What made you smile/frown/mad/sad/cry today-thread for all your emotional needs! V4

cdaly_ wrote: »

[old fart mode]
Back in the day when I was in college, we had a portable telly where you *gasp* had to get up out of the chair to change the channel!!! :eek:
[/old fart mode]

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Boo...I don't have permission to view that. What is it?

Confessions of a Tesco Employee
The following is an account of my experiences working as a sales assistant with Tesco from March to October of 2010. It's not pretty. But all is true.

It was the 19th of March and I decided I needed a job. A position fitting an 18 year old kid on a gap year between school and college was that of a low-skill position. Such as working with Tesco.

I applied for a vacancy I seen on Fas.ie at 5pm. By 5.30 I had accepted a phone call for an interview the next day. 24 hours later I was boasting in a pub about how there 'was no recession!' and the interview was a 'piece of cake'.

Oh my readers. If I could go back, and do just one thing, it would be to calmly remove that pint from my hand. Bring me to a quiet corner of the pub and show me the remainder of this article. Maybe I would have second thoughts about going in to start on Monday. If only.

Your Narrator's First Week or So

Anxious, excited and thrilled I went in for my first day. I gingerly walked up to the cutomer service desk and told the lady I was new here. She called down checkouts manager who introduced herself, as, let's call her Mary.

Mary would in time grow to be the most annoying cow I would ever work under at Tesco. And in time, through talking casually to my colegues I would discover everyone felt the same about her. She worked you like a dog. Nagged you. Had no people management skills and would screw you out of lunch breaks (thanks to my naivety in the working place), wages (yes) and not bother to help her staff with things like days off. And if you were a good worker like I was (never received a complaint etc...) then she would exploit your efforts and ensure you doubled them to make up for the short-comings of other staff she failed to motivate.

'Ice Queen', 'The Tramp' and 'Fat Whore' were but a few common used expressions. 'Here come the fat whore'. My heart would sink.

Anyway, I found my fellow sales assistant colleagues to be delightful. Probobly why I felt the handshakes and hugs goodbye on my last day a little moving. But anyway. They help you, a lot more than the managers do. They see you as a person. Not a cog in a machine.

Over my first week I'd become pals with a few people as you do in any job.

Time Ticks by for Your Narrator

And that was that. I worked in Tesco. I learned the ropes. I learned it was best to remember a few of the suporvisors void codes to save calling them over and speed up the cues. This was common practice amongst younger checkout staff. I learned how to do returns. How to face off shelves when the store wasn't busy. How to do trollys (when you see someone pushing fifteen trollies around a hairpin bend, just wait ten seconds. Dont try to get past him or let your kids tun arround a 300kg moving load. Thanks)

We'd go for pints after work. I'd enjoy my E250 per week. I went out. I had fun. Tesco was work. And I liked working. It was fufilling in a time when many of the people I went to school with unfortunatly had no jobs. I was almost thankful to Tesco at this point.

Your Narrator Gets Used to It
Eventually there comes a time when sitting on a checkout for seven hours doesn't really do it for you anymore. I'd find myself drifting. Playing music in my head. Thinking about a girl I was fancying that week and then praying I wouldn't have to stand up within the next few minutes due to a huge boner I had amassed.

Leaning back in my chair to avoid the eyeline of customers in the hopes they'd go to another till.

And of course, when they didnt, they seemed to take a perverted pleasure in finding a till with no que. I'd resent them. Because while they were overjoyed I'd be resentful of my presence behind this entrapping checkout. I could be out, chilling with friends, ****, playing my xBox, listening to music or pulling out my fingernails. Doing anything other than serving her, you fat frumpy middle-aged, posh, sence of entitlement- full, too much make-up wearing bitch. 'Oh you forgot the milk did you?' ... she stares at me. 'I'll just go grab it for you then madam. 1L or 2L?'. Meanwhile she waits at a non-moving checkout with a que forming.

I began to know my collegues a little better too. Over lunchbreaks we'd trade stories and introduce ourselves.

Many were in college. One guy in particular, we'll call him John, became a good mate of mine. We shared our growing hatred of Tesco. Just discussing it with one another brought smiles to our faces.

We, like many of our collegues, we're doing it to get through college. To pay for books, transport, girlfriends, drink, clothes and whatever else...

But then you have the middle aged guys and gals. Not managers. But sales assistants. I felt bad for them. They had this 'empty' look on their faces. Sometimes it was all I could do not to hand them a copy of 'On the Road' and tell them to walk out of the shop and DO SOMETHING. Even if its just laying in a park on the dole all day. You only have one life. Tesco eats these people's souls. Still... I suppose they've applied to the pension scheme. Might as well stick it out. Sigh.

