On my first day, I discovered that I was the only staff member who wore a skirt and heeled shoes to work. I later also discovered that I was the only one to be missing my name badge. But that was due to negligence, not fashion.
On my first day, I was placed on checkout 7 and worked back to back with a girl who I later found out was leaving in two hours. After that two hours, I would be working alone and would have to call out over two streams of customers to the next closest operator to me for assistance.
This was an extreme inconvenience because, on my first day, I was in dire need of help.
It had been four days since I had last used the cash register, and six days since I had first touched the machine. My first customer transaction on my first day without a trainer looking over my shoulder went splendidly. Well, at least the item-scanning part of it did. When the customer pulled out a fifty to pay for their purchases, I hit a brick wall.
I punched various buttons on the register only to receive angry beeps in response. With the beeping of the register ringing in my ears, and a line of customers waiting, I tapped the girl operator behind me who came to my aid.
The average customer probably wouldn’t be aware of this, but performing checkout duty requires a firm grasp of the sorts of produce items that are available in the fruit and veg area. Service cashiers are required to undergo an informal test every week, in which they have to identify a random selection of produce.
On my first day, I was made very aware of why this knowledge is necessary. Every third customer I served – or whoever was purchasing a type of onion, tomato, potato, grape, nectarine, plum, or cucumber-shaped object – was interrogated about what type of fruit, vegetable, mineral it was that they had chosen. I needed this knowledge so I could input the correct commands into the register and charge the customer at the appropriate price. Apples and glad-wrapped goods were alright; apples have small identifying stickers and most glad-wrapped items come with a barcode that can simply be scanned. As for almost every other item that needed to be weighed, had a corresponding code that is keyed in manually, I was completely lost.
I think my mind was partially elsewhere. Some part of my brain still thought I was on holiday, idly browsing the Sydney Morning Herald Online or playing with my cockatiels. It wasn’t yet prepared to distinguish Ruby Lou potatoes from Royal Blue ones.
By the end of the day, I had annoyed 15% of my customers, one of whom told me briskly that she was in a hurry and needed to be at the airport, three of whom (including airport lady) had left items at my checkout because I couldn’t find the right code for them or because the item wouldn’t scan properly and they didn’t want to waste more time while I sent for help, and numerous more who I inconvenienced with my ineptitude.
By the time I turned the light off for my checkout, I was dead set on quitting. I clocked off, hobbled to my car with my feet tingling like they had fallen asleep and were just re-awakening, and when I arrived home I sat sprawled in my car for another ten minutes. I was exhausted, but determined to go online as soon as I was inside to look for another job.
Unfortunately, my internet was down. (No, really.) It looked like I was stuck working checkout.
For a little while longer, anyway.
