Despite all the great things about working in a supermarket I take my hat off to anyone who does it now. It was different back in the year 2008 when I worked there. How do you cope with the carrier bag charge? When I worked there you didn’t have to pay for a carrier bag. Back then you didn’t have this problem of five pence for a bag, you just had to ask people, ‘Do you want a bag for life? No, that’s fine, have as many free carrier bags as you want. You ruin the world – that’s fine! Yeah, you tell those dolphins choking on plastic that you couldn’t be arsed to carry two items to your car so you needed a bag. Go tell them as they go extinct! You lazy bastard.’ Honestly, some people. Just because they were free they’d be doubling up, I mean that is taking the piss. Just pay ten pence for a bloody bag for life, man, you’re killing the eco system.
I couldn’t do it now with that trauma of people arguing about paying for a bag. When the charge was first brought in, I wouldn’t pay for one ever. I’d carry stuff home because we only lived across the road from Asda. My mam was like, ‘Why don’t you just get a bag?’
‘No, I’m not paying five pence for a bag!’
And then I’d get angry with myself if I forgot my bags. I’d be like, ‘I’ve got a bag for life, but I left it at home.’ So then I refused to buy another bag for life because now I’ve got that many, I’ve got a bag for life for every day of my life, and that defeats the object of a bag for life!
People would also complain to me about the produce, saying things like, ‘This tin’s got a dent in it.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, can I get any money off?’
‘It hasn’t ruined the contents inside. It’s beans, what’s it matter if the tin’s a bit dented?’
‘Why are you putting them on display?’
‘They’re only going in your food cupboard. No one will see them!’
I just don’t care about things like that at all.
The customers could certainly be tricky. Someone once threw a box of paracetamols at my head. You’re only allowed two boxes because of the suicide risk. So the till doesn’t let you scan more than two boxes. The customer started ranting and raving. ‘I’m going on holiday. I’ll just have to go to another shop.’
‘Well, you’ll have to do that. I’m sorry.’
‘OK then, I’ll just go to another person in here.’
‘You can’t now because you’ve just told us. So I’ll have to tell the manager.’
At that point, she just threw the paracetamols at my head. Luckily, it wasn’t a tin of beans, but it’s still assault. I was like, ‘You can’t do that!’
I was just in shock. So I rang the little buzzer, and then got security to take the customer out. I was like, ‘You need to remove this woman – she’s just thrown a box of paracetamols at my actual cranium!’
On another occasion, I had someone scream at me, literally calling me all the names under the sun. I mean the situation was stupid, but I don’t make the rules – I was just trying to do my job. There’s this mixer that’s in the alcohol aisle, but it doesn’t have any alcohol in it. It’s cranberry juice and orange juice. It’s a cocktail mixer, but my till was flagging up that you’ve got to be eighteen to buy it, and obviously the customer wasn’t eighteen.
I was saying to her, ‘I’m afraid I can’t serve you.’
‘But I can go and get cranberry juice and orange juice and mix them together.’
‘You’ll have to do that because I can’t sell you it. The till is not letting me. I’d love to, but I can’t – I’d lose my job.’
She went mental and started screaming, ‘Checkout girls? More like fucking Nazis!’
And then I had another woman who was with her kids. She didn’t have her ID and she looked very young. She could have had her kids when she was fourteen for all I knew. She was trying to buy plastic cutlery. You had to be eighteen to buy plastic cutlery, so I couldn’t let her without ID.
She really kicked off. ‘Who am I gonna stab with this? It’s not even strong enough to butter fucking bread, never mind stab someone!’
‘I know, but I’ve got to ID you, otherwise I’ll get in trouble.’ The policy is ‘Challenge 25’. I took my job very seriously. I mean, at times I did think I was the police. ID, ID, ID: the power does go to your head. It’s that green uniform and that badge!
When I got my little badge for working there more than one year, I felt like Lord Sugar. Honestly, I felt invincible. I remember getting that and strutting through Asda and being like, ‘She’s here, she’s arrived’ with my little green gilet on. I loved Asda.
Everyone was so friendly – except for the people that threw paracetamol at us, obviously! You got to meet loads of interesting people. Ahh, there was this old man who would come in every Wednesday. I think I was the only person he saw during the week. Sometimes he’d literally just come in for a couple of items and a chat.
He’d want to chat about life in general. He’d be like, ‘Hiya, Scarlett, what are you up to?’
I’d just tell him about my day until the next customer came along, and I’d be like, ‘Aww, see ya later.’
There was another man – oh my God! – who would come in and no one would want to serve him, God bless him. So I’d always end up serving him because I’m like, ‘Come oooon.’ I love interesting people. Some people say weird, I say interesting.
He would have this radio thing with him all the
