The super market

I do enjoy going to the supermarket to get the shopping, but I also get really annoyed. Obviously I’ve fallen hook, line and sinker for the gamification of the whole experience – scanning my loyalty card, getting the discounts that aren’t really discounts (they’re really just penalties for not handing over your personal shopping data) and using the stupid little scanner.

Actually that last one is good because I pack my bags how I like them before I even get to the till. There’s nothing worse than that intensely suspicious screen that brings someone over to check your bags by pulling out three things from the very bottom of every single bag you’ve packed. I get the all-clear, because I’m good like that, but then the person puts everything back really badly and the whole shop has been ruined. I try to be nice to whoever the person in the itchy looking polo shirt is, because they’re just doing their job. But then again how many atrocities have been committed in the world by people ‘just doing their job’?

The thing that annoys me about the scanning and the self-checkouts and the everything else is that this service masquerades as convenience, but really it’s an excuse to hire a few less people. And also to track you round the store with that little handset. I know it sounds a little tinfoil hat, but how you shop is probably the most valuable part of the whole process for them to know.

But if I’m being forced to do someone else’s job – especially seeing as that someone no longer has a job – I feel like I should at least be getting paid minimum wage for the 40 minutes I’m trudging round Sainsbury’s looking for things that have been moved since I was last in three days ago. I could put checkout operator on my CV with the experience I’ve got. I think maybe I will come to it, although I’ve had something like 35 jobs, I’m already having to pick and choose.