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 i suspect it's because it's gone out of date but it's not my job to inquire as to why we're selling it at that price really.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.