Day One

I have been a grocery cashier for four different companies in my life until now. All of them were jobs I took up during the summer to make extra money while I am not in school. The best job of all of these was when I worked for a co-op grocer in Indiana five years ago. Here, I met every kind of person you could possibly meet, the rich, the poor and people of every combination of race and religion (atheists and agnostics as well). This range of clientele was nothing you would see at a commercial grocer. It was my job to greet everyone with a smile, to help people pack and pay for their groceries and to be kind. Aside from the regulars I expected everyday (one of my favorites was a transvestite named Rachel, a local restaurant owner, who purchased coffee and a bagel every morning, 8am, on the dot), I never knew who I was going to meet or who would effect me in a positive or negative way. One of my favorite things to do would be to make whoever walked in with a frown, leave with a smile or a laugh. My coworkers were some of the best and most interesting people I have ever met and I will never forget them. I do not exaggerate when I say that I grew the most as a human being during my time working at the co-op.

As writing has become more and more of a favorite hobby for me  in recent years I kick myself in the butt for not having written down an account of my brief tenure at the co-op. Now that I have recently taken up a summer job working for a health food store (to get away from dissertation writing), I will be sure to write down notes on the most interesting people I meet each day. This is a dream for character development writing, as I do not have to make anything up and it all falls in my lap...or I guess it goes through my line. So here it goes, day one of the best and worst of everyone I meet at or near my register.

Buffalo Lady

A sweet looking woman in her 50s walked up to the register next to mine and said something like this:

" Hiiiiiiiii!!!!! Ohhhhhhh my goodness I love you guys so much! Do you know what they're selling at Kroger now? White Buffalo! And when the white buffalo died the Indians cried. I am pretty sure stress and saccharine gave my sister cancer, but she's okay now. The tomatoes in my garden are growing pretty big..."

I wish I could remember everything she said. She moved seamlessly from one unrelated topic to the next, somehow. After she left, my coworker looked at me with utter bewilderment. I smiled. Most entertaining customer so far. Talk about setting the bar high!

Copycat


I met Copycat on my first day of work. My boss told me to bag groceries for the cashiers and get to know them all. "Copycat" was the first one I met, at register 2. She was a very quiet and introverted girl and she answered any question I asked her with few words and a forced smile. I tried to get her to converse with me while we worked. She would hardly respond, so I chose to speak with her customers instead. The next customer walked up and I greeted her asking, "How are you doing today?" After the customer replied, Copycat asked, "How are you doing today?" Not only was this the most words I ever heard her say all at once, but she also repeated what I just said. This went on for ten minutes. I would ask a question to the customer and she would ask the same. When I laughed, she laughed. Improvement is improvement, I guessed. I moved to the next register over to meet another cashier.

Today, her shift ended while I was still working. She walked all of the way over to where I was standing, at register 8. She waved saying, "Bye Miranda," and she walked out of the store. She said goodbye to no one else. For a second I got a "Cable Guy" vibe, but I also wondered if she was just thankful to be out of her shell a little bit or maybe she just liked me as a person. Awkward as she may be, she seems like a nice girl.

Tangly Q

A woman walked through my line and I immediately noticed the awesome spiral curls on the toddler sitting in her grocery cart.

ME: [to the toddler] I love your hair! Wanna trade hair?  You can have mine, I'll have yours.
TODDLER: [laughs and shakes head]
MOM: Ugh you couldn't run a comb through it if you tried. She's gonna grow up an those locks are going to dread up, that will probably be best.It's like my hair, you can't run a comb through it.

I looked at this woman's hair. She had it slicked down with gel.  She cut bangs which were also slicked down hard with gel as straight as she could get them. People with curly hair like that (who know how to take care of it) NEVER run a comb or brush through it unless they are trying to tease it. The solution is to detangle curly hair with conditioner during bath or shower. I tried to offer a solution, but this woman cut me off mid sentence 5 times, talking about what a pain and mess her daughter's (awesome) hair is, over and over. Jesus. I felt so bad for that toddler.

Baby Mama

This crazy vegan red headed girl sings every song that is played on the radio station overhead, everyday. She is very nice and has been the most patient and encouraging one of all the new people I have met so far. I had to watch a Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission DVD in the break room for 2 hours then take several tests over what I learned from the main host, who looked like the love child of Joe Pesci and Andy Richter. Employees would come in and out of the room on their breaks and talk through the DVD. At one point, the crazy vegan girl was seated in the room with a girl from the vitamin department and a guy from the grocery department.

CRAZY VEGAN: [to grocery guy] How's your baby mama?
VITAMIN GIRL: You have a child?
GROCERY GUY: [hesitates, then says] Yeah.
CRAZY VEGAN: I was pregnant once.
VITAMIN GIRL: Really? How long?
CRAZY VEGAN: Six months.
VITAMIN GIRL: Oh, I'm so sorry.

It didn't seem like the guy wanted anyone else to know about that. To make up for her lack of discretion the vegan girl reveals personal information of her own.  Is this how younger people talk now? Is everyone open about their baby mamas and miscarriages or abortions? It wasn't the content of the conversation that bothered me as much as the lack of privacy of information. I don't really trust crazy vegan girl, but I'm at least glad she is nice and pleasant to be around when we are working.

Making Things Interesting...

I learned how to page the head cashier from the overhead speakers in the store. Everyone usually speaks rapidly and repeats whatever they say once. I chose from then on to speak as slowly as I could get away with. When I said, "Code 1, register 5," I sounded like Ben Stein on the Clear Eyes commercials. Some of the dudes restocking shelves asked one of the girls up front who was talking so slow when paging. She pointed me out and said, "New girl." Some of them thought I was weird but one guy appreciated it. It's a good thing I don't give a shit.

 Pedandtic Joe

Another cashier I met, who looks and talks like Michael Cera, would make a point of telling me every PLU code I couldn't come up with in two seconds. It drove me insane. He is young, 18 years old and he prides himself on knowing more codes than everyone else. The young ones do that. Call it insecure or over-competitive...or both. I figured he was just trying to be helpful, so I kindly assured him if he kept feeding me the PLUs that I would never learn them. From then on he chilled out. He is a nice kid.

Elvira

Elvira always wears a frown. When I tried to help her bag groceries on my first day, she wouldn't hand me any groceries. She packed them all herself, even if there was a boatload to handle. I wondered if she instantly didn't like me or if she preferred to work alone. I moved to help another cashier.


Today she was helping a girl bag groceries on the register behind me. I thought I could see through the corner of my eye that she was watching my screen for several minutes. I was ringing in a nice man's groceries when I caught myself entering the wrong PLU. As I began to enter the right one, Elvira shouts out the correct code from the grassy knoll. This was my second day. All anyone has said about me up to this point (to my face anyway), is how impressive my training was and how fast I learned codes (it didn't take much, this is the fourth time I'm learning them). Elvira had not said shit to me since I got here, not even returning a "hello." She carries with her a sphere of negativity that I refuse to absorb. All bitching aside, I know there is a good woman in there with a story to tell.


So...

I learned that this is NOT the co-op I used to work for. Still, I had met a lot of nice and interesting people. I noticed a lot of kids wore Hawaiian shirts and had their hair in mohawks. The elderly people I met were my favorite. I always asked to check their IDs when they bought wine. Some of them thought I was serious. The people I met made me forget that my feet hurt. I guess that is the power of human interaction.