The Man was already screaming at The Cashier by the time I turned off my iPod and caught on. I was buying bread and Drano®.[1] There was a line of people behind him, trying very hard to ignore what was happening or, like me, openly gawking at what was happening.
Cashiers have it hard. Sometimes they have it real bad.
There are certain inevitabilities to being a cashier and I think it has a lot to do with the obligations of the job and the expectations that surround it. Of being professionally servile and acting as if this were a feat of personality rather than a fact of cold hard survival.
Service with a smile.
This is true for a lot of places.
This may as well have happened: there was spittle flying from The Man’s bottom lip. He was, in any case, livid, screaming about The Cashier’s “stupid manners,” refusing to believe that the bouquet of flowers he wanted to purchase could be so “fucking expensive”. [2]
Taking abuse with poise and fortitude – keeping cool, absorbing it all until the incident passes or until management arrives to deal with the Difficult Situation – this is what separates committed employees from the unambitious dregs just out to get a paycheck.
The flowers were for The Man’s moth-er! Did the cashier not understand?
In this way, everyday abuses get disregarded, and managers don’t always come to help.
Hedging bets against the customer makes more sense than counting on them for anything.
The Man brandished that bouquet at the cashier. “Brandished” (vb. to wave or flourish [something, esp. a weapon] as a threat or in anger or excitement) is the word. Had The Cashier been trained at all? How did she even get the fucking job since she obviously can’t even handle this obviously simple fucking transaction? No, he did not want a price check you stupid fucking girl.
I was a cashier for a while, and it was hard and sometimes real bad. Working too few and too many shifts, standing for hours on end, earning next to nothing is hard; having to deal with other people’s total fucking bullshit is sometimes real bad.
Hell is.
The Cashier was poised and she had more fortitude than I imagined even possible in her difficult situation, but it was wearing heavy on her. It was very obvious by now that there was nothing she could say or do to appease The Man, even if she really wanted to.
Finally and thank god:
“Rachel,” the cashier next to The Cashier announced over our heads, “I’m calling The Manager.”
The Man scoffed, did not bother to turn around. “Go ahead and call the fucking manager! I’ll give her as good![3]”
But The Manager did not come. I don’t know why. We waited forever until, finally, someone did come.
A man dressed in white. A man whose motorhead mustache seemed to drip with the same blood that spattered his apron. A man whose solid, concrete frame and massive stature casually dwarfed those around him.
The Butcher.
His arms knotted in work muscles – solid, but not quite defined – sleeves rolled up to reveal body hair as black as holy sin, he had come from the back of the store to tell The Cashier that The Manager was not there. He didn’t know why.
Service with a smile means survival of the fittest. You have to adapt.
“Hey! Over here, Bruce!” It was Rachel.
“What’s up?” asked The Butcher, looking at her curiously. She directed his gaze with her gaze to The Man, standing there, agape.
Taking half a step, The Butcher turned to face The Man.
“What?” He may have barked it. He crossed his meaty butcher arms as he said it.
“I…nothing,” muttered The Man, wholly uncurious, the exact opposite of anything approaching curious. Keeping at least one eye on The Butcher, he dropped a few bills and coins on the counter, hesitated, and took some back.
Rachael took his money, rang him up and tossed him his change. Hard. As soon as she was done, she excused herself to the old lady standing behind The Man and hurried to somewhere in the back of the store, away from the cash register.
You can’t pay someone to care. You can’t not pay them to care, either.
I wondered idly how much of her shift she had left.
The Man shoved the change into a worn pocket. He left the store, flowers in hand, less now like a scepter than a lot of dead weight he had to drag all the way home.
They were limp. Obviously, he squeezed too hard.
besidealife 