- Diary of a temporary Tesco worker. Day 5. Archived Message
Posted by Des Jnr
on 24/3/2020, 9:38 pm
|
Don’t really feel like writing a diary today. Woke up to some devastating news that Sports Direct will be closing after all. The wonderful Mike Ashley was going to keep his ‘essential’ (sweat) shops open to the public to help us through this difficult time. How we’ll beat this Coronavirus outbreak now without a regular supply of tennis balls and skipping ropes I just do not know. Boris sends me a text message this morning telling me I have to stay indoors. I leave the house straight away. Not because I’m a rebel, but due to the fact I am the saviour of the United Kingdom as a ‘key worker’. I arrogantly strut down the pavement in my Tesco fleece, expecting girls to be swooning over me as I pass by. But there’s literally nobody about. If I’m not gonna get a shag out of being a ‘key worker’ I’m expecting a cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger with the Queen at the very least. Had a team meeting with a couple of managers before we started our shift. One has just come back from a week in isolation, but looks like he’s spent the last week in an Italian hospital. So if this diary ends a bit abruptly, you know why. As there’s still loads of new staff, returning managers, scattered shifts etc we went over things like hours worked, and ages. As we went round the circle, one lad said he was only 16. “Well you become a bit more complicated,” said one of the managers. I genuinely thought the young boy, stood like a rabbit in the headlights, was going to burst out crying. (He didn’t.) With all this going on currently, I realise I should appreciate the small things in life. Like the birds singing in the sky. Like the health of my friends and family. Like being stood in a completely different aisle to Fart Boy but still hearing the occasional (and unbelievably loud) “Ahhhh, #### me,” as he’s picking up heavy stuff. How a manager hasn’t heard him I’ll never know. Speaking of Fart Boy, a couple more classics today. He had an argument with his girlfriend last night. “I was ready to leave the house, I even had my Xbox packed up, that’s how serious it was.” They had another argument this morning, which resulted in her throwing his bacon butty in the bath. I would sell my Mum to Isis for the chance to stick a CCTV camera in his house. Stacked shelves with a new character today. Weird Checking Man. So, the job is really easy. They bring out massive cages of food and you all just get stuck in, grab something, and put it in the right place yourself. But this guy takes off one item at a time really slowly, passes them out to all the staff, and weirdly states what the item is and asks if you’re okay putting it on the shelf. “Sugar. You okay with that?” “Curry Sauce. You okay with that?” “Porridge. You okay with that?” I’ve not yet figured out how to switch him off. I don’t even know if he’s A) permanent staff B) temporary staff or C) walked in off the street, which to be fair you’d probably get away with such is the chaos in a supermarket at the moment. I’m half expecting to walk into the canteen and see him eating bat on toast or something. Later, Weird Checking Man asks me to accompany him into the warehouse. Shit. Is this my Jimmy Saville moment? Turns out he wanted help bringing a massive cage of food out, which to be fair, had been stacked far too high. Obvious solution would be to remove some stuff from the top to make it safer. But he wanted us both to take the full cage out together, kind of keeping an eye on the precariously placed items on top of the cage. Ten seconds later, a box of Cheese and Broccoli Pasta’n’Sauce has landed on his head, and there’s a smashed bottle of Mayonnaise on the floor. Quick as a flash, I quipped: “There’s no use crying over spilt Mayonnaise.” He just made a long “ahhhhhh” noise, which sounded like a sheep. Smashed a bottle of BrewDog beer everywhere today, as I was stacking crisps, which actually takes some doing. That’s three ####-ups in five days. And another foreign item technically, as BrewDog originated in Scotland. Still nothing English broken. I’m some sort of Tesco Tommy Robinson. Added a couple of Tesco friends on Facebook today (Aiden and Little Liam), hence these diaries are now going down quite well in the staff canteen. Little Liam even personally asked me to go on crisps with him today, as I’m the best of all the newbies. He’s got OCD about crisps all facing the right way, but worryingly, so do I now. It really is a thing of beauty seeing a full aisle of shiny crisps all facing the right way. God help any Tesco shopper who comes in here now and puts a packet of Frazzles back in the wrong place. I’d do life for that shit. And on that note, hugs and kisses everybody. See you tomorrow. PS) I’ve just smashed a lad at pool in the staff room as well. I’m like the Tom Hardy of Tesco. |