Tazeen Ahmad - The Checkout Girl

I take a peek at the newspapers at the kiosk and all the front pages are reporting the record-breaking Boxing Day sales. People have been queuing around the block from the early hours and there have been stampedes around the country. On an inside page there’s an editorial reporting that, despite the Boxing Day boom, the New Year is going to bring spending cuts, job insecurity and a long recession. It claims that people have started planning cutbacks and aiming to live more cheaply, although I have yet to see it.

The high-octane sales atmosphere is making some shoppers tense. My first customer today grumbles at me about the intense traffic in the retail park nearby—people are trying to get to Comet, Argos and Homebase. ‘What’s wrong with them? They’ve all gone Comet mad.’ The couple behind him tell me they went to the big shopping centre for the sales but when they saw people arguing in the car park they turned around and drove here instead. Then a middle-aged couple tell me they queued up from 5 a.m. outside Next and are pleased that, while they spent £300, they saved £300 in discounts. He doesn’t let the fact that he had to spend £300 to save £300 bother him. But when I ask if he’s worried about the recession, a different story emerges. He works for BT broadband.

‘There’s no such thing as a job for life there any more. They’re making redundancies across the board, but I think for the moment my job is safe. Who knows for how long, though?’

Another customer, a mum with a three-year-old, has spent £200 on clothes in Oasis, Principles and Next. ‘I’m not letting myself think about the recession today—ask me in a few days.’ She pauses. ‘But when you’ve got kids, life is so difficult that you need to spoil yourself, don’t you?’

‘And spending makes you feel good, even if it’s a temporary high,’ I add. She nods, but I see a small frown starting to develop across her forehead.

Most people I ask haven’t been to the sales yet. They’re all saying they just can’t face the shops at the moment. One woman in her thirties has the recession very much on her mind. She says she has decided against any sales shopping ‘because everyone has got to tighten their belts for the rough ride ahead. Things being as they are, I’m just grateful to have a job.’

I eavesdrop on two middle-aged ladies talking. One is chastising the other for dragging her into Sainsbury’s. ‘It’s only been two days and here we are shopping again, it’s sickening.’

When I ask people about their New Year plans, the vast majority say they are going to celebrate at home quietly, while one or two are having small soirées, saying, ‘It’s cheaper than going out.’

For the New Year penny-pinchers, paying in cash is truly the only way to control spending. Studies have long shown that it’s much more painful than swiping a card, and stimulates a region in the brain linked with discomfort which is anaesthetised by credit cards. And that’s exactly what one customer is thinking. She plonks her shopping on my belt and announces, ‘No more than £21.’ When it gets to £20.33, she ruthlessly takes something off the belt and pays in cash, and I crown her queen of thrift.

One man shopping with his six-year-old twins has crackers, a chicken roast, root vegetables, wrapping paper and bottles of wine in his shop.

‘Are you celebrating Christmas late?’ I blurt out before I can stop myself.

‘Tomorrow—seems a good way to save money.’ The crackers are the Different by Design range and absolutely stunning—he’s picked them up for a bargain £6.

I hear one of my first bona fide redundancy stories today. A customer tells me her daughter was made redundant two months ago and now can’t find a job.

‘She used to be a secretary at a big estate agent’s in town and she’s been hunting high and low but there is just no work to be found. She’s started looking in retail now and, fingers crossed, she’s in the running for a secretarial job at Tesco.’

At last I’m someone’s favourite checkout girl. A lively, colourful family I’ve served a few times have started to seek me out. I see them standing by the checkouts scanning the tills—and when I wave at them, they hurry over with big smiles. I’ve finally made it.

‘I was looking for you,’ says Mum. ‘I was terrified you’d been sacked after we were chatting to you, and the man behind us was so angry.’

‘He was fine, don’t worry. We certainly don’t get into trouble for talking to customers here.’

Her thirty-something son joins them with some extra groceries in his arms. We hold our usual spelling bee competition and he teases me for misspelling a word a few weeks ago. I love this family. There are two generations of them shopping together and Dad, the patriarch, always pays, although not before grunting loudly about the price of food shopping.

There is a big fracas at the front of the store and it transpires that the lottery machine has crashed. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of angry customers complaining about it around the store. I find myself apologising on behalf of Sainsbury’s and feeling like a moron when I’m told, ‘Well, it’s not YOUR fault, is it?’

Before I leave to go home I pick up my discounted kettle and go to Rebecca’s till. She tells me that the person sacked for dipping into the tills is Bill, the young man I heard bragging about his collection of shining stars a few weeks ago. It’s raised the level of suspicion amongst management, she says. During a meeting with Richard she witnessed one of the other managers showing Richard a receipt where the checkout girl had reduced something from £25 to 25p and said he suspected ‘she’s up to something’. ‘I get the feeling that the eye of suspicion here is really strong and we all come under detailed surveillance.’

On my way out I hear one of the Cogs talking about her shifts in the last two or three days before Christmas. ‘There were queues all the way down the aisles, every single checkout was heaving. Unbelievable…If I hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have believed it.’

The radio goes on as I drive home and the lottery crash is making the news. It wasn’t just a local event; computer terminals crashed in shops around the country leaving thousands unable to buy tickets. It’s been reported like a national disaster. The only other news is the sales frenzy; half-price cuts, 75 per cent and even an unprecedented 90 per cent off sales. It’s an insane scramble to beat the credit crunch. People have been queuing since dawn to get into some shops and there have been fights breaking out over handbags. After the news I listen to a programme about how to save money on food shopping during the recession by cooking more, making a shopping list and paying in cash.

The New Year starts with grim news for the retail world—shop closures. There are more Woolies shutting up shop and now it’s Adams kids wear. I think the winners in all of this will be the supermarkets—they already provide the Woolies style bric-a-brac and low-cost children’s clothes. Rumours are circulating that Sainsbury’s may buy the Adams brand. One insolvency specialist has predicted the collapse of between 10 and 15 national retail chains by mid-January. Others are saying that at least 15-20 retailers are extremely weak financially and that one shop in ten will close in the coming months.

I’m in the locker room, squeezing my over-sized bag into my tiny locker when Michelle walks in. She’s a bit cool and barely says hello before heading down for her shift. I’m puzzled—I hope everything’s OK with her girls. Before I get on to my till I have a quick chat with a twenty-year-old student called Nick. I overheard him being reprimanded by a till captain a few weeks ago about a break issue. He tells me he’s been here a year—and he isn’t happy. He needs time off around his exams and this is proving difficult because he needs a job to get him through college. ‘If I don’t have a job after I finish college this place will be to blame.’