, singing, and everything else related to joy.
As for customers, we didn't really have any. It was so quiet. Although apparently the police were very busy. Could explain a few things. However, being someone who notices people, I noticed something really strange. Our cigarette counter has been all moved around, thanks to The Chicken Company. In effect, we can't find anything. But the customers are all transfixed over it. They just stare at the new layout. What makes it wierd is that it wasn't just the smokers.
One thing which happened was that The Bombshell wanted to mix and match offers. Now, I am really staunch on this. I don't care if they're staff, customers, whoever, I won't let people step outside the offers. There are reasons for this which are kind of complex (it has to do with buyers, discounts and stuff like that) which most people don't understand. Anyway, so I got shouted at by The Bombshell. I was called most of the four letter words, and a select few Polish swear words. And then The Scotsman waded in. And he threw in a few swear words, and then to top it all, called me childish. This is a word he is allergic to. He goes off on one if you call him it. Anyway, so I was at a low ebb, and then he slates me again. So I turned around and said "You know what Scotsman? If you want to be down on me for doing my job properly, whatever." He snapped and said "There is no need to be like this! You're just being petty!" The guy is such an arse.
But the really strange thing in the wacky world was that Queen Chav was nice. Yes. Actually nice. Making jokes, smiling, generally being nice. Wierd stuff.
Permalink
Podcast Episodes
7th February 2010
6th February 2010
1st February 2010
30th January 2010
29th January 2010
Blogs I Love
V And A In Milan
Retail Design Diva
Retail Hell Underground
Retail Hell: The Book
John Chow
Problogger
Income Diary
Blogtrepreneur
Daily Blog Tips
Entrepreneurs Journey
Visits Since 18/01/10