How To Win At A Job In Food Retail by Bradford Middleton

How To Win At A Job In Food Retail by Bradford Middleton

As the train hurtles back south, back towards the big smoke, the global metropolis, the place that had, despite his year away, always been his home he can almost taste the anticipation in the air. The start of a new life, newly qualified, newly housed and with a desire to make London his playground all over again but almost as soon as he lands he realises something rotten has happened in his year away. Rents, which had been crazy before his brief sojourn in the great north, had somehow grown completely out of control. His old room, or something very similar, has somehow doubled in price and that’s the god-damn cheapest place he can find outside of some scary looking rooms in gun-ravaged warzones which he ain’t ever really be into.

Reduced to surfing from one friends’ sofa to another friends’ spare bed to anothers’ floor he soon knows he’ll run out and then what the hell will he be able to do. His lack of a permanent address means any benefits are tough to come by and his bank account already showing a scary five-figure sum in red on his bank statements means only one thing. He has to get a job! He tries applying for jobs he doesn’t understand, he tries hundreds of jobs he didn’t even want and he even tried some jobs he’d already done and each one, somehow, told him NO, a big fat resounding NO and he has to admit it hurt. It felt like the entire city has turned against him for his betrayal, for his year-long escapades in the north, and then one day it all changes and somehow life gets even worse.

His nan dies and that, well that, is all it takes to push Jack right over the edge. He rages, he cries, he wails as she had been his everything growing up as both his parents were so often out at work and all he can do is let the overwhelming despair sweep through his entire soul. It takes two, three, hell he sure wasn’t keeping count, days to recover from the utter mess of a funeral and an unmitigated disaster of a wake and then, from out of nowhere, comes some news that, at last, brings him some hope to Jack’s disaster of a life.

“I’ve talked to your aunt this morning,” his mum tells him and he knows it must be serious, “and she’s spoken to Matt and Lewis and they say it’ll be cool for you to go and stay with them for a while if you want a change of scene… they’ve got a spare room!” as Jack’s mind wanders south, south to a new life by the sea, a life in Brighton that can maybe deliver on some of his dreams. Those dreams he’d been sold, his and every other generation younger than his, by that war criminal of a prime minister who Jack was growing increasingly convinced had lied to him and all that debt, hell, right now that’s the last thing on his mind as that ain’t ever getting repaid.

“Well I guess I ain’t got many other options right now have I? When can they take me in?” he responds and almost instantly, well a couple of days later so as he can say goodbye to his slightly smaller group of friends with one final wild night on the streets of Soho, he’s on another train. Another train heading south, towards another set of bright lights that promise, he hopes beyond hope, a better life and that first weekend, wow.

He stalks the streets of Brighton for the first time in nearly twenty years and as he walks, he swoons, he marvels and he falls in love all over again. The city buzzes with a wild atmosphere of pot smoke, booze and madness and as Jack looks out at the sea he is certain, hell yeah, he’s certain, that this can most definitely be his kind of town. Walking these streets, he feels almost lost in some bohemian enclave of west London until that glorious moment when he walks out the final alleyway and comes face to face with that glorious beast of a sea and as he turns east towards his cousins’ flat he feels certain this move will work out fine.

His first two weeks in this here new town pass in an ocean of booze from the plethora of fine bars that dominate the centre whilst unearthing rare gems from some of the great bookshops and record stores that seem to be almost everywhere. Jack even soon learns of a bar that sells books and records and he knows he’s got to go take a look at this pleasuredome of all his obsessions but slowly the grind starts to ware. The dispiriting waste of hours looking through more jobs he doesn’t want, doesn’t care about or even, in some cases, understand begin to leave their mark and slowly the days turn to weeks. Emails, application forms, CVs, hell by the end of it all he’s become a job applying machine but, somehow, still nothing comes through and his work coach is almost as frustrated at Jack’s lack of progress as Jack is himself.

“Why can’t you get a job?” comes the chorus from his army of work advisors and, in all honesty, he doesn’t know and every time they ask him, he falls one step closer to the edge. Unfortunately, this can only lead one way and that is towards a routine, a harsh routine, that comes to rule his life.

He wakes the same time every day; early, real early, by his previous standards and he’ll be right back into it. He’ll start with the remnants of the joint that lay in his ashtray from the night before hitting the kitchen for coffee and his first fresh joint of the day and that, well that, is it. After his morning pick-me-up he’ll begin his long day walking with the thought in his mind that today is going to be his day and, as far as he is concerned, that can’t come soon enough. He walks the streets armed with copies of his CV and no matter how little belief he has he’ll drop one in for almost any job he spies in shop windows but somehow, he knows this approach ain’t ever going to work. Once he’s out of CV’s or as soon as he gets bored he’ll head to the beach and sit staring out at the sea dreaming. He dreams of what his life could become and on occasion when the beach is his own private playground, he’ll spark a joint and at least be thankful there ain’t any scene like this in London.

But then from out of nowhere came a call. A call from one of the many, many jobs he’s applied for and one he is absolutely convinced he can do; a lowly admin role at the marina offices which mean, at last, he’ll be able to escape his cousins’ spare room and keep on drinking almost every beautiful drunken evening.

