|
||||
  
 
 |
What are you doing tonight? Playing with a Frisbee or a fort in the aisles . . . By
Sabrina Sandry
Dave, a 23 year old college student, nods his head in agreement. For Dave, going to work is not exactly his idea of fun either, especially after spending all day in classes. This is not a good week for Dave. School has him tied down with midterms to study for and papers to write. The last thing he wants to go do is go work an seven-hour shift when he could be studying or sleeping a little more. "The sooner I get started, the sooner I can leave," Dave whispers as he proceeds to write down the products that need to be put out on the floor tonight. He then grabs a small, two-shelved, metal cart with a wobbly wheel in front. He'll be using this as transportation for the night to haul the canned vegetables from the back room to the front-end display found upon entering the store. He walks, with as much enthusiasm as a student going to take a final, to the back room, carefully pulling his small metal cart behind being sure not to hit any products on the shelves in the crowded aisle. First on his list, sliced green beans, which is written on a cardboard cutout from a box formerly used to store Betty Crocker cake mixes. In the stacked freight, the green beans are in the back below the creamed corn. Carefully he removes each box containing 24 cans of vegetables and sets it aside with ease. After removing the higher boxes, Dave climbs up and over the lower boxes, like a child on the jungle gym, to retrieve the green beans. One by one, he balances the boxes on his cart. A yawn smears across his chapped lips as he wipes the sweat away from his brow. While walking down the aisle, gently pulling his heavily loaded cart of canned vegetables, Dave notices a shiny metal object. He leans over and picks up a Garfield-shaped spoon. What a nice reward for doing his job. Why couldn't it have been money instead of some random object? What seems like just another item to add to the lost and found, is now a lost treasure to some young child who has probably screamed his head off the entire way home. "I find the weirdest objects in this store," he whispers to himself. After taking the lost and found Garfield spoon to the customer service desk, a razor blade comes out and the slashing of boxes echoes between the 3-foot wide aisles in the store. Dave proceeds to open and stack boxes of canned vegetables in the front-end display. Children get grounded for leaving these green beans, carrots and corn on their plates. His objective for the night is to make the front entry display look full, organized and inviting to customers. The display convinces parents that these vegetables are different. Their children will actually eat these vegetables. Or, at least the sale price will convince the parents to buy. A brown curly-haired, smart-mouthed bagger walks by and says, "I throw the cans. I face the cans. And, then I bag the cans." "That's about all there is to my job," Dave says in response to the bagger's comment. "When we face the aisles, we pull everything forward and make it look nice and pretty. It needs to look like a wall." After unloading the cart full of vegetables, it is time for a new load. But, first he must get rid of the empty boxes. Clank, clank, clank, clank opens the large metal door in an upward position. To the right, a white 8-inch-by-10-inch sign posted on the 6-foot tall green Dumpster reads, "Cardboard only, please flatten all boxes." To the left, another 6-foot tall green Dumpster awaits anything other than cardboard. Dave's white shirt forms to the muscles in his arms as he tears apart and crushes the boxes and then throws them into the Dumpster. Clank, clank, clank, clank the door then closes, and back to work he goes. In the back room, behind the black plastic doors that read, "Employees only," the sale items for the week are placed in the front for quick and easy access, while the lower selling products, such as Mom's Old Fashioned Prepared Dressing-Cube Style, are placed on the top shelf. Just looking at the box of the stuffing, which resembles any grandmother's yellow and orange checkered tablecloth, turns some customers away. Like in a closet at home, the less-used items are hidden away on the top shelf. Another load is stacked on the cart, pushed to the front of the store, opened and stacked with all labels facing forward. "I get so sick of looking at this food," he said. "I am never hungry anymore. If you want to go on a diet, come work at a grocery store." "How do you do this every night?" a customer asked. "It sucks," Dave responds as he rolls his eyes. "It's things like these that keep me going," he says as he points to the white plastic Frisbee at the end of the aisle. Dave can just picture it... the giggles come from aisles away, as the