When Worlds Collide: A Record Shop Reprise.
I am trapped in a nightmare of my own making, and perversely somewhat (kind of) enjoying it. Although harking back to one’s past can lead to ruminating regretfully on how things have changed, such as most friends that have moved away to do adult things like breed, get mortgages and get married/divorced/married, or family members that are searingly painfully no longer around, it can also provide a certain amount of entertainment. (Well, a bit.)
This blog has been absent for a few months due to a mixture of ‘character building’ setbacks. One of which is an absolute paucity of money which has led to my internet being cut off as well as the real risk of eviction. This rather urgent setback saw me return to the record shop with cap in hand asking for the possibility of a few days work during my annual leave from the slavery of the ‘leading-high-street-stationers/book sellers to attain some pocket money so I can buy some food. What a holiday. Still, at least I won’t get delayed at any airports, contract amoebic dysentery or get sunburnt. Phew.
What I will get though is the unsettling sensation that I have never, ever even left. The last sixteen months have been a real time and highly tedious dream of being unappreciated in another shop on the minimum wage. I spent yesterday whimpering on the inside as each person that visited the shop greeted me like I was there every day. No one asked what I was doing there or where I’d been. It was like one of those dreams when no matter how loud you shout no one even notices that you’re screaming. Then hell’s gape grew even wider and spat that most abhorrent of creatures back into my sphere of existence: Peter the mancunian, or Manx as we know him here, or smelly Pete, or that c*nt – which is the most apt description. Regular readers of both my record shop and bookselling blogs have been introduced to this repellent individual before and know that he is my arch adversary. His mere existence casts an indelible shadow over humankind. If God was real and cast his all seeing eyes over His creation of mankind in some sort of appraisal, He would weep. He would wipe us all out in one move and probably spend the rest of time building the word ’sorry’ out of cosmic Lego bricks and casting them out into the universe as a self induced punishment. AND IT WOULDN’T BE ENOUGH.
The reason I reacted so badly to Manx appearing was that record shop owner had informed me that he had been banned. He had been banned (long, long overdue) for being too rude too often; so rude that even mild-mannered record shop owner got pissed off and told him where to go with his Bonnie Tyler picture discs and Michael Bolton LPs and fetid body odour.
At eleven AM I spy the unmistakable swagger and lank hair of that man on the traffic island in the middle of the road outside. He has stopped and is staring in the direction of the shop, motionless. Owner and myself are here and he strides off in his style that resembles someone who hasn’t made it to the toilet on time. He’s seen me, I know it, but I feel safe as he walks off -seeing as he’s barred.
An hour later and owner has left. The door opens and I look up from the PC to see that nasal voiced odious little tick coming in.
‘You’re banned Peter.’
‘You wanna buy some top funk?’
‘No. You’re banned Peter.’
‘Am I?’ He asks, and comes in anyway.
At this stage I really can’t be bothered and curse the fact that on the first of only two days that I am here I am cursed with this trouble maker. I decide to let him go through the two small bins of £1 LPs before I remind him again. He wants to play mind games. I don’t. He finishes looking through and moves to the CDs.
‘ Get out please Peter.’ I demand. He refuses to acknowledge my statement so I repeat it. Again, no reaction and it becomes a matter of principle. I will not be defeated by this acrid cretin. I decide, for only the fourth time in fifteen years to manhandle a customer. It’s just lucky there is some of that antiseptic hand lotion on the desk for decontamination afterwards, although a sheep dip may be more helpful. I get up and put my arms out.
‘Get your hands off me!’ He sneers. A look of hatred illuminates his impossibly small evil piss-hole eyes. He then turns and goes back to pretending to look at CDs. We both know that he’s pretending as it is all about a battle of wills now, not what Kenny G CDs he can find. I grab his rucksack and attempt to drag him towards the door. Once again he spins round but this time slaps my arms away. I can feel the possibility of physical violence in the air. It makes me nervous on the inside but I’m not going to show this vile worm any semblance of it. To be honest, I’ve never wanted to punch anyone as much as this but the last fight I had was when I was eleven and I lost that, besides, I can’t afford to get my glasses damaged.
