Hey everyone! I hope that summer has been good to you so far :)
I'm really sorry that I've been rubbish at blogging lately. I was SO determined to stick to some sort of schedule and that clearly failed, but I have an excuse. Therefore, it's okay.
Recently, I started working in a supermarket. If I'm honest, I imagined such a summer job to be easier than it actually is - despite what you may think it involves a lot more than just dragging milk and butter across the scanner.
First up: Product names.
I'm sure that most of you will think that after having lived on this planet for a while, you would be able to name most things.
Well, at least I thought that.
Believe me, the first week of working in a supermarket is like learning a completely new LANGUAGE. I'll just take bread as an example - to someone who is not used to seeing such a variety, most of them look exactly the same.
Sadly, the computer doesn't do 'round brown bread' or 'square white bread' as a product option. Neither does freshly baked bread allow you to stick a scan code on it. All that was left to do was therefore to randomly exclaim a bread name I remembered hoping that the customer would nod.
Needless to say, that rarely happened. Most of the time, it resulted in the customer looking at me a bit bewildered.
Same dilemma with fruit and vegetables: have you ever heard of the sharon fruit before? I hadn't. Also - as ridiculous as this may sound - if essentially all fruit and veg that you are going to see is contained in some sort of plastic bag, then it suddenly becomes very difficult to distinguish peaches and nectarines and cucumbers and courgettes. This is even more so the case if the supermarket sells all sorts of variations.
Yes, you do get used to it, but the beginning is hard. I had to constantly embarrass myself by asking 'what this is' or having to ask a colleague for help because I 'could not find something on the screen' (which is basically a synonym for 'not knowing what the hell it is'). In fact, even the concept of asking a colleague was tricky at first - who exactly was I meant to ask? I didn't really know any names yet.
The next big hurdle for me was cigarettes. I don't smoke, so less well known brand names don't mean a lot to me. In everyday life, that is hardly very problematic, but if you are confronted with a thousand different packs of cigarettes having to find this particularly sized, coloured and flavoured one having no clue where to look first, then you cannot help but feel a little bit helpless. Common situations such as an impatient customer shouting at you asking if you are blind does not help you find his cigarettes any faster. It just makes you feel stressed.
But yes, you also get used to that. (I managed to find a pack of cigarettes today WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING because I knew where in the shelf it would be) It was a proud moment.
It really all comes down to experience and practice. I can now confidently say that I know what most products are called and if I don't, I no longer feel embarrassed but instead laugh about my lack of knowledge and ask the customer or a colleague.
You cannot get used to rude people though, but I will save this for future blog posts.
In the meantime, I challenge you to all give the next cashier you encounter a big smile. If they are anything like me after several hours of work, it will make a big difference to their mood :)
See you soon!
xxx
