This Week's Special. (1031 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.86 on 23 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by K.M (View user info) at 2003-12-11 18:36:50 EST
I work in a grocery store.
One of those big, fluorescent bulb lit mega-structures that so adequately provides you with pre-packaged food. It's the Christmas season folks, and I will be damned if that means anything besides a lot of old people and Christmas muzac.
I bet when you walk into your grocery store, and you hear the soothing Christmas muzac wash over your body, you feel a slight tingle. A pleasant reminder of your duty to contribute to the overabundance of consumerism so prevalent this time of year.
Lets get fat right?
You notice that slight wince of rage quickly wash over that clerks face when "jingle bell rock" begins to trickle through the speakers, at a very satisfyingly low volume? It is because much like both the Christmas season and the grocery business itself, this music is a fucking pre-packaged, convenient sham.
It is a constant loop. A 30 minute collection of the same songs. Short enough to cause mental instability and depression for the slaving, minimum- wage- paid- in- Canadian-dollars- employees. Long enough so you, the customer, never has to hear the same song from you point of arrival, to your point of departure.
I work in a grocery store.
However, I am not one of those clerks that walk around the store like an asshole all day, despite my once intensely felt jealousy of those peons. Imagine yourself in a meat freezer, in the middle of December. Constantly unloading frozen, raw beef, pork and poultry for you disgusting gluttons.
I was so jealous of the greeters. The helpers. The people who fix shelves and smile. Satisfied with their contemptuous job, simply because they can fuck around all day to collect their meagre pay checks.
I was so jealous, until became one of them, for about 5 minutes.
Back in the meat section, we prepare your food. A shipment arrived. Boneless, skinless chicken, our special this week. However, the assholes at the factory did not wrap it right. When I opened the box, to my dismay, I was looking at chicken floating in chicken juice.
That meant that I was promoted from freezer bitch, to re-wrapping bitch.
You all know the chicken I am talking about. Those pink, fleshy little slabs, on the little Styrofoam tray, wrapped in saran wrap. When raw, its almost tumour like in appearance and texture. Little stickers attract your attention to it.
After I had finished wrapping this shit, I was provided with the opportunity to make it big. Covered up to the arms in chicken juice, they let me through the freezer door, through the butcher room, and into the store itself. I had my cart, filled with soon to be dispensed chicken.
It was our special that week. As advertised in the flyers. My mistake, I guess, was that I failed to realize what time it was.
Do you know who reads flyers, and grocery shops at 1:30 in the afternoon?
As my eyes readjusted to the light change from the dingy freezer to the slightly less then nuclear glow of the actual store, I wheeled my cart, happy to be free from my cage. I stopped, in front of the poultry section, and began to place the chicken in its appropriate spot, making sure to bring the old chicken to the front row, in hopes of poisoning somebody with Salmonella.
When I reached back down to grab another little tray of chicken, my hand abruptly stopped. Something was amiss. A noise? Yes, it is definitely a noise. I closed my eyes and listened intently... something was in the air. An plinking, cheap rendition of "Joy to the World" hummed lowly in the background... and there it was again... a shuffling noise. The noise one makes when the drag their feet. Except amplified by twenty.
I opened my eyes, and I was taken aback. I dropped my roll of "special" stickers, and recoiled in terror.
They smelled it on me.
A group of old people were shuffling towards me, eyes gleaming with a fierce, almost fanatical tinge behind their cataracts. A chill went down my spine, and I quickly recovered the stickers and starting stamping the chicken as fast as I could.
A minute later, they fell upon me. Me and my cart. There was this disgusting noise in the air. Not just their wheezing, or the horrible noise their shuffling feet made. But the noise of 40 ancient hands, grabbing low priced, pre-packaged chicken as if it were pure gold. Their faded eyes studying every package, appraising it for its individual worth, and imagining it on their single plate that night for dinner.
I was hemmed in now. Against the poultry counter, using my cart as a shield against the mob of elderly. Picking, shuffling, comparing, shuffling, picking, and finally, shuffling away, apparently satisfied with their prudent shopping.
The cart was completely empty.
I felt dirty. I felt like a sow must feel after her dependant offspring use her for nourishment. Something completely horrible had just taken place, tangible in that it only served to destroy my wish to ever leave the freezer again, no matter how long I work there.
I hate my job.
