English Satirical Humour Part One : The Supermarket
Now I work in a supermarket. I love my job. The people I work with have either no qualifications, or qualifications in something completely un-related to their jobs. They all have aspirations, they're all articulate, they're all funny and I really like them. Bath, not being the world's biggest town, consists of one main street. At the end of the side-streets leading off this main street is the countryside, so if a shop isn't on Stall Street it's going to be an out-of-town superstore. It's that size.
Being the only supermarket in town (what Tesco would fashionably term a "Metro," although it isn't a Tesco), the supermarket I work in becomes somewhat over-populated at certain times. Bath's main jobs lie in tourism, the university, and the MoD. Therefore you would have thought that the majority of them would have brains that would be switched on a large proportion of the time. Sadly not, and they all converge at the same time.
Through a combination of observation, experimentation and consultation, I have come to the conclusion that customers probably derive a large amount of sadistic pleasure from tormenting the staff. In many ways. More ways than one. You get the idea. I have compiled a list of "Supermarket Fools," because if I can save you from pissing off the 281 staff at Waitrose Bath Branch 193, it must be worth the effort.
1. OLD PEOPLE
Imagine you're sitting down on a till. Its nearly the end of your shift. What happens? An old age pensioner, who - despite what Jarvis Cocker croaks - did not smoke, do drugs or sniff glue, shuffles up to your till. Inside you're screaming. You know how slow they are, and how dopey they are when it comes to paying. You scan their items. You wait patiently, whilst they struggle to put the 45th and final tin of cat food (for their cat that died over a year ago) in their bag. It is now 5 minutes past the end of your shift. You want to go home. You are hungry. Your arse is screaming for circulation. The pensioner now pulls out a MONEYBAG. Not a purse or a wallet, but a MONEYBAG, full of coppers. Oh. Dear. Then they decide to count each individual coin. Now when they have to pay you something like £2.79, you could probably go home have a shower, eat dinner, come back and they would have just finished. Sadly you have to sit there smiling like you did when you had your junior school photo taken. This smile is so forced that your cheek muscles are about to spasm out of control. A man with no hands could count money faster.
2. a) FAT BASTARDS
Being considerably over six foot, it is no surprise I am slightly over 11 stone. However, I keep myself in more than reasonable physical condition. I spoil myself from time to time, but I regard myself as normal. The people I have seen in a supermarket, and their eating habits, are beyond belief. Imagine typical family A: 2 Kids, Mum and Dad. All quite hideously obese. Yes, even the kids, who aren't even adolescents. Then you see their trolley. Their trolley could feed a famine-stricken country for a year. And then some. We are looking at cakes, BIG WHOLE CAKES, bags of sweets, chocolate, chocolate......and more chocolate. We have a special offer on the moment on Dan Cakes. Dan Cakes are especially tasty, and are now half price. The idea of this is that your cake spending is halved. This does NOT mean that you should buy TWICE AS MUCH CAKE. You would think that with a girth that doesn't allow them to get past the till easily, they would sit up and take notice that they are bordering on not being thin.
2. b) THE GUILTY
Some people have actually noticed they look like they've eaten a football. So they decide to cut down. ALL you see is Low fat this, Low fat that. But I think they neglected one little thing: the burning of the fat they already have on them. The other sort buy a load of stuff (see above) and then (here comes the good bit) at the end, they have a few cans of Slim Fast. And then you look at what they just bought. And then you look back. And then you think "Eh?" I don't think three cans of Slim Fast makes up for what you just bought. These people think that they are doing themselves a favour. Two words: Er, no.
3. THE POSH UPPER CLASS SNOBS
You know who I'm talking about. The ones who always look down on you, thinking they are so high and mighty. Always buying expensive food with their "I'm well-rich Gold Card," flashing their "100% genuine Diamond" rings, from Argos. These people aren't just in the supermarket. They're everywhere, on the street, on the buses, on the dole (!), on drugs, wherever. These people are, how shall I put it, pretentious twats. I think I made my point. We all should eat from the humble pie. They don't want to go shopping. They want to be noticed. If they want to condiscend themselves near me, fair enough. But being Chris Fox, they should know what to expect. Typical example:
I'm working on the shop floor in the Wine Department, on the phone ordering champagne flutes for an order placed by the man who organises the Glastonbury Festival for his wedding. Posh twat, who you can smell as soon as they walk in the door, perfumes their way through the "rabble" to get to me, pulls the phone away from my ear, and asks me "Do you sell wine without corks?" I mean come on, you've got to meet me half way here. I don't think there's an especially large demand for screw-top wine bottles. So I reply "Sorry, I'm a bit busy for you to take the piss out of me right now. I'm having my lunch at 1.30. I'll still be here. Excuse me." And turned my back on her. These people piss me off. And Bath is absolutely full of them. There may well be a civil war between the posh people up on Lansdown and the tourists in the centre one day. They would be the main factions of the city's population.
4. THE ILLITERATE
A special offer applies to a specific item/s. NOT EVERYTHING. When you purchase the items to fulfill the correct criteria, you will qualify for a whole 10p discount. Thus, if you look at the offer first, you might actually buy the right items. This does not give you an excuse to push the Special Offer ticket right to the other end of the shelf to get a discount on something else, because it'll still come up on the cash register. Don't complain to the cashier. It WILL be your fault because you didn't read the Big Print. You should try it some time. And just because the ticket isn't there and you bought it cheaper last week doesn't mean we are going to make a special dispensation for a void special offer. We are just going to embarrass you in front of the rest of the queue.
5. LAST MINUTE TWATS
It's nearly time for the store to shut. You sigh contentedly as the clock edges towards closing time. You think about how you are about to get home and chill out after a hard days work. The security guard goes to shut the doors, when what happens? A final rush of people come in to buy something. And its not just one thing. But BLOODY TROLLEYS.
Please spare us.
Stop the torture. Please, Please! Oh, you're not listening. Why don't you shop at a reasonable hour? What are you trying to prove? You really have to think about the logic behind the customer's motives, don't you? I mean, there's less stock out on the shelves cos the stores been through a whole day, the cashiers will all be really PISSED OFF, cos it's the end of their shift, and it's BLOODY LATE. Why don't you shop at a reasonable hour?!
6. TRAMPS
Now its common knowledge that fresh and perishable items are reduced near closing time, so that they can be bought, and the store doesn't have to waste them. At my store the bargains are quite impressive, with whole cookeed chickens being reduced to 20p or whatever. The same goes for doughnuts, cakes etc. Now a saving of about 90% is pretty reasonable. And I myself wouldn't complain. Now, "Tramps" also come into the category of "Last Minute Twats" as well to some degree. You can sense them from a mile away. You can sense the aura of "cheapiness" surrounding them. They head straight for the cakes/sandwiches/chickens/cows/bread. It's already dirt cheap. And then they have the gall to ask if you, the cashier, can reduce it any further. So you look at the price, thinking that it's been put mistakenly higher than usual. But its 5p. Thats right 5p. A whole measly 5p. And they want it for less? If I wanted I could get off my till and probably find, like, a pound in the street. What's wrong with the price as it is? If you can't afford it, why come in? It's worse when people buy loads of reduced things. Like, a whole trolley load. You sigh and think "Are you really gonna finish this in two days?" It's probably unlikely you have a REALLY huge family. Unless you're an American redneck that is. And you like to do things with rotten cheese. Not that I would know, of course.....
Please learn these above details for future reference. And don't try and be smart and order on-line with our home delivery service because we really WILL think you're a posh twat and select the box of broken eggs for you. Thank you.
There is more to come. You know what you've done wrong in a supermarket.....and I'm going to point it out
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