His defiance makes me seethe. I grab his rucksack again and the same reaction ensues; he spins and slaps my arms away.
He shouts: ‘I’ve got witnesses!’ as there are two guys looking through CDs with their back to us.
‘They couldn’t give a shit and they’re not even looking.’ I say. He looks over, the two men have developed selective hearing and have not paid any visible attention to what is going on. Manx walks off towards some more LPs stored under a rack on the floor.
‘Get out Peter.’
‘It’s cool, everything’s cool.’ He says.
‘It’s not cool, you’re in here and you’re banned.’ I say. He ignores me. I’m losing. Then I try my last resort before a proper tussle takes place: the annoyance technique. This entails me standing in front of wherever he tries to look. This is at once effective, surprisingly so. He is thwarted by my childish antics.
‘If it wasn’t for you and your mouth I wouldn’t be banned!,’ he cries, ‘and that fuckin’ joker you work with!’ All I do is smirk and he finally leaves. I apologise to the two guys for the scene that they refused to acknowledge and make some coffee. It is just like old times.
…………………………………………..
Today is a little better. No fights but I’ve had the bus spotter in. Another who hasn’t even realised that I haven’t been around for ages. We have the same conversation as he asks me for things that don’t exist and he leaves. Some things never change, nor should they. It’s like wrapping yourself up in an old comfort blanket only to find someone’s been sick on it.
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.
Shop Soiled: First Battles.
The terrible curse of work is that most of us have to do it every single bloody day, working towards a retirement which gets further and further away with each generation: the proverbial dangling carrot. I don’t even really like carrots anyway, I’m more of a cabbage kind of guy. The repetitive nature of our mundane existences makes me gasp with wonder that there aren’t more suicides in this country as we run around like dimwit hamsters on our eternal spinning wheels, getting nowhere and getting knackered in the process. These were the kind of thoughts that bothered me as I found myself embarking on my first whole week in the new job. What a sparkly start to a new ‘career’.
My first week as highly knowledgable bookseller was spent ensconced on the tills for eight hours a day so I could get to try and figure out how to work them. The upstairs books floor is largely a haven of serenity compared to the hideous inferno of hades downstairs, therefore less customers meant less hot till action so the learning curve was slight. Due to this I was ringing my little bell for assistance from the established staff almost every transaction as some awkward customer would confuse the hell out of me by presenting vouchers at the wrong time whilst trying to return an item bought in a three for two deal whilst asking for the Lottery (I HATE HATE HATE IT) results from fucking June 1994 (in braille.) This action had one outcome: I was solidifying my reputation as pain-in-the-arse. I was met with the occasional glower from my colleagues as they had to put down what they were doing to assist me for the hundreth time. With every ring of that little bell my self loathing grew but there was nothing I could do except hope that the customers would just pay for one item at a time. With the exact cash. Not a chance.
It wasn’t long before I was acquainted with a new enemy: the books ordering system. Like some pedantic headmaster, our incredibly inefficient system will only find what you are looking for if all of the spelling and punctuation is totally spot on. Just a missing apostrophe is enough for the stupid thing to announce that that book doesn’t exist, so if you want to read ‘Gullivers Travels you can’t. But you can get ‘Gulliver’s Travels.’ I, for one, am a punctuation Nazi – I’m totally with Lynne Truss on this one – but a little leeway would be welcome. Sometimes one is just too busy to make sure everything is coloned correctly and a big problem with this is that the majority of staff are young, and young people on the whole are no longer encouraged or expected to spell properly. (I’m fighting the urge to rant further about this, and don’t get me started on anachronyms like LOL or the proliferation of exclamation marks used to denote humour or wackiness!!!!! LOL!)
Another great trait of the ordering computer was that it would be very, very slow and then crash just as you were about to complete all the details of name and contact details. Therefore you had to boot up the thing again whilst apologising to the tutting old biddy as she looks at her watch and goes on about how she’s not got the time to hang around because ‘Cash in the Attic’ is about to start. Then there are the customer foibles. The ones that won’t give you their phone number or, as happened to me on Friday, the ones that won’t even give you their name. Like our aim in life is to spy on, and steal the identity of these blithering Dan Brown reading wankers. Thankfully our ordering system is now much faster, so we can let you know in seconds that we can’t get that book for you, so try Waterstone’s.
Anyway, I was picking up on how it all worked quite well and was reassured by colleagues in their kind moments that I wasn’t thick, it was just an incredibly crap computer system which made life difficult. I began to realise that it seemed that everything was designed at this leading high street retailer (TM) to frustrate, annoy, antagonise and depress staff and customers alike. This has still yet to be usurped as head office’s main contribution to the company.
After about a week, I earned the right to be let loose onto the shop floor to do some actual work, with maybe two or three hours on the till per day. I was naturally pleased to be amongst the books. Books are a passion of mine; fiction is my bag – the more depressing the better as it makes me feel like my life isn’t quite as shit as all that. I also love history books that are written with wit and verve, some travel writing is most entertaining too, and nature books enthrall me due to my proudly held obsession with the natural world and all of its incredibly diverse glories (except for horses – never trust an animal with a hair-do). So I eagerly await instructions from my supervisor as to what sections I will be given responsibility for….
I get given: business, computing (because I wear glasses which instantly makes me computer literate doesn’t it?) and sport (I only really know about football, the rest of it is quite boring. Cricket? Standing around is not a sport. Golf? Surely only invented as a way to get away from the wife or cement your reputation as a 1980s ‘comedian’. Motor Racing? Cars going round and round for five hours – you can do that on the M25 and no one watches that. Horse Racing? Tiny men on those afore mentioned coiffered beasts – very un-nerving and watched by ugly people with nicotine stained fingers and hoity toity idiots drinking Pimms whilst balancing what looks like an ostrich on their heads.) I also take control of the crossword and puzzle books which only the elderly buy whilst awaiting the bony hand of Death to grip their shoulder. (Shoot me if I get like that. That was an in joke for about three people, sorry.)
Great. So I’m the one in charge of fielding questions about subjects of which I now nothing. If I knew about business I wouldn’t be working in a shop would I? I would be counting my gold on a yacht moored in Monaco whilst giggling bikini clad girls run their luscious long fingers down my tanned chest. If I was into computers I would be stuck in some grim open planned office talking about ‘thought showers’ or ‘blue sky thinking’ whilst working on a project to do with spatial futuremark adobe photoshop windbag applications version 0:2.
My hopes were lying prostate at my feet, sobbing. But small mercies, I was away from dealing CDs as that would be just too cruel to escape from the record shop only to be chucked straight back into a different one. Can you tell where this is leading? Thought so.
Shop Soiled: First Impressions.
I hadn’t slept. I had spent the night looking at the clock but no amount of willpower could stop the time advancing towards the stomach fizzing horror of starting a new job for the first time in thirteen years. I finally rose to spend the next hour pacing around, drinking coffee and then experiencing the joy of seeing that coffee reappear due to the amount of retching going on.
What a baby.
Somehow I found myself out of the flat and was little short of amazed that my legs were carrying me towards my destination even though my mind and spirit were still under the duvet whimpering pathetically. Then, somehow, I arrived.
I went up to the books floor where I presented myself to a new colleague, an older woman who greeted me rather coldly. I was then escorted upstairs as I waffled on about something or other just to try and stop thinking about needing the toilet. I found myself in the staff room where two colleagues sat silently reading the tabloids; I was glanced at and ignored – just another recruit, more cannon fodder so nothing interesting. I tried hard to look nonchalant and tried harder not to fart.
