#checkoutchicklyf (Stealing blogs from my media subject!) (Simone)

I’ve been feeling guilty about not writing here for a bit! But essays, one after the other after the other, are pretty much plaguing me. No exaggeration. In the span of 9 weeks, I’ve had 7 essays to write – and no less than 3 rounds of colds! So it has been quite a crazy semester. A good one, but crazy!

For one of my subjects, see, Media, Idenitity and Everyday Life, we have to write blogs for assessment. They’re nothing too fancy; they just have to relate to consumerism, media, media culture, that sort of thing, and we read and comment of eachothers (its kind of of cute). So I actually haven’t completely abandoned blogging, I’ve just been doing it elsewhere! So I thought maybe I would simply copy and paste one of my Media blogs for you here. And that way we both win: you get an insight into not only one of my minor, more informal uni assessments, and my fabulous life as a checkout chick (which, for some reason, I’ve never written much here about before, when it is – sadly! – quite a big part of my life…). And me? I get more time for my Politics essay, minus the guilt of not blogging! Yay! 🙂 🙂

I do promise to write ‘properly’ about life, love, uni and the rest really soon! But until then, have a peep into my checkout chick blog below in blue 🙂

Love, love and some more love for you! (trying not to procrastinate from returning to my essay by typing ‘love’ many times… and now taking ages explaining that… might as well have written a whole blog post! Haha! Okay. I’m going now. Enjoy).

xxxxx

* * * * *

Sometimes I find myself asking for Flybuys in my sleep.

Flybuys? Any Flybuys at all? No Flybuys? Got a Flybuys card?

It’s tormenting.

 There are, of course, several other drawbacks to working for a supermarket giant. Like the way I am slowly being replaced by the self-checkout machines. Like the standing on my feet in one spot for an entire four hours, repetitively scanning and bagging, scanning and bagging, scanning and bagging, with only a murmur of ‘Flybuys?’ muttered momentarily in between transactions. Or like the strange array of customers I meet and greet whilst standing at the dreaded Checkout Five.

 ‘Are you are Leo? The starsign?’ One customer prompted me under the beaming florescent lights one quiet Saturday night at the checkout. I’d scanned his low fat milk and home brand white bread and shook my head. ‘That’s funny! Because you have the same lips as John Howard. And he’s a Leo, see.’ 

‘Oh! Well. That is funny,’ I’d replied, politely. The same lips as John Howard?!

‘Yes,’ he went on. ‘The stars and moon must have been aligned the same for you as when he was born.’

I’d stared at his dead-serious face and must have looked confused, for he quickly said, ‘you’re not ugly or anything, lovey, just saying. If ya know.’ And he’d grabbed his bag and left.

 Then there are the justifications for buying certain items –

 ‘It’s not all for me, alright,’ a lady snapped suddenly when I scanned her super-sized packet of toilet paper.

‘Sometimes you need a bit of something, you know, to get things moving, once a week or so,’ an elderly man quipped when I offered a bag for his prune juice and fibre powder.

‘Just these, thanks lovey,’ a little old lady winked at me. I put through her Playboy condoms and broccoli and refrained from giggling.

– and the small insights I get into people’s lives as they tell me about their day… 

‘We just bought rabbits, and they’re causing such a havoc in the garden, it’s quite a disaster,’ a woman in small white heels and pearl earrings gushed. ‘I had to tell the gardeners they couldn’t do the backyard. Only the front yard, I said. Such a hassle!’

‘Today marks the first anniversary of my son’s death from cancer,’ a sullen-looking lady told me like she was talking about getting a haircut. ‘And my sister died from breast cancer last week. I just don’t know what to do anymore. My husband has a brain tumor. I can’t leave him like that.’

‘I just came out of a coma. I was in hospital for 8 months. Life support. So don’t ask me for frickin’ Flybuys. I don’t give a damn.’

And, most of the time, these responses are only in answer to my simple, light-hearted questions. How are you? How is your day going? Busy today?

But the experience I’ve gained working at a supermarket has been invaluable and taught me more than I would have ever imagined. I realise now how much some people just need to talk. To anybody. To experience a little bit of kindness. To tell someone about their difficulty with the washing machine.

And, though it sounds so corny… I kind feel blessed to be that person!

Through all of the bitter, angry customers I serve that have, more than once, had me near tears – or biting my lip in anger – some of the people I’ve met have kind of ‘touched’ me with their kindness. And, I hope, I’ve touched back.

There’s this elderly man who, over the three years I’ve worked at the supermarket, I’ve watched raise his grandson all alone to be from a tiny baby to beautiful toddler with a gorgeous little smile. There’s the Hawthorn supporting elderly couple who always remember I barrack for St.Kilda and love to talk a bit of footy with me. There’s the man and his tertiary-student aged daughter that always asked me about year 12, how things were going, and came and congratulated me at the end of the year. There’s the little old Greek lady who gave me a hug and a kiss at Christmas time. I could go on and on; the number of people I formed a little relationship of a kind astounds me.

I will always feel embarrassed of the supermarket advertisements. I’m a little ashamed that I work for a massive cooperation that has, in recent times, been scrutinized for its exploitation of farmers, for monopolizing against the smaller, independent shops. But I can’t regret working there – and I continually surprise myself with how much I enjoy it, as sad as that sounds!

 It’s well and good to ‘sell’ something at a shop, to make a small profit. And I am totally in support of our new forms of media technologies. But we live in a society totally consumed by consumerism – buying things almost seems to now be at our essence, defining who we are! If that’s going to be the case, then, by God, please, ditch the self-checkout machines. We must at least keep this beautiful human connection we can all have intact.