Jack pulls on his best outfit and goes right out and gets that job as if in a dream and as he walks out of the office, he almost feels the need to pinch himself to make sure the whole experience has been real. After all it had been months, hell… six long months of hell in this new town, but now that is all going to change. He walks straight into the supermarket that dominates the entire marina and proceeds to buy a bottle of the most beautiful French red wine he can find and a dinner fit for a king, or at least someone who is celebrating most frugally! That night he eats, he drinks and he smokes in celebration but as the days begin to drag something starts eating away at his new found hope.

It’s three, then four, then five days and still no word, nothing, nada confirming his offer and, to put it bluntly, Jack is starting to get worried that something ain’t right. The next couple of days pass in a blur of weed, anxiety and worry until, finally, the day dawns when he vows to get some, hell he’ll take any, kind of response right now.

“I ain’t heard a thing since last week’s verbal offer,” he tells his work advisor and she looks up from his file and tells him exactly what he needs to hear.

“You can leave this to me Jack… I’ll sort this!” she tells him and right then and there he knows this is it. This is make or break. If she is the bringer of good news well then everything will be fine and dandy but what if, and in all honesty… what if she pours more misery on the horror show of his life?

He knows almost instantly the second he walks back in her office and as he slumps down in the offered chair she begins talking.

“Well look Jack… I’m really afraid to tell you…” and just like that a whole new ocean of misery drowns him in despair.

“Why can’t I get a god-damn job?” he pleads but it is an answer no one seems to know the answer to. It’s not like he’s applying to be Ruler of the Universe he just wants a job that’ll give him a roof over his own head and enough money in his pocket for a burgeoning drink problem that tonight Jack knows will need quenching.

After the debacle at the marina Jack’s case is deemed special attention and they farm him out to some private agency with expensive offices where good-looking advisors in expensive suits take him through a bizarre ordeal. He undertakes colour tests to determine what kind of personality he is and goes to more CV and interview workshops than you could ever possibly imagine one person could ever possibly need and slowly the days turn to weeks and then a couple of months have passed before something happens.

“I’ve landed you an interview with Co-op Food and tomorrow you’ll go shopping for an interview outfit with Tori. I think this might be the one we’ve been looking for Jack…” his work advisor predicts and, sure enough, by the end of the next day he is suited and booted and apparently ready to go.

The morning of the interview the cool summer breeze finds Jack full with an optimism he hasn’t felt in years and after a forty mniute walk along the beach he walks into the shop heading immediately for the check-out.

“I’m here for an interview with Jacqui,” Jack tells the young girl working who immediately informs someone at the end of her headset of his arrival.

“Now I’m guessing you must be Jack, right? My 10am?”

“Yep,” Jack responds as a smile speads across his face as he follows her towards the back door. The silence is deafening until they reach an office with two chairs.

“Take a seat,” she suggests, “now we have a few basics to get out of the way first…” she says finally looking up at him.

“Sure,” Jack responds.

“Do you have a criminal record?”

“Er, no, no I don’t…” he says certain that he doesn’t need to mention the couple of spent cautions for possesion from back in his halcyon days.

“Good,” she responds whilst ticking a box on the form attached to her folder, “now have you ever worked in retail before?”

“Well yes,” Jack responds, “but I’m afraid to say it was a crazy long time ago but I did work for a few retail outlets whilst going through college…”

“Ah yes I see you’re an educated man?”

“I suppose,” he says desperately trying to convince her he sure ain’t too smart for this opportunity.

“A Master’s degree?” she says arching her right eye-brow like some kind of evil James Bond villian.

“Yeah, I almost bankrupted myself on a whimsy!” Jack jokes.

“So will you be contemplating a return to education anytime soon?”

“Well, no, I think I’m better suited for the real world rather than a life in academia…”

“So, I think that’s all I need Jack… is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

“Well, erm… hourly rate? Contract details? Holidays?” he responds whilst, in all honesty, not really knowing what the hell’s going on. She lays the information out for him to and he nods at the moments when he feels like he should before, finally, the words he’s been waiting on leap from her mouth.

“Would you like the position here then?”

“Absolutely,” Jack says as he feels a sudden surge of relief sweep over him.

“Well, you could start this evening if you want? Get you training on the check-out if you can?”

“Well, I have plans tonight but I could do tomorrow afternoon if you want?” he responds almost tasting that first sweet beautiful dark rum that’ll be his any minute now.

“Sure, I know Fiona, this shops’ manager, has a few of your other fresh starters for our new North Street shop coming in tomorrow at 12…”

“OK,” Jack responds one final time as he slides the seat back extending his hand for Jacqui to shake.

“Thank you so much,” he says opening the office door knowing that life is just about to become a whole lot more liveable.

After leaving the shop Jack almost immediately spies some interesting old boozer only a few doors down and as he slides in the door his eyes are drawn towards a bottle of Havana 7 behind the bar.

“Hey pal,” he calls out to the middle-aged guy waiting on no one, “can I get a double of that Havana 7 and a pint of…erm… damn, the eternal dilemma… ah hell I’ll just get a pint of that good Polish beer,” he finally decides before pulling up a stool.

