As someone who works as a checkout assistant for a large supermarket, I thought I would write an account of what it can be like. I do actually enjoy my job, and to be fair most of the managers and team leaders are fine.
But yes, there are issues. One is that almost everyone is only employed on a part time contract. Some have contracts for as little as 7 hours a week so I suppose I am lucky (I did say at my interview that I needed at least 16 hours a week to take the job for tax credit reasons). We are all thus left scrabbling around for whatever overtime is available. My employer prefers to employ larger numbers on fewer hours, knowing that at any time they can increase or decrease the total number of man hours at will just by turning the overtime tap on and off. And because we are all only part time, they only have to pay us flat rate for the overtime we work, because we can rarely surpass full time hours even with this overtime. This kind of “flexibility” is great for our employer, but not so good for us staff. Personally, without tax credits, I would struggle to earn even what I could get on the dole! And this could be removed before too long due to the Government’s welfare “reforms”.
Another issue is the scanning rate, items per minute, measurement. We are all expected to achieve at least 1100 items per hour when working continuously, without which they start to get on our case. Trouble is, they also emphasise customer service, such as not rushing customers, not piling up shopping on the conveyor, always offering to pack, etc, which are somewhat contradictory to this aim. No account is taken of those customers who come through with £150 worth of shopping which they entirely expect me to pack for them whilst they stand and watch, considerably slowing me down (we do get them, and packing as well as scanning takes about four times as long). I don’t mind doing it for the elderly or obviously disabled, but it irritates me when perfectly able people expect me to do all the work for them, delaying considerably my serving of the next customer. But I suppose the main reason it annoys me is my awareness of the scanning rate issue. And of course we can sometimes get an endless succession of doddery people, changemeisters who want to get rid of all their shrapnel and laboriously count it out, those with bookfulls of coupons which they couldn’t be bothered to check or separate themselves, expecting me to do it all for them. Then there are the items with missing barcodes which take ages to get a team leader to replace. Another problem is that they are forever putting me on the basket till, where the scanner doesn’t work very well and you have to reach down into a basket to pluck each item out, both of which seriously slows me down. Yet my scanning rate is still measured just the same.
Falling sick is another issue. If we take more than one day sick in about three months, we are taken into an office and grilled by management about it, requiring an in-depth explanation. This is a demeaning process that makes staff feel that they are being treated like children.
Although I do love my job and am grateful to my current employer for giving me this work, I thought I would describe what it can be like, to give an insight into the reality of menial, low paid work.
Link to USDAW — The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers
