Shop Soiled: The Firing Line
A mere two weeks after employing me, a practical joke takes place. I’m informed by my increasingly resented manager (now elsewhere to hoodwink a whole new bunch of poor saps) that I’ve been selected, by her, to be trained in the use of a walkie talkie so I can play at being a security guard of sorts. The only problem is that I have the physique of a shrew on amphetamines so am therefore about as threatening as a drinking straw. My protestations at yet another new and (unpaid) extra responsibility are ignored and I’m sent packing, with a couple of others to a local supermarket, where some pretend policemen (Police Community Support Officers or, rather, Cannon Fodder), are to instruct us on how to use these radios to keep our property safe and the rest of the town’s shops and the CCTV operators informed of ne’er do wells in the vicinity.
There follows a rather excruciating role playing hour of radio cops and robbers as we attempt to learn how we are supposed to describe people clearly and inoffensively. We are taught the phonetic alphabet, we forget the phonetic alphabet and then we are fully fledged ‘crimefighters’ after one hour. If we’d stayed another hour we would probably be skilled enough to run the secret service. I have to admit that posturing with the radio did briefly make me feel a bit like Alan Rickman in ‘Die Hard’ or someone out of NCISYCSI Miami or whatever, but very fleetingly. The reality would be that I’d be vaguely skulking behind the sympathy cards watching someone attempt to nick a Dr Pepper whilst trying to remember whether my target is I.C 2 or I.C 4 and what my call sign was in phonetics again.
The following day I dutifully fetch, turn on and attach one of the radios, purely for cosmetic reasons as I had no intention of acting upon anything other than something urgent (attempted theft of a Hannah Montana pencil case perhaps). Although I was reluctant to play ball, having the radio constantly crackling into life at my hip provided quite a lot of entertainment. I got to hear about every trifling matter that occured throughout the town, from the location of passed out drunks, to the multitudes of chavs that were congregating outside and inside JJB Sports calling everyone ‘bruv’ and seeing how many jets of spittle they can eject from between their nicotine stained rodent teeth. I got to hear the rather remarkable tales of well to do rich ladies that stole from clothing shops just for something to do whilst their lawyer husbands play golf or go for ‘team building’ excercises with just their nubile nineteen year old P.A for company. Probably.
It isn’t mandatory to have a radio once you’ve been trained, but I felt that if I was to look indisposable and like the sort of hard worker that deserves recognition (still waiting), I probably should. So I carried that damn bit of plastic for days on end with it constantly spitting out its incessant blasts of static between broadcasts, usually from the clothes shop up the road that deals clothes to teenagers who wish to look like they’ve been spiked, assaulted and mugged at an american college. The first person I had to radio in was hardly the most celebrated of crime fighting incidents. A man, who was so incredibly drunk it was a wonder he wasn’t comatose, proceeded to try and convince me that the big pile of books and magazines he was holding had been bought downstairs but he had no bag. Then, upon my not unreasonable request to see his receipt, he proceeded to drop all of the books and the entire contents of his pockets all over the floor whilst rooting for it. There was a surprising amount of cash on the floor, but he didn’t come up with any proof of purchase. For ten minutes he was swaying from side to side, getting me drunk with his abhorrent boozy stench and insisiting he was legitimate paying customer, as the general public at the other tills looked on with undisguised horror and clutched their precious shopping from Laura Ashley close to their chests. I even got the odd knowing look of sympathy from some of them. Yes, I know, must be the blitz spirit or something.
I eventually convinced him that he should leave, without taking his ‘purchases’ with him. He teetered off. Then, with such drunk incompetence, and a lack of shame that only drunks carry off with any gravitas, he picked up a huge hardback Ken Follett book and shoved it straight underneath the inside of his jacket. I stopped him, trying hard not to laugh.
’What are you doing with that?’ I asked.
’I want to read it,’ he slurred. (I can’t be bothered to try and type slurred, sorry.)
’Yes, but we’ve just been through this haven’t we? You need to buy it before you can read it.’ I said.
‘ But I’m a speed reader, it won’t take me long.’
Class. He had me there, how ever was I to argue with such flawless logic? I only radioed the poor bugger in for his own safety.
Other than that the radio just caused hassle. Townlink would radio in a description of someone (commonly chav couples with a big pram or buggy to hold the loot), my colleague and I would do our best to blend in with the birthday cards whilst we watched them. They’d leave. The end. Oh, except for my colleague did catch a man that nicked a Tango Fruit Twist once. We had about five coppers in for that one and he was detained under the Misappropriation of Carbonated Fruit Drinks Act 1992. (Not really, he got an eighty quid fine. But we charge £79 for a soft drink anyway, so no harm done.)