“No problem partner,” the guy responds whilst busying himself with Jack’s round of drinks. Almost immediately the darkly gorgeous Cuban delights is delivered and vanquished.

“Can I get another of these mate?”

“Wow, running a thirst this afternoon?” the bar-guy responds.

“Yeah, just got myself a job and agreed to start my training tomorrow… what the hell am I thinking?”

“You still want that rum?”

“Absolutely!” Jack responds as the beer is placed on the bar before the bar-guy turns his attention back to the next large rum.

“You see the job, well it’s at Co-op Food and, well, I just don’t really like people that much…”

“Well, you seem alright to me pal, I wouldn’t sweat it… I remember when I started this bar work gig I had no idea; I barely drank for a start!”

“Yeah, I suppose…” Jack ponders as he almost instantly drains the second double. The lunchtime crowd arrives in a rush of lager and Thai food and soon they are all gone and Jack again has the place to himself as the guy behind the bar retires into the corner where he picks up a dog-eared paperback book and starts reading. Jack enjoys his last tantalizing taste of freedom as he nurses his pint in the delinquent serenity of the bar but he knows his time is short. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, a day when dawn will come and bring with it a new chapter in his life and he knows this is an opportunity he needs to run with and hopefully it’ll take him right pass the front door of any bars where he can see nothing but a drunken disaster of a life waiting for him.

The glory of the day before and his delirious change in circumstance doesn’t last long though as he is confronted by Lewis, one of his cousins, over breakfast.

“So I hear today is your big day yeah?” he says immediately launching into his jovial interrogation.

“Big day?”

“Yeah, you’re starting at Co-op Food today ain’t you?”

“Oh yeah…” Jack responds.

“Well look me and Matt have talked and we’re going to need the spare room in a couple of weeks…”

“Oh, right I get it now, you’ve done your good deed, got some god-damn brownie points off the bloody family and now this, THIS! You’re throwing your own cousin out on the street!”

“No, no, of course we aren’t… if you can’t find somewhere you can always crash on our couch!”

“OK, right, I get it… I’ll start looking straight after work…” Jack responds before draining his coffee and disappearing back to his room where he knows work is imminent and he ain’t anywhere near high enough to deal with that yet. As the day is threatening to be lost in a haze of weed smoke Jack’s alarm jolts him back into the real world and with a weary ‘damn it’ he knows work is calling.

Ten minutes later he bounds down the back stairs and out into the wilds of the Brightonian seafront and as he walks into town it somehow looks different. It looks like a world shrinking down to size and a world telling Jack he’s got to get used to people and he’s got to get used to them quickly!

The late morning summer air greets Jack and whisks him along the parade in what many would consider a dream commute and as Jack follows the beach round pass the palace pier, he can spy Shoreham and Worthing off in the distance. Life feels good as he walks ever on into Hove and as he walks through the doors at shop, for the first time as an actual employee, his mood suddenly slumps.

‘I think I’d rather be almost anywhere but here,’ he thinks as he spies the young woman who greeted him at the check-outs the day before.

“Morning,” he says distracting her from a huge box of cigarettes she’s looking at in a rather confused manner.

“Oh hi,” she says standing straight up and turning towards him, “oh it’s you… well I’m guessing the interview went well yesterday?”

“Well, kinda, I got the job if that’s what you mean!” Jack responds causing both to let out a little chuckle.

“Oh, right yeah there’s been a steady progression of new peeps going downstairs, you better get on… the code is 1-2-3-4 in case you couldn’t guess it!”

And as he punches in the combination, almost certain it won’t work, he hears a loud uproarious laugh coming from downstairs and he knows that even though he doesn’t want to, all his good sense tells him not too, he must head in that direction. Following the narrow staircase down he can hear a gaggle of voices in a room off to the side.

“Good morning,” Fiona announces with her name-tag announcing her position as ‘Shop Manager’ for everyone to see as Jack wanders in.

“Morning, I’m Jack…”

“Yes, yes, now will you take a seat, we’ve been waiting on you!” she responds her anger now visible at the prospects she wouldn’t even get to boss this motley assortment of useless kids, delinquents, old wrecks and over-educated fools.

As Jack takes the one lone seat, he checks his phone and sure enough it reads 11.58 but it’s already too late to respond as Fiona calls everyone to order as a hush descends over the room.

She turns on a TV positioned high on wall and hits the power button before placing a disc in the machine. As the presentation begins, she simply walks out the room leaving the crowd to watch and learn the Co-op way. The dullness of the feature and the horror of the fluorescent lighting leave Jack’s mind quickly turning to the soon to be devoured Havana 7 and as the minutes go pass an hour, then two he is almost feverish with anticipation.

“Right,” Fiona announces after appearing from nowhere, “you get a fifteen-minute break now but you got to be back here then cos you all got some tests to do…” and just like that Jack is on his feet and rolling whilst heading for the door. The cool summer afternoon air and natural light eases the pain in his eyes and as he sparks his roll-up to life, he turns back towards the entrance to find no one has followed. He smokes his smoke all the way down to the filter regardless and as he walks back into the fluorescent light nightmare of the staff-room, he spies a wastebin full of used sandwich wrappers and Fiona, again, appears to be waiting for him and the whole sorry scene absolutely disgusts him.