A few minutes later the manager came and got me and seemed astonished that I’d turned up. That made two of us then. I was shown into the office and asked to sit tight whilst she went off to get my file. That was the last I saw of her as it was a flustered yorkshire man that re-emerged from the door, not her. He introduced himself but looked rather irate that he had to deal with me. This was an assistant manager. At that point the phone rang and he answered it and spent the next few minutes complaining that he had to do a bloody induction and it wan’t his job. I shifted nervously as I assumed the role of everyone’s pain-in-the-arse.
Finally I was noticed again and then had my induction. This entailed lots of scrawling one’s name at the bottom of numerous bits of paper that outlined how I was no longer in possession of my basic human rights as I was becoming a drone for a major corporation. We also had a chat about where I’d come from and my long stint in retail, which turned out to mirror assistant manager’s. He had been in the company’s employ ever since he was a young lad but didn’t seem too happy about it. I was then furnished with a ream of paper with tiny writing on, and told to sit in the staff room and have a good read, and to take as long as I need. I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone wanted shot of me.
So I retired to the staff room to learn about how it is apparently bad to sell cigarettes to nine year olds, that the money in the tills isn’t mine, that abusing customers is frowned upon (damn) and general obvious comments about how to breath in, followed by out (repeat as necessary). I read it all in about twenty minutes and I was stretching it out too – I didn’t want to seem that I hadn’t read it and reappear in the office looking like I couldn’t care less. Therefore I had a ‘coffee’ and flicked through a newspaper, but felt all of a sudden like I would appear quite thick if I hung around in there too long. After forty minutes I sought out the assistant manager and I was greeted with surprise.
’That was quick! Are you sure you’ve read it? Have you understood it?’ He asked. It seems that whatever I do will be met with surprise, with a dollop of suspicion thrown in. I then begin to believe I’d neither read it properly nor understood it. I was not having fun. My ‘early’ reappearance in the office to await instructions seemed to throw everyone and they had little idea of what to do with me, so I was sent out to lunch so they could find someone who would not be too bored to till train me that afternoon. Half way through my first day and the nerves had been replaced by a feeling of depression, which felt like an improvement of sorts.
After lunch I am asked to await further instructions in the staff room. In the room are two girls, one of which has been selected to till train me. I introduce myself and then listen to how she is too tired and bored to bother teaching me anything. Great stuff. I spend the next hour pretending to comprehend processing gift cards, club cards, credit cards, vouchers, lottery payouts, refunds, company cheques, hard cash, coupons etc on the incredibly convoluted computerised till system that crashes every five minutes. It was all so bewildering and I hadn’t even made it on to the shop floor. But during all this I discover that the girl who is teaching me is really nice and chatty, sarcastic and laconic. We will get on just fine, and it feels good to have an ally finally. Then the manager, whom I hadn’t seen since she fetched me from the staff room that morning, comes in to speed the training along and catches us chatting and not working. Ooops. Therefore training is now over and I am told that I will learn better on the shop floor. But instead of the books floor I am cast into Hades downstairs, where the relentless slog and streams of customers will ensure that my knowledge of how to work the tills will be enchanced, or I’ll have a nervous breakdown.
I am dumped onto a till next to a middle aged man amongst the teenagers, whose job it is to keep an eye on my floundering ineptitude. I seemed to spend the whirlwind of the panicky afternoon permanently tugging at his sleeve like a little schoolboy asking him how to do everything, as customers look at me pityingly: a grown man trying to learn how to work in a shop, ludicrous. I felt like I was a bit special needs. After a couple of hours, the man goes on a break and it’s the girl that first taught me who replaces him. It feels like a reunion with an old friend so I greet her warmly and then proceed to slam the metal till lid down on her finger, thus nearly fracturing it during the following transaction. She is not pleased and in rather a lot of pain. I apologise profusely but neither of us feel any better.
Finally six o’clock arrives.I’d made it. The end of my first day, but I wished it was my last. But it couldn’t get worse.
Right.