I don’t wear the radio anymore unless loss prevention people from head office come in. But maybe if they asked me to carry a gun….
Shop Soiled: Lies!
It wasn’t long before my past caught me up again and clamped its slavering jaws around my posterior. I’d made the mistake of trying to appear eager in my interview, which was a grave error. In desperation to get the job in the first place I’d made two mistakes; the first was to look like I wanted the job so I went dressed in a suit. I have since discovered, through the stream of youngsters that appeared for interviews over Christmas, that I could have got the job dressed in a T-Shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Mind you, with my legs that is one for (a short) debate. The second mistake was that I’d not lied on my C.V about my previous job. If only I’d totally obliterated the last thirteen years of record retail and said I’d been on a gap decade-and-a-bit around Malaysia or somewhere, because, before I knew it I was thrown into the ‘entertainments’ department to assist in a big cycle change because I knew something about it. (A cycle change is when we move the DVDs from one wall to another, put them in a different order and then reduce the price by a pound or increase the price by fourteen pounds depending on what some bastard at head office decides by rolling dice, then a month later do it all again and still not sell any.)
I use inverted commas around the word ‘entertainments’ as it is at best a tenuous description. If you are entertained by ‘The Nutty Professor 3′, last year’s ‘FIFA’ Xbox 360 title (still at forty quid) or ANYTHING by Neil Diamond then it is named correctly. I wasn’t happy. I spent my time going through boxes heaving with different DVD titles and marking them off against the delivery sheet. Then it was time to tag them just in case someone with severe movie taste deficiency felt like shoplifting, which is probably the only way we would shift most of it. Next up was taking delivery of the CDs. Middle England had been told it liked the nasal warblings of Duffy and the chorus free snore-fest noodlings of Coldplay so that was what they bought. They bought it so our suppliers sent more of it and the days were taken up with counting and filing the bloody things while the bitter pill of irony sat rancid in my mouth. To make it worse, most of the counting and tagging production line slavery had to be done in the airless, fetid stench of the ‘ents’ stock room. For security reasons the windows are firmly screwed shut so if you fart in there be prepared to live with it for about four hours. The only near advantage was that there was a little portable radio in there which I could listen to on the quiet. However, day time radio caters to the masses so I was treated to whole mornings of Duffy and Coldplay or, if the young ‘uns got control of the radio first, lots of urban black people going ‘uh, yea’ and singing ditties about guns and money and er, bitches. I tried Radio Four but it made me want to sleep, with its languid, comforting soporofic murmer and I was having enough trouble staying awake anyway. I even tried Radio Three but all that high brow classical made me feel like one of our upper middle class Surrey customers who buy ‘Country Life’ and ‘Killing Small Animals’ magazines.
I was dragging myself around trying to convince myself that my new working life was working out just fine, but failing. My colleague didn’t help by taking every opportunity to remind me that life was shit and that the job would destroy my soul, like it had hers. The manager used to come into the department once or twice a day to ask, ‘So, how’s it going then?’ and I would scowl. I took to complaining and asking when I was going to be doing the job I was hired for and was met with unashamed brushings off. Deal with it.
The final straw was, when on one of these intrusive managerial visits, I was questioned about my contract. I had applied to this leading-high-street-retailer by responding to a window placed advert asking for : Full-time Bookseller, Mon-Fri 10-6. In the interview I had expressed my delight at being allowed weekends off. I actually asked her whether this was true as retailers usually expect you to work at least some weekends. I was assured that the weekends were covered on this tightly run ship and I was free to spend Saturday afternoons on the terraces getting mildly bored by my football team as we played Darlington or someone…
’What’s this I hear about you not working Saturdays?’ asks the boss. A slight rise of anxiety in me rises, replaced by irritation. I then proceed to repeat our interview.
‘I don’t remember this’, she says, ‘I wouldn’t have said that you could have Saturdays off and you’re supposed to turn up at nine, not ten.’ The smell of bullshit assailed my nostrils.
I refused to back down stating that I’d only had one interview in thirteen years and was rather unlikely to forget it that quickly. She refused to believe me and I refused to back down, I wasn’t the nervous sixteen year old quaking at authority. But it was put up or get out, and having debts up to my eyeballs the choice wasn’t really difficult. I was loving it after all. Loving being on £5.92 an hour with one unpaid break, a day in a farty cupboard surrounded by ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ boxsets, being shoved on the till to sell lottery tickets to inept shoppers and management that lied through their teeth as well as a colleague that was doing her best to convince me to commit suicide which, if I farted again in the stockroom, was rather likely albeit accidently. Happy days.