“Now we’ve got some tests for you all to do. You get thirty minutes to complete so…” Fiona begins to say, it appears desperate to return to the sanctuary of her office.

“I don’t have a pen!” someone says as Jack reaches into the depths of his rucksack and pulls out a pen and his glasses.

“OK, does anyone else need a pen?” Fiona asks to a sea of hands being raised around the room. With a brief tut she disappears only to return a few minutes later clutching a whole handful of pens.

“Right, now is everyone ready? Right your time starts now…” and Jack begins filling in the multiple-choice boxes almost at will as his ravenous thirst for that first sweet taste of dark rum takes him all the way to the end. As he looks up at the clock on the wall it tells him ten minutes have passed and as the seconds begin to drag onwards, they drag like only time can when you’re stuck somewhere you really don’t want to be stuck. The minutes feel like a lifetime, like a century, as if time itself has somehow stopped and he knows this is as low as he’s ever felt about any job he’s ever had and that sweet beautiful taste can’t come soon enough…

“Right,” she says walking back into the tight narrow staff room, “you must all finish right NOW!” and as she walks on through, she grabs pens out of a couple of peoples’ hands and instantly the atmosphere changes.

“I told you to stop!” she snaps as a nasty chill fills the entire room before moving around the room collecting up their answers.

“Right so if you all just wait a few minutes, I’ll go mark your sheets and with a bit of luck we can all get on with our days…” she says before disappearing and a few cliques begin to whisper among themselves as Jack sits off to the side.

“Well, I’m surprised…” she says, “only three of you passed this time… Jack, Sue and Tina, well done. The rest of you…” she continues as Jack climbs to his feet.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

“Well, I passed so I’m guessing I can leave?” he retorts as Sue and Tina respond by standing in solidarity.

“You’ll lose money for this if you do…” she tells Jack but it is already too late as he is half-way out the door and dreaming of that first sweet beautiful taste that’ll be his so soon, he can almost already taste it. Sadly, their newly found freedom is to be short-lived as Jack knows he’ll have to be here all over again at nine o’clock the very next morning and that, he is certain, is going to be a whole new idea of hell.

The carnage that ensues almost the second he is through the door to the bar is something to behold; an ocean of that beautifully sweet delirious dark rum and gallons upon gallons of glorious beer. A double here, a pint there and on and on and on until the night is nothing more than a blur of total insanity and that’s when it comes to hit him. This ain’t his old life, this ain’t another night on the tiles like he usually lives, foot loose and fancy free with no job or woman to keep him on the straight and narrow, ‘oh no’ he thinks, this is a night before work. A work that starts at nine and as he pulls his phone from his pocket his hazy eyes suggest it is already past midnight and that, well that, ain’t good at all. He knows there is nothing for it but to begin the long hike all the way back to the last house in town, his home for now but who knows for how much longer?

Jack just doesn’t care about any of that as the next morning is a full-on horror show as the sickness sweeps through him as he crashes into the toilet and as the propsect of work comes into view he knows, or at the very least hopes, life just can’t get any worse. Somehow by-passing his cousins, he slinks down the back stairs and out into the wilds of another beautiful summers’ morning that can only get better with the inevitable first taste of a sweet beautiful smoke and as he smokes it down, he glides right on into work.

Spying the damned Fiona the second he walks through the doors his mood slumps and as he walks out the back, hoping, praying, for a moment of peace and a large mug of coffee he spies a staff area that is just pure carnage. People everywhere, too many damn people, all trying to do their own thing and Jack just knows it’s a battle not even worth fighting and as he walks into the locker room, he knows today is just going to be one of those days.

Pulling his work t-shirt from his rucksack, he looks at it briefly and grimaces at the thought of a return to uniform. Hell, he’s always hated even the idea of wearing a uniform, burning the only other one he was forced into at school on his last day, and to think now, aged thirty-seven, well to put it mildly he isn’t impressed.

“Right,” he hears Fiona shout as she enters the warehouse, “I want all you newbies here right now!” and somehow, just like that, the day is on. Walking down the line Fiona picks the young and good-looking members of staff off the line and to the side until finally it all becomes clear, or at least it does to Jack at least.

“Right,” she says turning to Jack and his gang of semi-functioning drones, you guys will work the warehouse with Wayne.

“WAYNE!” she hollers before a large lumbering figure comes to the office door and almost filling it. “Now Wayne will tell you all what needs doing and in a couple of hours we’ll have you up on the shop-floor.”

“Right,” Wayne says in the mildest of voices for someone of his stratospheric size, “if you can start by loading up the trolleys and loading them into the lift…” and just like that he disappears again.

“Does anyone else fancy a really strong mug of coffee or is it just me?” Jack asks as the hell of the night before still needs some gutting and a pretty big pick-me-up could do just the trick as a few nod their heads in agreement.

“With coffee we’ll work better,” Jack suggests before disappearing into the staff room to see what he can sort. He soon returns to the throng of warehouse drone and passes out mugfuls of hot beautiful caffeine.

