Supermarkets

Would a Wal-Mart count? I served over 5 years hard time there. Also, I just got a thing in the mail that I'm eligible to take part in the class action lawsuit against them over work hours, so I may make somewhere between 50-1000 dollars, but probably will only get 50 cents.

yes, Wallmart's great too.

How much overtime did you have to do?

when i worked at a grocery store (and also kmart), i guess the economy was fine because we worked pretty much as many hours as we wanted. it depended on the time of year and how shorthanded we were. for instance, i worked a 14 hour shift the day after thanksgiving once, which is a big shopping day in the states. that was a crazy day because i think that was the most hungover i'd ever been and i had to be at work at 6am.

i probably have a million stories. like the time i was working in the express lane, which was 15 items or less. so an older, beady-eyed gentleman comes through the line and informs me that the guy before him had 16 items. he was incredibly rude about it and it ruined my whole day.

then we used to cut up a lot at the grocery store. one day we were using rubber bands to launch pens and pencils in the air and try to stick them in the ceiling. so this sacker launches one but as soon as he did, a customer walks up and the pen comes down and lands right in front of him and startles him so he got pretty mad. he tried lecturing us about safety and said something about it putting someone's eye out. when he said that, the sacker pointed to his glasses and said 'i have protection', which the customer didn't like. i was young and immature and it was really hard not to laugh when the customer was lecturing us.

I work in the bakery at a grocery store. it's not a 'supermarket' per se, but it's pretty damn dominant here in the Southeast, and it's got great benefits, even for part timers. Insurance, 401k plan, stock options, the whole gambit. And the stocks have only dropped a few dollars over the past year, while everything else tanked. And it started going up again, in what was usually our slowest quarter. This is the only supermarket I've worked at, and it's in America, so I can't help you much, but try to find a company that puts employees in high regard.

Super Target. I worked there, it served groceries but I didn't ever work in that section. I have been a cashier sometimes and dealt with food a lot sometimes.

My first position at WalMart was Stockman - the lowest of the low. He's the guy who gets the carts out of the parking lot, carries heavy things for people, cleans the bathroom, and generally does what nobody else wants to do. There were fun times, like when display would come down (a rack of sunglasses, say) and instead of dismantling the display to put it in the trash compactor, we'd grab some crowbars and take it behind the building and take our frustrations out. We'd have downhill pallet jack races (those little hand-powered forklift looking things that you use to drag pallets of merchandise around), and at night, if there were a few carts left, we'd have stockman rodeo, where we'd have to see who could drive around the parking lot and bulldog the most shopping carts (reach out the window and grab them, then haul ass back towards the store, letting go of the cart at the last minute to watch it fly around at 20MPH or so back to the sidewalk).

Those were the good things.

There was also cleaning up of vomit, and several types of cleanup that made me lose a little faith in humanity. I think I've told a few of those stories here before.

I was a cashier at Target for about 3 months. I got like 5 hours a week and it was terrible. There was this one girl who like stalked me. She was always hanging out at my register and she was super annoying. Then, almost 2 years after I quit, I saw her at Finish Line, where she worked. I said hi and stuff. Then she found me on Facebook. And somehow over the next few months she tricked me into liking her for just enough time to ask her out. So we dated for about 2 months, most of which I found her very annoying and didn't really like her. But then she moved to Texas and now I'm free. She was cool, but I think I only liked her as a friend.

Oh, and the first time I kissed her, I was super drunk. I don't remember it at all. I find that pretty funny.

Brilliant! - keep those stories coming guys.

Why do you guys do this to yourselves? ahahaha jk

Two years at a place called the Real Canadian Superstore. It would have been hell had I'ave been paying attention.

Produce first. For some reason, customers are nice to people working in produce, like I've never seen anywhere else before. You're putting grapes out, and they come up to talk to you, it's like they're afraid to bother you, like everybody has some buried respect for fruit and vegetables.

The only thing they complain about is when you're selling produce from somewhere else when the local stuff is in. Big dry California strawberries instead of little juicy Ontario ones.

I would put on black dress pants, black shoes, a yellow long sleeved button up shirt with a design of thin black squares all through it, and then a black apron. I liked the apron. I hated wearing that uniform but only outside of the store, I became anonymous wearing it inside. People I knew would see me in their peripherals and I'd turn to say hello, and even my family, they didn't see me. That uniform was designed by ninjas to make you blend into the store.

