No more wholesalers.

I finished my regular day job on Saturday. I ordered and maintained the fresh produce for a small retail outlet at a food wholesalers. Basically a mini-market built around a butcher shop. I also ordered shelf stock, worked the deli, stocked fridges and freezers and menned the tills. There's only ever two staff to run the shop and another two to pack and run the meat section. I've worked in both ends of the operation.

Things I will miss:
- Nice customers
- Working with vegetables. I love fresh produce. I like making displays. It's high maintenance, but a good fresh display is so appetising. I love it!
- The people. Some of them shat me but when you're working with one other person all day, you're bound to get to know them. Scottos, especially, is one person I took ages to work well with. He carries on all day if you give him the chance and it's all crap. But we bonded over perving at the women that came in. I'd get "Vic! Halfway down on the left" as an alert. Or there was a classic day where he looked like a Meerkat when I told him there was a g-string alert. He popped his head up, straightened right up and scanned the room in short jerks of the head. Just like a meerkat.
- Helping myself to the fruit. Oh crap, that one's got a patch of rot on one side! Can't sell that...
- Racing the clock packing sausages in the meat section. For the record my best was five bags a minute.

Things I won't miss:
- Getting paid the same wage as slack staff who refuse to think and stand around talking. And then being told that I have to make those staff work harder.
- Working around dead things. It can be really depressing if you allow yourself to think about it.
- Customers who phrase questions as a statement. Nothing pisses me off more than You don't have [insert highly visible item here]. No question mark. No raised pitch at the end of the sentence suggesting it might be a question. And it's always just spat out at you like an accusation.


Now here's where I go into a bit of a rant. Skip the rest of this post if you don't want to hear it.

Why do people feel they can treat shop staff with contempt? I often get people making the assumption that I am a lower form of idiot because I help them from behind a counter. Or openly discussing pricing in front of me. I often feel like butting and going look, lady. $2.25 is not expensive for onions. Your local big name supermarket has them for $3.98 this week.

I know my stock and I can give you advice on how to prepare it, how to make it last longer. I resent being treated as though I was born yesterday by people who specifically enter my work space for service. How can you expect good service if you act like an asshole?