“I done them all black as I wasn’t sure and that’s how I take mine,” he says before taking the first big taste and, well to be kind, it tastes awful, truly god-awful in fact, but as it goes down his throat, he can feel the energy being to surge through him. The morning races into afternoon and Jack, as the rush of caffeine begins to wear off, can feel the habit, his need, tap him on the shoulder.

The afternoon wares on relentlessly and Jack can’t seem to drag his mind from that first sweet taste, that first wondrous moment of intoxication, not long from now when he walks on in that bar and the madness will start all over again. And just like that, and apparently just in time for their happy hour, Jack is finally free from his dungeon and back on the train to oblivion as he spies a house double at only a fiver almost the second he walks through those increasingly familiar doors.

“Afternoon Jack,” the young bookworm of a bar-guy says welcoming Jack home before the oblivion of a rum frenzy takes hold and Jack somehow knows that if he is going to stick at this job, he’s going to need a lot more nights like this.

The horror of the next morning is upon him almost immediately as his eyes flicker open to a searing, all-conquering, hangover that would have, under any other circumstance, laid waste to his day but today, well today, is different. Today he knows he needs to get out there, he needs to blow the cobwebs away and some get some much-needed air on his horrid, hideous face but most importantly of all he needs to find somewhere, anywhere really but here, to call home.

Jack begins his walk into town through the unfamiliar streets of the middle-class enclave of Kemptown village and as he walks pass a family butchers, an organic grocers and more coffee shops than he can begin to comprehend he knows this place is way out of his league. Way out indeed if the first estate agents’ window is typical of the area; multi-million-pound flats and homes and rentals that, hell, they are almost as insane as those in London. He spies tiny shoe-box rooms at 750, sometimes 800, sometimes even more but he knows it can’t all be like this, it surely can’t all be like this…

Walking on relentlessly in his hunt he walks down a narrow street that seems to be a home away from home for some really interesting looking characters and as he walks he spies the prices in the agents’ windows get lower until finally one at 600, a corridor at best but it’s the cheapest he’s spied so far. He decides to go for broke and go see about it but the short shrift they give him, effectively spinning him out the door as soon as they find out he’s going to claim housing benefit, sends Jack spiralling and it’s then he notices. This street must have more bars on it than any other he’s ever walked through and as that first tingle, that first little tap on his shoulder starts tapping, he knows he’s got to get a room sorted soon and get right back here.

The centre of town which is almost immediately upon him holds nothing beyond more ridiculously priced flats for rent and the apparent imminent opening of the brand-new Co-op where he’ll be working his sorry little life away but as he walks pass the huge shopping centre, he can almost smell it. The sweet beautiful smell of freedom and the possibility of somehow finding it in a room he’ll find anytime now but as he walks on in the first agents’ door he can’t believe the reaction.

“We don’t take housing benefit,” he is told, again and again and again until, finally, at last, he is almost at the point of giving up, when the impossible happens.

“I’m interested in that studio flat you got in the window, the one on the seafront… at 450?”

“Oh right, I’m sorry to say we let that this morning, it’s just I haven’t got around to taking it down yet…”

“Oh, that’s too bad, I don’t suppose you got anything similar…”

“Hey Frankie, you still have that two-room bedsit on Marine Parade? The one at 475?”

“Sure, I do, you got someone wanting to take a look at it?”

“Sure do, you want to take him, or shall I?”

“Well hombre, he’s your catch… you go for it!” Frankie responds.

“We got this nice little set-up on Marine Parade if you’re interested,” the agent says turning to Jack.

“Sure, I am,” Jack responds simultaneously thinking, ‘wow! Marine Parade!!” and it’s just how he dreams. The huge window that looks out straight to sea, the glory of having a separate kitchen, it’s better than he could have ever imagined and at 475, wow, what a steal!

“I’ll take it,” he says before they even make it to the second room, “when can I move in?” he asks.

“Anytime you like, we’ll need to sort the paperwork and you’ll need the deposit but if you want, we can sort it right now if you want?”

“Hell yeah, that’d be great!” Jack responds and just like that life changes once again. He is now a bankrupt middle-aged man with a crappy job and a none too salubrious flat but, hell, he thinks, at least it beats having no job at all and no roof like so many others around these parts.

Leaving the agents’ office an hour or so later Jack can’t quite believe he is already in possession of a set of keys and a contract guaranteeing him at least the next six months and as he walks on back his mind starts whirring with ideas. Ideas for his place, for his new life and for the next thirty hours it is all he does. He sets up the bed, he positions his tiny TV and his armchair and that first sweet night of freedom he smokes a forest of weed and gets high, so very, very high the next day passes in a blur of daytime TV before the drama of his second chapter.

‘30 NEW JOBS’ the company banner screams as Jack walks up to his new shop on its opening day and despite the fanfare he already knows he’d rather be almost anywhere else but right here but at least today there isn’t much to do and there is an ocean of free coffee for anyone needing a little help. And with the call of local press photographers desperate for all the coverage of this rare piece of good news they can get Jack knows the need for caffeine is great indeed but as the day carries on not much else happens. The shop opens, the ribbon is cut by the CEO, the first customer is served and slowly all the hullabaloo dies away until finally the clock ticks around to Jack’s break-time.

