sunday, 4th september 2011

in which i nearly over-charge someone, short-change another person and antagonise my boss, all before i imply to a customer that i spend my life on my knees

firstly, I know, I know! why would you even do that.

I started off the day pretty well; I was working with my boss' dad's wife (both of who are also my boss! getting a pattern now?), who seems to like me well enough. I stocked up the fridges to full, packed up all of the crisps so that they were completely stocked up all the way to the back and checked that all of the sweets were at the same level. then, I anti-bac'ed all of the surfaces before clearing and cleaning the tables outside. by now, I was working with my boss' dad, who, for the sake of this, we'll call boss nr.2 because it's just a lot easier. all was going well until a customer came in with a can of lemonade and some crisps, etc. firstly, why would you even give all of your change in like, 2ps and 5ps? urgh. anyway, as  I was counting, the guy interrupted me and went, "look, it's £3!" BUT IT WASN'T. anyway, he'd interrupted my counting out and I was getting hedgy, so I just put in the change as £3 on the till. anyway, he suddenly goes, "no, no, I gave you £2.80, you gave me the wrong change". urgh. I know, I know, I should have counted up the change regardless of what he said and I should be confident enough in maths not to doubt my counting. but anyway, I didn't, and boss nr.2 started doing his hovering thing, which is what he does when he just knows that I've done something wrong. I don't know, it's kind of like he has a bit of a spidey sense. anyway, then a customer came in with the daily mail on sunday and, I don't know, the price of it has changed from £1.50 to £1.30 in the past few weeks but anyway,  we don't seem to have altered the price in the till... (why?!) so when I was already flustered from the counting incident, my boss nr.2 suddenly interrupts me and goes, "no, it's £1.30", so regardless of what he taught me, I scanned the newspapers instead. anyway, I was talking to myself, trying to memorise the numbers and boss nr.2 suddenly goes "you've been here 4-5 weeks now, you should know that Daily Mail is £1.30" what, yes, because clearly I spend my week in between my shifts memorising the price of a newspaper on a sunday. I don't know, I was feeling kind of confident about how I'd progressed since my first day when I couldn't even work the till. anyway, boss nr.2 spent the next hour or so on the phone next to me, talking about how he wasn't sure if he should give three of his workers in the other branch jobs in this particular shop. which, of course, kind of rings up as 'you're going to get fired, girl!' in my head and makes me a little sad, if I'm honest.

what else did i do? well, I got filthy looks from some woman because I had to carry a box of strongbow over from the other platform. she looked at me a little as if to say 'jesus, what an alky' but nevermind that.

oh! the knees comment. oh god, it was so embarassing. after having collected the strongbow, my boss nr.2 told me to pack it into the fridge, so I was kneeling on the floor, reaching all the way to the back of the fridge when these two guys came in (what's worse, they were attractive. urgh) and anyway, after measuring up my choices, I just stayed kneeling and let me reach over me because otherwise I would have been eye-level with their crotches and yeah, that would have been worse. but anyway, so I stayed on the floor and one of the guys stayed standing next to me while his friend paid for the drinks. this guy suddenly goes, "so, having fun on the floor?" and me, suddenly thinking yesss, i can be cool and suave!, my head comes out with, "well, yeah, story of my life". STORY OF MY LIFE. oh jesus. anyway, this guy kind of splutters and goes, "uh, yes! well." and then he's walked out and i suddenly realise how it sounded. jesus, i was referring to the fact that not only am i short, i spend half my time in that shop packing things into the drinks fridge. jesus!

saturday, 3rd september 2011

in which i manage to hit myself with a blender and short-change a customer by a horrific amount within five minutes

so, it's a full-start at 8am, when somebody wants a sausage roll as soon as i get behind the customer. fyi, if you ask for a sausage roll in a midday rush, i will kill you. there's nothing quite like a customer asking for you to run across the shop to a hot oven when you're totally busy. 

anyway, it was actually quite a regular day, medium-flow of customers, which meant that it wasn't so busy that the shop was in complete chaos, but that i actually had something to do. i was working with my first boss (there's three bosses in two levels; i'll explain later), who's actually pretty awesome. he tells me he's planning to put in wi-fi, before leaning over covertly and adding "so you can use your iPod". nice.

there was a bit of trouble with two lads who came in wanting cigarettes; i wound up selling to them the time before because, well, they do look old enough and to be fairly honest, they intimidate me. i was on my own in the shop and it was all just a bit difficult. anyway, they came in again and i asked for id, only to get the response "but you sold to me before!" and "yeah, man, you have to sell it again". i don't, but okay! anyway, the boss nods at me to sell it because to be honest, the grief i'm getting just isn't worth it, but as i'm putting money in the till, i hear "you don't have to get so stressy! jesus." jesus indeed. next time they come in, it'll be a case of id or no sale, but i'm a little terrified that they'll wait until i'm on my own!

for some reason, we have cans and cans of tango. i suspect it's because it's gone out of date but it's not my job to inquire as to why we're selling it at that price really. anyway, so it's fairly difficult to move around the stock room (well, more difficult than normally).

about the blender, then.
two women with their spawn came rushing into the shop, a tangle of expensive children clothing bound to last about a week combined with the middle-aged idea of the ladies who lunch (but with their children). one of them comes up to the counter, "can i get an iced latte?" (no.) "yeah, yeah, sure, we have a range of iced drinks!"
brilliant, she says to me, before asking "can i get smoothies without any banana?" (why would you do that when i have a busy shop?) anyway, my boss gets set whipping up the drinks.
m----, he says to me, can you pass me the blender?
now, i'm short. there's no doubt of this. however, whoever set up the interior of the shop clearly did not account for this, so i had to reach up for the blender. naturally, it fell on my face. it hurt.

but anyway, i managed to get things back into order (i'm sorry, but i fail to see the point of a skinny latte with about a thousand sugars in. jesus, just go for a run.), but one of the woman says to me, "hang on! i thought you said £8.70!" naturally, i'd managed to hand her the coin change and had fumbled the fiver just out of my hand. skills.

...that's pretty much all that happened, actually. i suppose that you don't want to hear about the impracticalities of wearing ankle boots with footless tights or how i'm a little terrified that my boss' wife thinks i'm trying to get on her husband...no thank you! it's all drama in this shop.

introduction

bonjour, mes amis.
i'm cafe girl and on my day off, i decided to create this blog, because the media seems to have this idealised picture of what cafe girls actually do.

in order to not confuse you all too much, this is how the shop runs: we have two shops/cafes on platforms one and two. we sell general food/drink and then we serve coffee/other food/drinks to take away to the tables outside of the shop. the other platform shop/cafe has all of the tables inside and is probably a lot more like a general cafe.

i've created a twitter to give short general updates, but this is the full thing!