younger employees await the return of their Frisbee. The Frisbee goes soaring through the air passing the Ragu spaghetti sauce on aisle 11. It passes Western Family fruit cocktail on aisle 12. Then it successfully lands in the hands of the young chubby bag boy standing next to the Oreos in aisle 13. No displays are destroyed or even disturbed by the half-time Frisbee show. The only place they really play Frisbee is in the back room. The Frisbee bounces when it hits the floor. "One time when we did this, the Frisbee hit the floor and shattered. The baggers got to stay late and clean that one up," Dave says as he lookes at his watch for the third time in the last 20 minutes. "You know it's getting late when you start acting like a child," he said. "One time, on break, my friends took the big empty toilet paper boxes, stacked them on top of each other, and made a fort. Then they took some empty paper towel rolls and used them as guns. They had a war that lasted 15 minutes. It was the stockers against the baggers. They smoked the baggers. They have to do something fun every once in a while." For Dave, it is a real balancing act going to school full time and working nights an average of 20 to 25 hours a week. There is no time for studying. There is no time for sleeping. There is no time for dating. There is no time for his family. When does he have time for school? "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" he laughs. "I got off work at 1:30 a.m. last night. I was supposed to be at school for an 8:30 a.m. class. On the way to school, I pulled over to sleep for a few minutes. I missed my 8:30 a.m. class and didn't make it to my 9:30 a.m. either." So, when does he study and sleep? "I sleep during or between classes," Dave responds with an ear-to-ear grin across his face. "I study on the nights I don't have to work." The hours of his job take away from his family and his social life. "The other day I told my mom that I finally had a Saturday night off," he said. "But in exchange, I had to work Thursday morning, Friday morning and Saturday morning. She said, 'You ought to be fun to be around Saturday night.'" During the summer when his days were free from school, he still was unable to date. The dating took place in the evenings. Dave was at work. During the day, when he had time, his friends were at work. He wishes he could find a job that accommodated his school schedule during the day. There isn't much available. So he has no other choice but to work at night, he said. "It's going to be a long night. I still have homework to do after I get off," Dave said. "This job messes up my sleeping and studying patterns. If I could remember the facts for my horticulture class as well as I do grocery store prices, I'd have it made." "What's on sale today?" he's asked. "Spaghettios, 2 for $1," he repeats faster than a contestant competing on Jeopardy. "How much is a 2-liter of Coke?" "$1.39. Unless it's on sale." "Where can I find some chocolate chips?" "Aisle 9." "What's the highest selling item(s)?" "Top Ramen and Spaghettios." Before the night is through, his isle has to be faced. While pulling the 12 ounce packages of peanut M&M's to the front of the stand, a bag of mixed veggies is found hiding behind the candy. The veggies start a pile of miscellaneous objects that have been tucked away by customers who change their minds while shopping and are too lazy to put the products back where they found them. As he continues to align the Shastas with their appropriate flavors, two bags of Twix candy bars, a vanilla-scented Glade air freshner, a dozen eggs, and a pair of size "C" nylons are found and tossed into the pile of things to be put away. "You name it, I have found it," Dave says. Customers do the weirdest things and don't realize that the employees are fully aware of what's going on. "One customer started at the deli and got some Tator Babies," he said. "She ate them, while she was shopping, and then hid the empty plastic bag behind the chocolate chips. A lot of people hide the bags behind the chocolate chips because it kind of falls back in with the packages. It's harder to hide things behind boxed items. Other customers walk by the bulk candy and take free samples that are not free." The customers don't realize that they are being watched. The stockers go behind where the milk is sold. They can look out through the shelves of milk and watch what's going on without being seen by customers. When it gets slow, they start rating the girls. "It passes the time," Dave says, even though he doesn't admit to doing it. "My job can get boring. It can get repetitive. I wouldn't mind it so much if it were during the day. Then I'd have time to see my family and friends. But, it's money. And, that's what I need right now."
|
Archived Months:
January
1999 January
2000 |
||