The Guardian can always be relied on to publish apologetics for pretty much every butcher under the sun, but heck, they do have Lucy Mangan, who explains the joys of the less than ideal jobs.
Then I worked in the bakery at the end of the road, which taught me a number of things about the workings of a small family business. Number one, the mother does the cleaning while the son and father vie to see who can press you up against the poppyseed split tins most often. Number two, it's the father. Number three, saying, "Is that a baguette in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" does nothing to ameliorate the situation. Number four, sexual harassment is well worth putting up with when you are allowed to take home your own bodyweight in iced buns, jam doughnuts and Death by Chocolate cakes at the end of the day.
That was the job that taught me that feminism and pragmatism are often at war in the modern world, but at least I know which has the upper hand with me.
Then I was a shop assistant in the local bookshop, which is where I learned the truth of that famous statistic that 99% of people buy one book a year and hollow it out to keep their sandwiches in. I remember perhaps most fondly the conversation my manager, a man who started drinking the moment a new David Pelzer was announced so that he could sell copies to customers rather than beating them about the head for their execrable taste, had with the Darwinian rebuke of a man who came in looking for a book his girlfriend wanted.
DR: "I don't remember the title."
Boss: "That's fine."
DR: "Or the author."
Boss: "Less fine."
DR: "But it's got a blue cover."
Boss: "Well, why didn't you say so? It'll be over there, on our blue covers table."
DR: "Really?"
Boss: "No, not really, arsewipe."
DR: "I think I'll get her a Body Shop basket instead."
Boss: "They're over there, on our 'Gifts to make your girlfriend dump you' table."
I used to work, when I was young, at the Walgreen's drug store at the corner of State and Madison in downtown Chicago. For a stretch, I used to work at the counter where they sold all sorts of little stuff that you did not leave out for the shoplifters: good pens, watches, watchbands, odd batteries. It was called the specialties counter, perhaps because odds bits of junk counter might have put off the customers. It was not fun. The worst part was the watchbands. The manager said that Walgreen's was not a high end store. If someone bought a watchband, it was his job to put it on his watch. So of course we had no tools to quickly change them. But what were you supposed to do when a little old lady who looked like your favorite grandmother, arthritic fingers and all, asked if you would change it for her. Of course you had to, without handy tools, so it took a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, some jerk in a three piece suit was threatening to call the manager because he had to wait for his Cross pen refill. Screw him and the manager. I liked my grandmother.
But then came the Illinois State lottery to save us. At the end of the specialties counter, they set up a separate register just to sell lottery tickets. A breeze of a job. All you had to do was rip off (an apt description of the lottery, but never mind) tickets and take fifty cents for each one. No effort at all. The two of us working at the counter would switch between specialties and lottery tickets every half hour. At first, you switched to lottery tickets with glee. No more hassles for half an hour, just a line of mostly little old ladies lining up to buy their weekly lottery ticket. But that glee lasted for only a few weeks, as we realized how utterly mind numbing it was to sell lottery tickets. And every sweet little old lady would sweetly say the same thing: "One ticket please, and make sure it's a winner." The first time that is sweet and endearing. The tenth time it is less so. After a steady diet of it for half an hour, you are screaming, desperate to get back to abuse from the manager and the jerk in the three piece suit. And then, one day my poor fellow worker cracked. She had one more "make sure it's a winner" than she could take, and she said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we only sell losers here." You can just imagine the stink, and boy did the assistant manager on duty have a lot of apologizing to do. Fortunately, he thought it was pretty funny, and she was one of the few clerks who could do complex stuff like add, so she survived.