Sometimes, before work, I would stare in the mirror and say, "I'm embarrassed for all of us," and smile.

The other workers were divided into two groups, which were old and young. My understanding of the social politics there, nothing of it comes from the fact of one group being old and the other young, but from the fact that anyone there who was old had been there for a long time, and this, not being old, is what made me see them the way I did.

They didn't like the young workers. They were mostly grumpy, shy people. It struck me that they had given up on life, that all their dreams had been broken. The last thing they had in life was the small victories they could win over their fellow employees.

The way the managers talked to the full time people, you could imagine them going home and crying, bawling their eyes out. The way the full time people talked to the young people, the part time people, you could imagine them getting little pangs of satisfaction.

The part time people were aloof; seventeen year old boys and girls who needed to pay their cell phone bills and have money for the movies. They didn't care about the job, didn't give a fuck at all, didn't take it seriously; none of this, until, for some of them, the moment would come when they were insulted by somebody full time, and they would react like kids do getting scolded by adults, and for the first time they would care, and you could see it on their face that the cold reality of the working world had revealed itself, that they understood right then they were surrounded by ghosts; men and women who could have done great things, but instead they wore the look of concern on their face like a lie when they were rushing to fill up the bananas. They had nothing to really be concerned about, and they never would.

This was what their mothers and fathers did--worked. This was the reality of hardship and irritation and ongoing monotony that had held their world together, that had bought every bed they had ever slept in, birthday presents and pizzas; they would know from here on of numb fingers every time they saw a fence on the side of the road; they knew of shitstains cleaned in public bathrooms, of broken things that needed mending and things apart that needed to be held back together, in a wide blue world that was falling apart everywhere, like a fissure ran through it all and every time you slept, you woke up to a wider crack.

I used to come home from work and as much as I wanted to scrub the stink of celery off my hands, as much as I wanted to change out of those uncomfortable pants, to get in jeans as fast as I could like they were my identity, to remove my socks all sweat soaked from standing and walking for hours, as much as I wanted to shower and cleanse myself, I would sit there and put a CD into my brother's stereo, in the living room, and I would put the volume up high and sit on a black leather stool between the two waist high speakers, and the only song on that CD, Working Class Hero, would blare, and I'd hold my eyes shut, and I wouldn't move until the song was over.

People go through bananas at a rate that you start watching them pick through them and you see monkeys, you have to blink and refocus. In a five hour shift, I would go through 20 or so 30lb boxes of bananas. Hands of bananas. Banana spiders, huge and ugly, used to come out of the bananas and this sixteen year old who would visibly flinch if you looked him in the eye, said, "I feel we as produce people have a responsibility to the public, to kill those spiders before they spread."

They were all on their way to college, for this or that. College or University. I'm afraid to go back into that store, because it's two years later and I don't want to know which ones are still there, aging bad like sunken apples and becoming ghosts themselves.

There was one cool old guy. I called him the produce Jedi, he only came in the morning, talked about his daughter who owned an inn, cleaned his glasses on his apron, put on his protective gloves like a doctor, and then he would cut celery and lettuce like a God.

One of the old guys was half senile. He would yell at me for something, and I would stare at him passively, and then he would find out later that he was wrong in what he was yelling at me for, and he would get all embarrassed. He was ex army and he talked like an army guy, called coffee 'mud' and said his momma said he had an iron gut. He thought like an army guy, he came early in the morning and parked at the best spot in the parking lot next door, at the Wal-Mart.

Another old guy looked like Steve Martin and he was either happy and corny, or he was in a bad mood and had a little temper and a red face and you just had to treat him like he was a five year old. I wrote a short story where he went from stereo shop to stereo shop, every day after work for weeks, carrying a CD with one song on it, and none of the stereos he could find were loud enough. He had never heard the song through, but he loved it more than any, and every time he ever played it in a stereo shop, it never felt loud enough and he'd turn the stereo off with a quick angry snap of his hand. When he finally found the stereo loud enough and heard the song through, in the car of some young kid, he broke down in tears and spontaneously combusted.

Except that last part.