While he’s outside smoking his head off, he spies a few of the bosses walk from the shop and down the road to a neighbouring Wetherspoon’s pub and he knows almost immediately, the hard grind is about to begin. Straight from his break he is taken upstairs by the lone manager left on duty.

“Right Jack, we’re going to get you on the check-outs for a bit of training this afternoon… we think you could be really good at this,” the slightly over-weight twenty-something supervisor says.

“Oh right,” Jack responds as he is lead away from the other underground dwellers in the warehouse.

“So,” a slightly older non-uniformed company drone leads in, “have you ever done any work like this before?”

“Well, erm… not for a very long time at least… I did some retail when I was going through college…”

“Well, it’s much easier now, just watch Joanna and I’m sure you’ll pick it up…” and, sure enough, he hears the script and he watches her every movement until he has it down.

“So, you hear her being talkative, you see how she’s handling the scanner, yes?”

“Sure,” Jack responds.

“OK, so what do you reckon?” the non-uniformed drone asks.

“What? You want me to try now?”

“Well sure…” the young supervisor suggests whilst registering Jack’s details onto one of the check-outs…”

“Can I help anyone?” Jack asks and, sure enough, almost to his surprise, a customer comes forward and he begins to talk. Bag? Loyalty card? Enjoying the sun? Hell, he’s a natural by all accounts and, just like that, his role is set and the next three hours of his shift fly by in a blur of customers and with each passing one Jack can feel the tap, tap, tap on his shoulder from his thirst. A thirst that can only be quenched by an ocean of booze but tonight promises something different as he heads straight on pass the damnable Wetherspoon’s in search for a suitable dive to drown his sorrows in closer to home and, sure enough, within an hour he is slamming down his third double rum and a routine is born!

Work slowly becomes nothing but a big fat drag, and sadly it ain’t of anything good as word spreads among the management team that someone on team can actually string a coherent sentence and before he knows what is happening Jack’s name apparently changes to ‘Tills’. Every damnable day starts exactly the same way. He’ll walk into work, sign-in, pop his head into the office and the only word he’d hear back is ‘Tills’ and that, well here in Co-op world, that means you are the lowest of the low. The kind of drone who don’t do any of the heavy lifting and that especially ain’t good when you stand 6-foot-3 and weigh in close to 200-pounds like Jack does!

The first week slowly fades into the second and Jack realises that life on the check-out might not be the paradise he’d hoped for. Slowly he can feel the madness of some of his customers come to rub off on him as they parade their lives around his shop. One, in particular, fills his heart so full of misery he knows the only answer can be found at the bottom of several large rums shortly after work lets him out.

This one in particular is all kinds of wrong. She’d usually turn up at his checkout with a basket full of stuff and as he begins scanning it she’d start in on him.

“Why don’t you go to university Jack? I’m doing my dissertation on Victorian feminist literature,” she tells him again and again and all Jack can do is think about all those wasted years of education he’s put himself through just to land here.

“That’ll be £23.47,” he announces hoping beyond hope that she’ll pull a card out of her purse, tap it and get the hell out but, with this one, life is never that simple. She empties the contents of her purse onto the counter and in among the random buttons, chocolate bars and random detritus that dominate are a handful of coins.

“You’ve got £4.72 there…” he tells her and that always prompts a vague fondling of the bottom of her bag as if a twenty is just going to somehow miraculously appear but it never does and, almost certainly, never will, not in this lifetime anyway.

“OK I’ll go take another look around…” she says leaving her discarded shopping basket for Jack to sort. It’s moments like this that send Jack running into the arms of the Saint James bar not long after his shift lets out and as the days add up a month suddenly becomes six and then, in the blink of an eye, a year is gone and somehow Jack has grown used to his position in life. As long as there is enough money for some weed and an ocean of booze life can, just about, be seen as something worth living but it still doesn’t stop him feeling bad a lot of the time. He feels bad walking home pass beggars who sometimes wear better shoes than him, where the junkies stalk the street in gangs whilst Jack always walks alone but, at least, it is some kind of life, a drunken wreck of a life maybe, but still a life.

Some days, sure, pass in a blur of hangover whilst others are only punctuated by the random brutality or ingenuity of the many shop-lifters who plague the store. Jack’s favourite crew so far feature a tall black guy dressed in a flowing kaftan on roller skates with an absolutely huge Afro hairstyle, meaning he towers over seven feet tall, who’ll skate on in, confuse the security guard whose antenna will detect trouble, to quickly be followed by two guys in suits who’ll empty an entire shelf of the fridge into their rucksacks and leave. Most though were just in it for kicks, those who just want to bully someone, to feel dominate in an otherwise useless life often, or those who needed that hit to just keep them going. Jack remembers one poor soul simply sitting down with a box of wine in the alcohol aisle and settling in until one of the crew saw what was going down.

There were moments, rare sweet moments, of joy such as the day he made a little girl cry by simply telling her now easter is over you’ll get no more chocolate until next year and right on cue her mum turned the corner as the five-year old brat bursts into tears. Best of all though, and what a day it turned out to be, was the joyous day when Jack was left alone with his least favourite boss as one of his colleagues went home sick. Jack’s shift was due to end at two and, sure enough, at two no one else had shown.

