owlrigh

Every Sunday there are two grocery staff -- Max and I. We start at the same time, although usually she's a little late, and up until a few weeks ago she had full responsibility in scanning empty shelves (non-local) to find stock, do food safety checks, all the things that managers do during the week. Three weeks ago the grocery manager said to me thus:

"From now on I want you and Max to swap roles every week, one of you doing food safety and the other non-local, and then work together to fill." The empty shelves, whereas I used to spend all day pulling stock down off capping. Very boring.

So this morning I rock up and, at 7:15, Max still hadn't made an appearance after I'd done the food safety, so I went on to non-local stock. Shortly into it she appeared.

"What are you doing? I do this every week."

"Um, Nick said that we were to swap roles every week."

"What? No, I do this, this is what I do on a Sunday. It's what makes Sunday different for me, I look forward to something different, and they told me this is what I'm to do."

"Well, Nick said this three weeks ago," she didn't make appearances the past two Sundays, "and you weren't here at 20 past, so ..."

"He didn't tell me any of this!" and so came the melodrama. How he was rude was in not telling her this, that she might as well go home because there was nothing for her to do, she didn't want to do capping all day, she was sick of this job, and on, and on. What she says just about every day, only this time with venom -- and directed at me.

She came down an aisle a short while later.

"You don't care about anyone's feelings, do you?" she accused.

I blinked at her. "I don't care about anyone's feelings?"

"You don't care about anyone. You just have your partner and your boat, and you don't care about anybody's feelings. You just come in and take over and don't care about other people's roles and jobs."

Now, if you only have one person in your life, one would think you'd feel very strongly about that one person, so not caring sounds just strange.

"I knew that you would take over on the Sunday. I know that's the type of person you are, coming in and taking over. What do you think, just come in and take someone's job and don't care? You're just that sort of person. What do you think when you come in every day?"

"I just do what the manager tells me to," I said wearily. "I don't care." Take over ... scanning shelves? Huh? What on earth was she talking about?

"I knew this was what you were like, and I tried to work with that. I don't like working with you. I want to be here by myself on a Sunday. I don't know why they put you on. I want to be here by myself. You just came in and took over. They gave you full-time and they still haven't given me more hours."

And so the tale goes on and on. Why can't people see that they're the cause of their own grief, their own self-fulfilling prophecy? If you carp on to managers about how they're doing things wrong, if they see you chatting to your friends in an aisle for half an hour instead of working, they're not going to give you extra work, are they? This supermarket's employees are weird. Ever since I've worked for this company -- and it's been years -- I've always had someone complaining to me that I am receiving extra, undeserved hours ... notwithstanding I actually work and don't stand around bitching about managers, hours, or whether I get to scan the shelves or not. She went on in a personally attacking way for about 20 minutes.

Eventually I pulled out the trump card: I cried. "I'm sorry," I said to her, sniffling. "I didn't know that this would hurt your feelings, that he didn't tell you what he wanted, that I had to be the one to tell you this."

She relented a little and gave me short, one-armed hug.

The rest of the day went uneventfully; she got over her hissy fit, only now I can't forget her personal attacks. I'd gotten the vibes she didn't care for me much anymore, from when she swore at me the other day when my hearing was funny from blocked ears and she didn't think I could hear her.

When I returned home and related this to Ben and a visitor, the other chap said,

"Is she white?"

"What?"

"Is she white? Because you're dark, have an accent ... it could be that, you know."

I stared at him in disbelief. I never would have thought of that, thought that any of the troubles I've ever had with coworkers could be down to race. I mean, if enough coworkers (women) start giving off I-hate-you vibes you tend to assume that there's something fundamentally wrong with yourself that all these women, single mothers I might add, would like nothing more than to throw you down a well.

These women are bitter, Max a perfect example of things going wrong in their life, living hand to mouth and with nothing else in their lives except ... well, Max obviously having in her mind that she's a demigod on Sundays and playing at manager, usually ordering me around. I don't take orders from co-workers all that well. Having that little thing taken away from her made her go around a bender!

I get over these scenes, and there's been a couple in the past year, by thinking: you loser. You'll be here in this job you hate, whinging and carrying on about how you're being passed over, and I'll be gone soon and sailing off and having fun and doing the things I want with my life. You're stuck here, paying your mortgage, paying for your children's ipod and mobile phone bills and drugging it all away with pot and speed to make the choices and lack of choices in your life better. So I'll smile at Max tomorrow, like I smiled at the last person who did this, and the person before that, who wished me dead -- in full seriousness -- so they could have my work hours.

People are just so afraid ... except of me, the local kicking-dog, obviously.

"You're a good worker," said my new boss, whom I shall give the moniker of Raz. "I'm looking for more work to give you," he went on.

He's always "looking for more work" to give me. I'm doing over 30 hours of work a week with the guy at the moment; more work is spiffing to do if you ask me, although it's very unfortunate that it's all night work. And that it's cleaning. But better than a kick up the rear end.

"You're such a good worker I'm giving you a raise. I'm going to pay you $13 an hour."

Woo. A raise from $12.88 per hour. Bring on those diamond necklaces! I was so terribly thrilled by my newfound riches.

"When you get better I'll pay you more." Yes, I can see it now: $13.10 an hour! Oh boy, I better stick around for that one.

Later on that night he sat me down and waved a hand in the general direction of the store, showing what had to be done and what not.

( Obviously I'm meant for a career in cleaning ... )