Next, I worked in grocery, the night shift. I might go on about that later, it's the dark side of the store.

I am not sure it qualifies, but I cleaned the floors of a supermarket for about six months. I worked alone, locked in the store, from 10pm to 4am...the last person out locked me in, and the bakers in the morning would let me out...

The manager was a motherfucker, I hated his guts, but I didn't work for the prick so it didn't matter...

I would sit in the cafe area, which had the only windows, and I'd stare out at a car wash across the street...after a few months, a tornado came through town and everything on the other side of the street was wiped off the face of the earth, and a half dozen people died...after that, I didn't have anything to look at out the window.

I would listen to my little radio, draw, read fashion magazines, eat candy, solve the puzzle books and put them back on the shelves...it was an all right gig, but my grandmother was dying at the time so it kind of fucked with me. It was all during this time I really started to confront my gender issues...

Anyways, this has NOTHING to do with supermarkets, so I'll shut up now

I work at Target as a Pusherman. Also known as Cart Attendant. Defined by the urban dictionary as:

A Target cart attendant (more recently refered to as Guest Attendant... but that's pretty much like calling a janitor a custodian) is basically the store slave. Is responsible for doing the outside and inside trash, emptying hangers from the lanes and tossing them in large hanger boxes (that are non existant 90% of the time), cleaning up shit, puke, urine, food, drinks, cashiering whenever seen from a distance by any LOD or cash supervisor because the corporation is too cheap to actually schedule cashiers, keeping all the check lanes stocked with bags (that once again are non existant 90% of the time), and last and foremost, keep the cart well full with an ample amount of carts while someone doing all the forementioned tasks SIMULTAINIOUSLY!

I'm printing this out and placing it on the wall.

As a cart attendant your supervisors will quite down to earth and friendly people. Remember at most they are making a dollar more an hour than you. You will be treated with little respect or dignity. There is a ton of work to do and very little time. I'm constantly cashiering. Cleaning up other peoples messes. Every cart has to be pushed by hand since nobody is willing to fix it.

My first review was very good. I got a thirteen cent raise, now I make thirteen cents more than minimum wage. In the words of the person giving me the review told me I am getting the maximum raise (10%) divided by the months worked over 12 and plus the square root of pi. He apparently didn't get a raise at all.

Typically store managers anywhere find making six digits doing nothing outside of a high rise office building demeaning. One night I had a problem they needed to resolve, "None of the street lights are on outside, and oh umm some guy keeps offering me and any guest (aka old lady) who exits the store cocaine." The store manager will do absolutely nothing about the issue. It has happened before.

What is ironic is seeing everyone leave at the end of the night and getting into their junk car while the store manager hops into her 2008 Mercedes (the one with the blue tinted windows to make your skin seem healthier). What is ironic about Target is nobody can sell cough syrup and liquor unless you can scan the back of their ID. What is ironic is where told the store budget, as if we have any impact on that. What is ironic is people who are getting screwed by this company care about the store budget.

I'm in high school, they max me out on hours, I need money for college, I like the exercise.

Interesting occurrences in the parking lot:

• Hotboxing
• Domestic Fights
• Drug Deals
• Lovemaking
• Cougars (old ladies)
• Rabbied Animals

I work in a small supermarket, in a town that has five supermarkets. I have worked there for almost two and a half years now as a cashier, and the front-end manager still gets me confused with another employee and calls me the wrong name. This other girl, a close friend of mine, has bright red hair and doesn't wear glasses. Yet, while I'm wearing a nametag, I'll still get called Laura. She is an imbecile, this manager, obsessed with children and trying to wring the last few drops out of her fleeting youth. She always asks me where I go out on the weekend and if I have a boyfriend.

About six months ago I was promoted and trained to be a supervisor, which means about $2 extra in my pocket for every shift where I'm in charge. It's hardly what could be called a lot of responsibility. My store is so small that we never have more than four or five cashiers working at a time. Laura and I often work together to close the store on a Saturday night. We close at 10, and usually from 7pm onwards it's just me, her, the duty manager and a couple of grocery guys. Once the actual manager goes home, usually around 6pm, it's reasonably enjoyable. There are a couple of different duty managers, though I generally only work with the 20 year old guys. Needless to say, they aren't particularly concerned about the rules of the establishment. Once, someone left a walking stick in the store, so the duty manager felt the need to dance along the front desk, in front of the floor to ceiling windows, to the song "What is Love?". My friend filmed it and put it on Youtube. The manager found out and made them take it off. The grocery guys steal a lot, the entire time they're walking around with cages they'll have a bag of chips or lollies tucked in between the boxes, and they'll just munch munch munch all night.