“Look,” he told the horrified looking duty manager, “I got to go, I got an appointment!” He was obviously lying his head off about almost everything but there was absolutely nothing the little suck-up fucker could do about it and Jack knew.

‘Serves the little sucker right, fucking Tweedledumb!’ he thinks as he pulls up his usual stool in the Saint James.

“Make it my usual,” he tells whatever poor, soon to be incredibly over-worked, bar-person is on duty and, just like that, the madness begins for yet another night and, in all honesty, it is the only way he can survive. Work simply becomes a hard unrelenting grind that sometimes makes him feel like he is going to war rather than working some shop-floor doss which this minimum-wage gig truly deserves to be and as the days grind on the nights get lost in oceans of booze, oceans drank all in a bid to forget the horror of this existence because one thing is certain to Jack and that this ain’t any kind of life, this is, downright sad, just a sorry existence.

Tweedledumb formed part of a triumvirate of suck-ups who slavishly agreed with anything the big boss said until, eventually, he’d promoted every single one of them to duty managers which basically gave them free rein over Jack’s happiness at work. Jack dealt with it how he’d dealt with every other crisis in his life; by forgetting all about it every single damnable night but somedays, especially those days when he had to work with the knuckle-dragging Savage, it took an extra herculean effort. The savage was one stupid arsehole and whilst most jobs can deal with a stupid boss it helps if they’re also not lazy. Unfortunately, the Savage was among the laziest people Jack had ever met and the only thing he seemed interested in was drawing penis’s all over the staff area.

Jack simply surrenders to his routine of sleeping, working, drinking and smoking and after nearly four long years his life is a wreck. He soon discovers there is nothing to do in this town apart from drink as all the cinemas show the same movies, all the gigs are run by the same clique of student impresarios, and Jack sure ain’t cool enough for any of that shit so his days pass in a blur of weed smoke and glorious booze. At the check-out whilst serving customers, sometimes for hours at a time, it sometimes feels that every single one of them is here to make Jack’s life just a little bit shitter and by the end of his shift he’s counting the seconds until he’s home, back on that stool in the Saint James.

Some days though, when the hours are struggling like a bug through treacle, Jack will be surprised by something bizarre. Take this day, just another usual day on the check-out of doom when, just like so many days before, Jack initially ignores the police car with wailing siren pulling up outside his shop.

But when Jack hears one of the cops shout, “Stop right where you are!” it immediately grabs his attention and with an apparent shop-lifter stuck in the middle Jack has absolutely no idea what is happening. The shop-lifter instinctively drops the four-pack of beer and raises his hands in surrender but it becomes immediately apparent to Jack that it ain’t him they’re interested in.

“All staff to check-outs!” he hollers so loud he almost doesn’t need the microphone and it is then the unbelievable scene unfolds. The cops have Ainsley, the security guard, in hand-cuffs just as the big boss arrives on the scene.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he demands.

“We’re arresting you for possession with intent to supply of marijuana and cocaine and you’ll need to come to the station…” and just like that he is dragged off to the awaiting police car which has now attracted a crowd of on-lookers.

“So, what the hell happened there?” one of his colleagues asks as he enters the check-outs.

“No idea, pretty wild thought ain’t it? Never seen anyone in uniform in handcuffs before!” Jack responds.

“Anyway, the boss wants a word in the office,” his colleague tells him and Jack can only fear the worst, ‘what kind of horror do they want me to perform now?’ he ponders walking out of the plastic cage that engulfs the check-outs.

“Look Jack we got to ask a big favour…” the boss begins and Jack can already feel the pressure cooker rising, “Tanya’s just quit and she’s refusing to work her notice so…” and all Jack can think is ‘damn’ as Tanya had been one of the few colleagues who he liked.

“We could do with you covering a few of her shifts in the next couple of weeks…”

“Well, is everyone else helping out?” he responds.

“Yeah, we’re all doing extra hours but we really need someone to work her 7am tomorrow…”

“And you thought of me?” Jack responds incredulously.

“Well…”

“I suppose no one else can get here that early, right??” Jack says knowing whatever the response it’ll be a lie.

“OK, I’ll do it but on one condition… You let me out of here right now, look it’s nearly three…”

“Great Jack, thanks” the big boss responds but that promise takes a nose-dive the second he walks on in the Saint James to an endless vacation from those Ramones as the glorious delirium takes control. For the first time all damn day everything seems just about fine and as Jack slams back the first double he’s almost forgotten about the horror of a 7am start…

When Jack’s alarm blitzkrieg bops its way into his brain he already knows it is a lost cause but as he feels his feet swing around onto his floor, he can’t understand what is going on. His head is pounding, the rum truly overflowing the previous evening, and its already 6am and in an hour, God help him, he’s got to be ready to face the masses in their consumerist frenzy when all he really wants is to go back to his bed, his sweet glorious pit. Alas today it is already too late and the morning, oh god the morning, drags. The hours pass like centuries until that sweet delirious moment of release and as if right on cue he spies his favourite bar-guy looking bored as he walks on into the Saint James and pulls up his stool.

