- Diary of a temporary Tesco worker. Day 8. Archived Message
Posted by Des Jnr
on 28/3/2020, 1:10 pm
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Friday 27th March 2020 My shift starts by bringing out full cages of bottled water and Pepsi and stacking them in the drinks section, which is in the opposite corner of the supermarket to the warehouse. It means I have quite a bit of distance to cover with this giant cage on wheels, and I pretend I’m playing a real-life game of Colin McRae Rally. It’s 1998 all over again on the Tesco shop floor and I’m on my PlayStation. I never thought carting round litre bottles of Robinson’s orange squash could be so exciting, although I get carried away at one point, taking a corner far too quickly and bumping into a promotional display of Smirnoff vodka just as I’m nearing the finish line. My heart jumps into my mouth quicker than Katie Hopkins chasing column inches in the Daily Mail, but fortunately the cardboard unit is sturdy enough to withstand the force of impact. This week, I’ve got away with smashing individual bottles of sauerkraut, Polish juice and BrewDog beer but somehow I don’t think writing off about £1,000 worth of Smirnoff vodka would be viewed quite so lightly. Jesus, Russian vodka. Even Putin might have turned up over that one with a a silencer at the back door. On my second lap, there’s a small ramp I have to go up, leading from the warehouse to the shop floor. And I honestly cannot get the cage to the top of the ramp on my own. In my defence, please try and imagine how heavy 200 litres of liquid is. Although I do feel like I’m about six years old when Personal Trainer Boy (a lovely lad who runs his own personal training company on the side) takes the cage off me, and comfortably wheels it to the top of the ramp, with about as much effort as peeling a banana. I overhear an upbeat female customer chatting to one of my colleagues, who says: “At least you’ve still got loads of Easter eggs and alcohol, that’s all we really need.” I grab her immediately, and impregnate her in the staff room. Early in the afternoon, I’m called out of the warehouse by the manager who oversees the whole grocery department (which I’m in) and into the meeting room. The powers that be have seen the Tesco diary. Hmm, this could be interesting, although it’s not exactly a secret as I’ve had the staff in the canteen in stitches over the last few days. He’s a really nice guy, who I can tell feels as awkward as I do when he pulls out his ‘Let’s talk’ form, which he tells me is just an informal chat, and not a disciplinary or anything like that. He tells me that the diary is funny, and that your own social media is personal to you, but obviously to be careful with anything that mentions Tesco. I ask if anyone’s complained, which they haven’t. I apologise if I’ve inadvertently offended anyone. And I ask him if Tesco would like me to take it down. He just tells me to keep an eye on what I put. Fair enough. I get back to work. I see another sign in work today, which reads: “What would make your day better?” It’s a large, colourful display in one of the staff corridors, the type of which you’d see in a primary school, with contributions from kids such as “I love my mummy, she is nice” and “Daddy made me potato waffles for tea, it was yummy”. The Tesco display is for staff to anonymously add post-it notes with suggestions on what would make their day better. Good idea, actually. I take one myself, write “Not dying if a customer breathes on me’ and add it to the wall. A middle-aged man stops me in the aisle, asking about crates of lager. Man: “There’s a sign here saying I can only purchase a maximum of three items. Is that right?” Me: “Yes, just while all this is happening at the moment, we’re limiting it to three items of a particular product for each customer, so there’s enough for everybody.” Man: “So why’s it saying it’s on offer two for twenty quid then?” Me: “Erm, that’s a good point actually.” Customer 1 whoever-does-the-price-labels-at-Tesco 0. Mid-afternoon, I’m called back into the meeting room, this time by a more senior manager, who kind of oversees the whole shop floor. He knows I had the ‘Let’s talk’ chat with one of the other managers literally about an hour ago (and all I’ve done is stacked shelves since then) but I’m now being told I have to attend an investigation meeting at 5 o’clock tomorrow, with the reason in the letter I’m given stating ‘an inappropriate use of social media’. Jesus, this is escalating faster than the Coronavirus. I’m gonna be in Guantanamo by the end of my shift. He also asks me to delete everything off Facebook, which I comply with immediately. I bump into Weird Checking Man in the warehouse. He appears, suddenly, sporting a wry smile. The only conclusion I can make from his expression is that he’s just fingered Michelle Keegan in the staff toilets. Once all of the new delivery has been stacked on the shelves, things go a bit quiet again. There’s still loads of staff, and not too much to do, so I’m sent to the back door of the supermarket on bouncer duty. Usually, customers can come into the store via this door, but today it’s exit only. And the hardest lad in Tesco is sent out to make sure that’s adhered to. Good part of the job? I’m given a walkie talkie to report any ‘trouble’ to the real security guards at the front of the store. Bad part of the job? Because customers have already walked down quite a long road to get to the back door, and then told by me they’ve got to walk all the way round to the front door, I’m about as popular as Piers Morgan at a house party. Customers are muttering all sorts under their breath after I’ve turned them away. (I did let an old lady come through as I didn’t have the heart to make her walk all the way round, but don’t tell anyone.) However, not every customer hates me. One slightly eccentric chap with his front teeth missing doesn’t care at all that I’m not letting him in, and ends up chatting to me/bugging me for about 15 minutes. He tells me he’s delivered the local paper for 30 years, and regales me with this story from one of his recent paper rounds: “Hey, you’ll never guess what. I was delivering my papers the other morning. I left my trolley on the pavement like I always do. And I saw this guy staring at my trolley for about five minutes. I went up to him and asked him why he was staring at my trolley, and he said, ‘What’s that doing there?’ So I pointed at the trolley and said, ‘Can’t you hear it?’ He said, ‘No I can’t hear anything.’ So I said, ‘Well it’s not a bomb then is it.’ This country really is ####ing bananas, isn’t it? I love it. As I’m stood defending the back door, the manager from my first meeting comes out, and asks me to go and see the Store Manager. This is now the third time I’ve been summoned in about four hours, and all I’ve been doing is working all afternoon. The Store Manager knows I’ve had my ‘Let’s talk’ meeting, and then my subsequent letter for the investigation tomorrow afternoon, but now I’m being told my employment with Tesco is being terminated immediately, as a result of my diary. The Store Manager actually tells me I’m a lovely chap who everyone seems to like, and I’ve been an extremely hard worker all week, but the Tesco brand comes first, and one of the main reasons is genuinely that I used a picture of the Tesco logo as my profile picture on Facebook. Tesco’s annual turnover was almost 52 billion pounds in the last financial year. I’ll let you decide for yourself how much of an effect my diary for a few friends and family will have that on figure. Granted, my smashed bottles of sauerkraut, Polish juice and BrewDog have cost Tesco approximately £4.63 this week. And for that, I will be appearing on Good Morning Britain on Monday to make a full statement apologising unreservedly for those damages. I did put my case forward with the Store Manager. I’ve worked 70 hours this week. I’ve been on time every day. I’ve gone out of my way helping elderly customers all over the store find exactly what they need, and personally gone into the warehouse dragging cages out for them if it wasn’t on the shelves. I happily worked late one evening getting all the food and essentials ready for the NHS staff the following morning. I’ve had customers thanking me all week for helping them. I’ve made friends with loads of Tesco staff, and brightened up their shifts by making them laugh. But the reply to all of that? “Sorry, the Tesco brand comes first.” The corporate beast has triumphed over the little man once again, I’m afraid. So there you have it folks. I’m the first one out the door in the Big Brother house. I’ve not made it to X Factor boot camp. I’m the uncoordinated laughing stock who always gets voted off on the first week of Strictly. After eight days in my blue fleece, ‘Diary of a temporary Tesco worker’ is no more. Literary critics have been saying this diary could be up there with some of the all-time greats like Anne Frank, Samuel Pepys and Adrian Mole. But I’m afraid our time together has come to a premature end. Incredibly, I’ve received hundreds of messages and comments this week on the diary. And not a single one has been negative at all, which indicates nothing has been written offensively. I’ve worked every single day, and writing the diary was my fun, little escape at the end of a long shift, and I think everyone can see it was a light-hearted look at the British humour of working in a supermarket during such unprecedented times at the moment. On that note, I would like to say a massive thank you to all the friends, family and complete strangers who have told me how much they’ve enjoyed it each day. Makes it all worthwhile, it really does. Even though technically you’ve now all got me the sack, you utter pineapple chunks. (Having worked in a supermarket, I now find it more fun to use food items as insults, rather than swear words.) Now, as someone who is self-employed, it’s back to square one again for the next few months, as with the nature of what I do (public events) my income has completely stopped until this virus clears. And as I only started being self-employed a couple of months before the end of the last tax year, all I can claim from the government is three Pot Noodles and a packet of crumpets. So if anyone knows of any jobs going for a hard-working bottle-smasher please let me know. (And after this, I’m happy to sign a disclaimer saying I won’t publish a diary of my work. I’ll just do it as an anonymous blog instead.) On the off chance that anyone reading this is associated with any TV companies, publishing houses, comedy writers etc, please feel free to hook me up. I’d love to sit in a London office, eating grapes and crackers, and writing comedy all day. I actually think I’d be alright if it. And do you know what, #### it, I’ve given all you lovely people some free comedy for the last eight days, which you’ve all said you’ve enjoyed reading. That’s at least a couple of chapters of a book you’ve had. So if you’d like to chuck a fiver my way to help feed me/wipe my arse/buy me a beer for the next three months, drop me a PM, or email desmondsdiary@outlook.com (on a serious note, I am actually writing a comedy book at the moment and for a fiver, I’ll include your name in it. I’ll even sign a copy for you, which will literally add pennies to the price of the book). The Tesco diary will be coming down shortly before they send the Gestapo round to shoot me on my doorstep (which is a real shame as even Boris might need some comedy relief every day now he’s got the bug) but as you strange people seem to enjoy my daily take on things, you can give ‘Desmond’s Diary’ a like on Facebook, for new material coming soon. As soon as the Coronavirus clears, I’ve decided I’m going to donate some sperm, sit on a bus all day, go speed dating, cycle from Land’s End to John o’Groats and also apply for a job at another Tesco store (just to see how far I get). So that’ll be worth keeping an eye on. And that’s me signing out. I’m off down to Tesco to nick a load of shopping trolleys and chuck them in the river. Stay safe everybody. |