User Reviews
Submitted by Rokinroj (user info) at 2004-01-06 02:16:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Good god KM after all the shit I've talked to you it appears we have something in common. I was a meat dept bitch too. For 8 years! Full time! I worked for a big union market as well as for a little ma & pa place. Either way, that is hard ass work, for not a lot of pay. Hats off to ya.
Rokinroj
Submitted by IndianOcean (user info) at 2003-12-15 17:15:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
i worked in a grocery store once.. and it was hell.... ppl who work their full time.. good bless them because i could never work there..
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2003-12-13 22:32:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool stuff. Well-written and funny to boot. More please!
Submitted by QueenBea (user info) at 2003-12-13 04:00:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 b/c I was a service manager in the front of the store, and I don't think people really realize how much shit EVERYONE in a grocery store puts up with....lol
Queen
Submitted by IAmHereNow (user info) at 2003-12-13 03:22:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That seriously kicked some major ass
Submitted by Nobb (user info) at 2003-12-13 01:14:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Haha, I feel your pain, I work in the produce section at the local supermarket (guess you call it a grocery store) and am out in the store most of the time. Also having to suffer the elderly and non stop christmas music.
Submitted by SoHipItHurts (user info) at 2003-12-12 17:08:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Bravo!
Submitted by William_Q_Percy (user info) at 2003-12-12 16:42:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Mooo!
Submitted by Lord_Of_The_Strings (user info) at 2003-12-12 11:18:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fantastic
Submitted by Shonda <shondarw.at.hotmail.com> at 2003-12-12 11:18:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Tumor-like pink chicken pieces floating in a box. That vision alone will haunt me.
Nicely done, I felt like I was there with you.
Submitted by smokymtcsw (user info) at 2003-12-12 11:16:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
finger licking good
Submitted by Bob_Dole (user info) at 2003-12-12 11:13:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by ess2s2 (user info) at 2003-12-12 00:48:24 (#)
Ranking: 2
I laughed, I cried, I threw away the chicken in my freezer
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LOL LOL LOL
Submitted by whataefag (user info) at 2003-12-12 11:01:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I did a science fair project in high school dissecting chicken carcuses to count tumors. Trust me the juice that is there is not quite the same as the juice that can be squeezed from a tumor.
BTW, my (extremely flawed) research yielded an average of 16 tumors per chicken. Eat up colonel!
Submitted by ess2s2 (user info) at 2003-12-12 00:48:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I laughed, I cried, I threw away the chicken in my freezer.
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2003-12-11 23:26:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
More of this and less of ARRGH.
I know what you mean about the music. I worked at a restaurant where we had nothing but that same annoying shit - then our player broke and we had to live on some digital music station that was streamed for restaurants.
The funny thing was that the music was awesome. For a few weeks, we bopped around rockin' to the beats - old customers complained about the music, it was awesome.
Then they fixed it... back to Jingle Bell Rock... for exactly one shift.
In between shifts an enterprising employee (or dare I say manager?) poured barbecue sauce in the tape player and broke it again.
Submitted by RideJohnnyRide (user info) at 2003-12-11 21:19:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Not looking forward to making ground beef at 5 a.m. in the morning again.
Word. 5 a.m. in the evening is SO much better.
Submitted by PWNstar (user info) at 2003-12-11 21:18:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
They handled the Great War and they will handle you too.
Submitted by gbusman (user info) at 2003-12-11 21:15:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Old people bargain hunting is funny.
-Bus
Submitted by GrizzlyHunter62 (user info) at 2003-12-11 20:59:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I worked in the meat department for over two years.
One time for Christmas we priced about 160 turkeys. Only to find out that our competition had priced theirs CHEAPER and we were forced to Re-price EVERY FUCKIN' TURKEY.
I got the last laugh though — my shift had ended, and I was off.
I might have to go back to working there when I move back home. Not looking forward to making ground beef at 5 a.m. in the morning again. *sigh*
+2 because the most disgusting liquid I have ever come across next to urine is Chicken Juice/blood.
Submitted by jonukah (user info) at 2003-12-11 19:51:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Why am I the only one who gets -2s for complaining about my job?
Oh well.
Well done.
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2003-12-11 19:30:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Teehee, I'm eating a chicken salad sandwich right now.
Submitted by ProfessorSassHat (user info) at 2003-12-11 19:02:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent writing and a good post.
i, too, know the perils of working in a grocery store and people think being a cashier is the easiest job in the world.. it's not.
but hang in there
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2003-12-11 18:41:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm sorry... I'll never buy chicken on special again...