Your Narrator discusses The Managment

Just a few quick words. Tesco shouldn't promote from within the ranks as much as they do. Because people who take a job as a sales assistant will hate their job. And when they eventually make it to manager, they'll still hate it. Only now they'll be in charge of the people who hat their jobs. They're trapped.

They should also learn to manage. As someone currently doing a BA in Business, I can safely say they haven't a clue how to manage staff an any level. At least most don't anyway.

Finally, for some reason, and I'm not sexist, I found female managers (bar one in my store) seemed to think being a manger for Tesco was like commanding a space shuttle. They have a sense their job is sooo important and they're irreplaceable. Where as, in general the men seem to acknowledge their job is pretty **** and all seem to have better plans for the near future. Just an observation...

Your Narrator discusses the customers

There I'd be, dutifully scanning through someones shopping. And the customer would come out with the most tiny, insignificant problem. OOOH! 'I was overcharged by a Euro last week' or 'I forgot to get my points on a E5 bill yesterday'... Why is it that some people with pathetic problems in their pathetic lives have to take it out on people? I mean sure, if you're over charged by five euro or a TV you bought didn't work. But you didn't like the TESCO value ready meal and want to return it half eaten in a zip-lock bag for your E1.12 back?

FFS! Go outside. Make love to someone. Go see a movie. Book a holiday you cant afford to Paris. Whatever you do, don't see these things as problems and don't annoy me with your sense of entitlement as though Tesco are a state agency. Ps. American Express is not Legal Tender. So just because YOU forgot to sign the back of your new signature credit card and I wont accept it doesn't mean you can act like a child. . Oh... and don't try your 'False Advertising' **** with me. It won't end well.

Oh. And You. Prick. Thanks for throwing you credit card at me while yapping away on your phone so that it bounced off my chest and landed on the floor. Thanks for getting all hot and bothered when I returned it to you in a similar fashion. Thanks. Because it was you, you fat ****, that pushed me over the edge and made me hand in my resignation. From the bottom of my heart. I thank you.

What Your Narrator Learned in Tesco
How to speak to unruly groups with Authaurity
How to handle idiots, angry people, racists, bigots and people who think the sun shines out of their childrens arses
That it's funny to watch people cry and get arrested for shoplifting
When a dog runs around a supermarket and managers chace it to try and get it out. Hilarity ensures for both staff and customers.
Some customers are sound (thank you. you guys got me through the days) and will tell you the score of a football match (because you're stuck behind a till) or will talk about stuff other than the weather
Never, ever, treat retail staff like crap. You catch a lot more flies with honey (ie. treating people with respect and not a dog wearing a light blue uniform) than you do with vinegar (yelling, cursing and blaming the decisions of head office on someone who makes minimum wage).
We dont keep secret stock out the back reserved for people who ask us to 'check in the back'. So we don't. We stit on a box, send a few texts then return to you all disappointed to tell you it isn't back there.
That life is to short


Your Narrator's last few weeks

It was kind of warming. I was going to miss the people of tesco. My lower-level collegues anyway. We had become friends kind of. I'd miss my favourite Pakistani supervisor who always let me do trollies because he knew I hated the tills. I'd miss the brazilian customer service girl who always seemed angry but wasnt. I'd miss my good friend who was trapped working there due to a new baby on the way. I'd miss the people like me at college. I'd miss them. But it was in the same way a prisoner will miss his inmates when he leaves prison after a ten year sentence. Bitter sweet.

I'd smile in work, knowing I only had three more shifts or whatever. I'd smile when people who wouldn't be in on my last day came to say good bye. I was happy working those last two weeks. Because it meant I would be free soon. It meant my uniform and my status as a Tesco employee was temporary after all!

As I walked along the checkouts after clocking out for the last time, saying my final goodbyes, as I'd never see these people again as this tesco was an hour and a half commute from my home, I was overjoyed. I looked back as I exited the automatic doors. And they turned back to the customers, kind of perplexed by all the goodbyes, and things went back to normal. They scanned, customers qued. Managers chatted away. The musac played in the background of the store on a loop. People entered. People left.

I was happy. And I'd always carry with me sound advice for anyone who would ever encounter me.

Never. Ever. Work in a supermarket. Especially one located right in the middle of Dublin 4. Just dont. Life is too short.



Your narrator has since returned to what he loves to do. Freelance writing and small scale web entrepreneurship whist studying. He is very happy indeed. Things are looking up in pretty much every aspect of his life.