“Hey man,” the young book-worm says, “that was some night you had last night… You must have been in here until at least 1, now don’t tell me you went into work this morning?”

“Sure, I did, 7am start as well…” and just like that a double appears at the bar in his regular place.

“You can have that one on the house!” the bar-guy announces and the grin that spreads across Jack’s face is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

“I better get a beer as well,” Jack responds and soon he is set and, even with the few extra hours, life carries on like this for a while until he gets a wake-up call he was never expecting.

One day, just your average typical day at the check-out of doom, Jack is keeping himself busy with the usual parade of mad, deranged and damaged customers when suddenly he feels something. He feels a twinge and then a spasm and soon his chest is tight like a vice.

“Are you alright?” a customer asks and all he can do is place a hand on his chest and step back and the rest is a complete blank.

“Shit,” he hears a lone voice scream, “Jack’s collapsed!!” and that is that. The next thing he is aware of is a medic looking down at him.

“I bet this guy smokes, drinks, god-knows what else…” he hears the medic diagnose before words come to shock him awake.

“I think he’s probably had a mild heart-attack and he’ll need some time to recover at hospital…” and Jack is bolt-upright.

“A what?” he croaks as if the diagnosis has aged him forty years before they hoist him into a cot to wheel him out to the ambulance.

After being discharged from the hospital Jack returns home, calls his pot connection and begins to make plans. Somehow this life has got to change, somehow this life has got to get healthier but somehow, he’s got to maintain the weed otherwise the food retail hell will surely just get too much for him! Then one day as he’s out shopping for some food he spies an old boss walking towards him down his street.

“Rudy!” he exclaims, “Am I glad to see you!”

“Hey Jack, good to see you too! I heard you’ve been having some health troubles?”

“Well sure I have, it’s that damn North Street store… where you working at the minute?”

“Just at the shop in the village…”

“Really, any chance of a transfer?” and just like that Jack’s life changes and he can only hope this time it is for the better.

The next month passes easily with Jack getting better with every passing day. The temptation for a drink is never far away but somehow, he survives all the way through to his first day in his new shop, and somewhat amazingly, he wakes clear-headed and determined to make good first impression for almost the first time in his adult life. And what’s more that’s exactly what he does and the first night passes like a dream and after a week, hell, Jack can’t work out why he hadn’t done this years ago!

Finishing his first week deserves some kind of treat Jack convinces himself and that first Friday he walks out of the shop with the most expensive bottle, fifteen whole quids’ worth, of red wine available and, damn, it tastes good. It tastes so good he knows there is no way this stuff is going to kill him from his first gentle sip as it’s just too damn fine! And just like that the bottle comes to take him again and somehow times speeds up. The days of work and the nights of waste blur time into something almost immeasurable.

Somehow those days become months and then years and eventually Jack has been in his new shop for as long as his old but then that’s the kind of thing routine and addiction can do to you. Time hurtles on and soon Jack is facing his half-century and somehow still living the same old routine he sees no way out until something comes to shake him to his very core. A realisation, an awakening, a call to change it all up before it gets too late.

It is just another typical night as it so often is and Jack is working with a boss he gets on with and they are already making plans for after work and Jack has his eyes on a couple of his favourite bottles of cheap French red. Everything is going good, well let’s not get carried away here, things are going okay, as good as it can get in the grand scheme of things, when, from out of nowhere, some lowlife comes along to ruin it all.

“Come on then mother-fucker!” the shoplifter screams in Jack’s face whilst clutching the very two bottles Jack has been dreaming about for the last couple of hours and that, well that to put it mildly, is that. The beginning of the end.

“NO!” Jack screams with all his might, “I’m going to get that fucker!!” and just like that he is out from behind the check-out and in hot pursuit of the now panic-stricken shop-lifter who immediately bolts for the door but that ain’t going to stop Jack. Oh, hell no, that lowlife has it coming and Jack is going to get those two bottles of wine and nothing is going to stop him until suddenly his boss appears right by the door.

“Calm it Jack,” is all he can say but already Jack’s red-mist has descended and there is nothing for it but brute force. As Jack moves forward, he can suddenly feel two sets of arms reach out to clutch his arms and it is then he knows. The battle is over, the war is lost and Jack has nothing left to do but give up.

“That’s it Jamie,” he tells the boss once the tears have stopped flooding his face, “I’m quitting…”

“But Jack… Jack…”

“Nah look there ain’t anything you can say to change my mind, I’m done!” and just like that Jack’s life is about to change all over again and surely this time around it’ll work out better than spending a lifetime working food retail hell.

And the lesson Jack learnt in all those years is simple. In the world of food retail, you simply can’t win. The best thing you can do is get in and out as quick as you damn well can because if you don’t, well to put it bluntly, you’re done for. You may very well end up with some tales like Jack but they will never be worth all the scars, emotional and real, the bruises and the never-ending certainty that in food retail hell hardly anyone wins and even those who think they do eventually end up realising that they are perhaps the biggest losers of all.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Bradford Middleton 2025

Image Source: ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay