A Different Pace

Last Friday night I worked a different shift and different position. I filled in an empty place in the schedule as a cashier. I have not worked as a cashier very much for the local grocery store I have been employed at since January. I started working as a stocker during the truck delivery days, then moved into the frozen foods department. A month later, I was asked to learn the meat department.

My resume is full of experience working a cash register, but I have only worked the position five previous times for this grocery store. Each store has their own cash register system and procedures for doing things. It has been several months since I was trained at working the cash register. When I arrived that afternoon to start my shift, a fellow employee and friend was surprised I had been scheduled since I have not worked that position very much. When I informed my friend it was my sixth time working the cash register. My friend asked what was the manager thinking? Well, the manager needed a person in a bind. One person who was scheduled had quit, and others requested the night off, leaving no one to fill the vacancy. The manager asked a favor, and I said yes.

In the meat department there is so much to do. I always have a long list of meat items that need to packaged, weighed and put on the shelf, plus some to be put in the cooler to refill the shelves after I leave. I grind various meat into ground meat or seasoned taco meat. I put together different meat items to make combination packages. More recently, since I have been trained to cut different stakes, I am also cutting meat at times. Once I get all the meat packaged, weighed and on the shelf, it is time to clean the meat room and all the equipment. I am always racing the clock to get what needs to be done before I am to leave.

The cashier position is a very different pace. A cashier waits for the work to come to them. Standing, waiting for a customer to arrive after completing the selection of items to purchase. I am the type of person who likes to “do nothing”. I love to stay busy, moving and doing. In my honest opinion the position of cashier is totally boring. Since I do not stand still very well, I clean and straighten in my area. The other cashier asked what I was doing when I started cleaning the front of the counter where the customer stands. I replied, cleaning. It was dirty, I was cleaning. The other cashier responded they have never cleaned the front of the counter.

Later, the cashier asked the closing manager why they had not seen or worked with me before, since I had been working there since January. “Oh, she works the meat department in the mornings. Those working the meat department mostly stay in the meat room where it is really cold. When she first came to work she was a cashier a few times, then mostly worked the truck days and frozen, then moved to the meat department. Now, she is in training to be a meat cutter.”

The evening seemed very long. My dinner time and bedtime came and went. My little area was very clean. During the really slow times, I would take a rag broom and sweep the floor on each aisle, straightening items on every shelf along the way. Not that the store was really slow, the sales were good last night.

Today, I was up early and back in the meat department, where it is cold, the pace always moving, and the position I love to work in.

amtolle