We have a security guard in the store from 6.30pm onwards every night, and he's like family. The most friendly guy you'll ever meet, he talks to all the staff and most of the customers, to the point where some people will stop by just to talk to him. He makes a great cup of coffee, and he helps me take the rubbish out the back at the end of the night.

I'm boring you now.

Thanks guys, some of these are gold!

I would love to watch your "What is Love" video, Elegantly Bitter!

Questions:

- Did any of your supermarkets have a song you had to sing before the day started? Apparently this is what happens in ASDA (the English poor relation of Wallmart). Or perhaps team-building exercises now and then?

- Was there any Christmas parties?

- What was the policy on stopping shoplifters? Where you allowed to, or was this security's responsibility only?

- Were there any illegal workers?

- what was the order of roles from the lowest to the top? (i.e. is shelf stacking higher than trolley cart duties? What about working on a counter? Is bakery lower than the deli?) My old housemate said that in her supermarket (Waitrose), working on the tills was an esteemed position.

- Where there any behind the scenes roles?

we never had christmas parties. like ever. there would be cupcakes or something in the breakroom but that's it. might be because it's such a busy season.

and for the most part i never really cared about shoplifters because i was young back then and also because i (along with most of the other cashiers) had a racket going on with those cash registers anyway. someone would give me some cash and i'd pretend to scan the item and keep the cash. you'd really be surprised how many cashiers did this. if i was broke and i needed something, i'd just go to a friend of mine and tell them. and i remember this whole thing with cigarettes back before they locked cigarettes up. i bet the reason they started locking cigarettes up was because of cashiers, not customers.

we had loss prevention too but they didn't really care about the employees stealing unless it got out of hand or they got caught somehow. i was friends with loss prevention usually and i'd help them if i saw a known shoplifter come in the store. but yeah, at least once or twice a week they'd catch someone stealing something at kmart.

-Target really pushes the team member mentality. Though I doubt anyone really sees it as a team but the managers. We have circles in the morning weekly. We congratulate those for doing something good like helping others when they didn't have to or handling a crisis well. I can't tell you the amount of good crap I did, but no one ever recognized me. No songs though.

-Not really parties. It'd be like a whole day thing so that no matter when you had your break you got a piece of cake or chips or soda (all store brand, yuck. Though the cake was good). And this was for every holiday. Even father's day.

-Call the security guy on your walkie. He'll take care of it.

-Not that I know of, but then again, I'm pretty dense.

-We're all pretty low.

-ETL and a bunch of other letters I can't remember. In Target, each section has a team leader. They tell you your section and get in trouble if shit goes down.

Questions:
- Did any of your supermarkets have a song you had to sing before the day started? Apparently this is what happens in ASDA (the English poor relation of Wallmart). Or perhaps team-building exercises now and then?

We had to warm up for work, usually half way through our shift. Considering I just spent the last hour pushing in carts, I found this to be rather demeaning.

- Was there any Christmas parties?

We usually have food, and maybe a little overtime pay.

- What was the policy on stopping shoplifters? Where you allowed to, or was this security's responsibility only?

We are actually discourage from approaching someone trying to shoplift. We could call the security person, but usually they are busy assuring that all the DVDs are rigged with those sensors that set the door alarms off. Half the time I know the person stealing the family sized box of Trojans though,

- Were there any illegal workers?

I don't think there are.

- what was the order of roles from the lowest to the top? (i.e. is shelf stacking higher than trolley cart duties? What about working on a counter? Is bakery lower than the deli?) My old housemate said that in her supermarket (Waitrose), working on the tills was an esteemed position.
It is usually a feudal system. There is sales floor, cashiers, and backroom (the serfs). Making an average of fifty cents more an hour were the next group, our supervisors (kings queens). Then store managers (clergy). Pharmacy is the (nobles)