Before I begin, you must know that this is not a love story. To be honest, it's quite the opposite...
There comes a time in a young mans life where he must venture out into the big, wide world and look for a part time job. A friend of mine encouraged me to join him at Tesco where he was a till monkey. Sitting down all day can't be a bad thing I thought so promptly applied. Weeks went by and nothing. My Mum was getting annoyed at my laid back approach to seeking employment.
I had banked on Beatties toy shop in the Broad St Mall taking me on but as of today I have still not heard from them. I believe they closed down about 8 years ago so am not holding my breath. Anyhow, on a bright July day in 1999 the telephone rang and Tesco offered me a job.
Though, not the one I was expecting....
"Unfortunately we currently have no vacancies on checkouts but ARE looking for staff in the cafeteria"
With Mother breathing down my neck and the rest of my friends gainfully employed I had little choice but to accept the position. It would be a decision I would not forget. After a tedious induction day I realised the full horror of my choice. Full length red apron, straw boater and work issue 'safety' shoes were the uniform standard. Thankfully my short back and sides negated the need for the hat (a disposable paper option was available and slightly less embarrassing) and though my safety shoes were ordered they never showed up in my entire tenure. THANK CHRIST. They made Brantano look like Gucci.
The first month was a blur of cleaning tables, washing dishes and emptying and loading the industrial dishwasher. Emptying and loading, emptying and loading, emptying and loading. My intelligence was being tested to the limit. As LFO's 'Girls of Summer' and TLC's 'Unprettier' blasted out of our radio I thought to myself can this get any worse?
The answer is yes. I had kept fairly quiet in my first month, I'd befriended a guy called Matt who started at the same time. He was my age and shared a similar sense of shame at working in such a horrific place. At least when we worked together there was a bit of banter. That could not be said of my other colleagues...
Firstly, there was Jane. On a Saturday morning she was Queen of the cafe. Loud and in charge, she called the shots. Jane was a physical behemoth with more than a striking resemblance to Jabba the Hut. Her favourite thing to show me was the wet patches on the underarm of her work shirt after a particularly busy session serving on the hot plate. GOOD GOD. Why would a human being do such a thing!?
Enid was another who had a unique approach to getting to know me. She was basically the female equivalent of Herbert (Family Guys very own paedophile) and decided that flirting with me was the best way to welcome me into the cafe community. Petrified is the only word to describe the ordeal. Enid's favourite quip was saying that her husband 'wouldn't mind'. He also worked in Tesco as a shelf stacker and looked like he could drop dead at any moment.
Whilst on dish washing duties I delivered a slightly bizarre friendship with a colleague called Brenda. She was in her late forties, with broad shoulders and stood about 5ft 10. With her physique I often thought she could have played American football at quite a high level. She was quite motherly, often asking me if I had a girlfriend and telling me that I was a nice boy.
We did a secret Santa one year and I drew Brenda. Having completely forgotten about it until the day of gift sharing I panicked and bought her the only thing I knew she liked. I don't know how I managed it but she loved the 20 Superkings and Lighter I got her. Even more unusual was after I'd worked there for a year Brenda left suddenly and no one ever told me why. I dare say it but I missed her a little bit, emptying and loading was never the same after that (no crude innuendos please).
I managed to achieve several firsts during my Tesco affair. I played a part in a full store evacuation early one Saturday morning. We had nearly run out of chicken nuggets for our kids meals so I went onto the shop floor to retrieve some. I instructed the two young girls I was working with to wait until I got back before doing anything. This did not happen. On my way back to the cafe the loudest fire alarm I have ever heard went off. It was deafening. Within five minutes everyone was in the car park and all the food in the cafe was ruined.
After a brief investigation it became clear the two halfwits had put the last few chicken nuggets into the industrial microwave. This ordinarily took one minute. They had decided ten minutes was more appropriate. Muppet's. I was quite sure one of the girls had a bit of a thing for me but romance never blossomed. Her Magnum P.I. facial hair might have had something to do with it...
After a year or so I was a well rounded cafe employee with multiple talents consisting of serving food, till skills and menial cleaning tasks. In a work performance appraisal I was even described as an 'asset' to the cafeteria. However, this glowing review led to some unwanted responsibilities. With staff turnover fairly frequent I was essentially in charge after 3pm on a Saturday until I left at 7 o'clock.
This is not ideal for a slacker like myself, who at 17, liked to avoid hard work at all costs. Matters were made worse by the quality of staff at my disposal. There was Jackie (bless her) who at 4ft 10 could barely see over the hot plate. She was quiet and timid and I thought if she fell over she'd shatter into a million pieces. Meetu was a slightly different proposition, her English lacked, shall we say, coherence, and therefore I had to reduce my vocabulary considerably for her to understand me.
It was at this point that things took a turn for the worse. Brenda and Matt were long gone and my motivation was distinctly lacking. Friends of mine who didn't work Saturday started doing fun things and I felt left out. Sick days got more and more frequent. After booking a holiday to Gran Canaria I decided to stick at it and ask for extra shifts during the summer holidays to fund my enjoyment.
As I was about to ask for the additional hours I was called into the managers office. He then began to read a list of all my reasons for being off work...
Bad knee
Migraine
Sore Back
Diarrhoea (A personal favourite of mine because they never question it. Just to clarify, I never really had it)
Headache
Cold
So, it seems I'd not been particularly clever at disguising my sickies. Maybe, just maybe, I should have concentrated on one or two ailments rather than putting my body through the implied hell my long list suggested. I pleaded for more work and said things would change but it didn't work. For the record I was not sacked, I had my notice ready in my back pocket and as soon as I was denied the shifts I handed it over.
Work didn't always disappoint. During a game of after work pool in the staff room with Matt, we discovered, after knocking the white off the table, that the container the money fell into was loose and could be removed easily. We both left work that night with a 'bonus' £20!
On my last ever shift I carefully planned and executed the abduction of an entire chocolate fudge cake, which at 99p a slice in the cafe, had a retail value of around £16. That night my friends and I devoured the stolen sweet with delight. IN. YOUR. FACE. TESCO.
And...
I once accidentally melted a price gun on a hob that I'd inadvertently turned on minutes before. The smell of burning plastic is not a pleasant one.
Nico
