GROCERY STORIES
If you have been following this blog over the years, I apologize for the loooong gap between posts. Last October, I started working part-time at a local Publix grocery store as a cashier. Since I started working there, I've begun to accumulate anecdotes and stories based on my experiences. Here's a little digest of those I've posted over on my Facebook page. I'll keep this blog better updated going forward.
Happy reading!
Oct 21, 2024
First day on the books. Not gonna say I missed my calling, but I took to being a grocery cashier pretty naturally. Thankful for patient coworkers and customers as I learn the ropes.
Nov 5, 2024
I started my shift this afternoon monitoring the self-checkout lanes. A man walked up to me very purposefully. "I got a question for you, sir! DO YOU LET YOUR EMPLOYEES OFF TO VOTE?!"
I informed him that I, myself, was an employee and not a manager. But I had voted this morning.
At a nearby self-checkout station, a customer wearing a t-shirt supporting a certain orange presidential candidate piped up and said "I VOTED TWICE."
I'll bet a week's worth of groceries he'll be crying voter fraud this week.
I really did not want to work today.
Nov 20, 2024
On November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving, I will hit the one month anniversary of working as a part-time cashier at Publix supermarket in Point Clear. I don't even want to contemplate how crazy that particular workday will be or the days leading up to everyone's big Thursday meal.
This has been a big change for me but a good one for a handful of reasons. Sure, I needed employment (badly) but I also needed to be around people and to get out of the house and a routine (though my work schedule could hardly be called that). I probably should have had a job such as this when I was in high school, as are some of my coworkers. I also work alongside some retirees as well as some folks who work with physical and developmental challenges. All have welcomed me and supported me as I learn new things on a daily basis.
I find that my job duties have all come pretty naturally to me. A lot of the work requires a certain amount of intuition and being able to anticipate a need either for a customer or the store in general. I really enjoy working the register and interacting with customers, some of whom are becoming familiar faces. My managers also seem pretty pleased with my efforts. After taking on some extra hours on my day off, I received a bonus gift card. Gestures of gratitude, no matter how small, go a long way.
On Tuesday, as I was helping a customer load his groceries into his car, I heard bluegrass blaring from his stereo. I told him that was my favorite music and that I am a banjo player. Turns out, so was he. We talked about long-neck banjos, which he played around Troy, AL in the 60's. I talked to a lady last week about my former career and the highlight of working on Sesame. Turns out, she had a girlfriend who auditioned for Muppets but was turned down for being too short. I encounter all kinds of people and just as many stories. I like that part of the job the most.
This year was kind of an experiment to see if there was anything left of the landscape that used to be my touring puppeteer life. I worked 5 weeks this year before I started my job at Publix. 5 weeks of shows is not a career nor much of a job. My geographical location this far south makes doing much touring very cost prohibitive. I have one more stint of shows at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center the first week of December and those will be, for all intents and purposes, my final out-of-town shows for the year and for awhile.
I know I've made this "declaration" before. But now that I see just how limited the performance opportunities have become, it is starkly clear to me that having my current job is going to be quite a bit more stable, which will be a good thing to have. None of us knows what the coming months/years will hold, but it's pretty safe to say they will be unpredictable at best. Having something sturdy to hold on to will be a good thing. So, I'll be happy to consider local opportunities but I'm going to pack my touring shoes away.
Interesting to note that my "uniform" hasn't changed much from touring puppeteer to Publix cashier. The only differences are a green shirt and an apron. Come see me if you're down close to County Rd 34 and Hwy 98. We've got a good deal on turkeys right now.
Nov 23, 2024
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, Publix cashiers ask customers if they'd care to tack on a donation to a local food bank, which Publix will match. We've had some very generous customers while some resemble this next anecdote.
I was bagging groceries for a young cashier when a woman wearing diamond studded earrings and a black fur coat came through the line with some bottled Coke products. The young cashier asked if she'd care to make a donation and (I could see her answer coming a mile away) she curtly said, "No!" But then she made an amendment to her statement, "Maybe once Tr$mp is in office for a few months and we all have money again!"
It honestly took every fiber of restraint in me not to yell at her that her demagogue is not Santa Claus. He is not the Tooth Fairy. And he is about the furthest away from resembling Jesus Christ as the Devil himself. But then I thought a person like her, going grocery shopping on a Friday night wearing diamonds and a fur coat, probably lives in a fantasy world 24/7.
I just smiled and told her to have a nice evening.
Nov 26, 2024
The single most unappreciated, Sisyphean task on the face of God's green earth has to be retrieving shopping carts from a grocery store parking lot in the days leading up to a major American holiday.
One of my managers pulled me away from bagging groceries and instructed me to help a customer who needed some help with her shopping. Well, this is a new one, I thought to myself: Personal shopper was now added to my job duties.
Another manager was talking to an elderly woman who was seated in one of the store's electric shopping carts, list in hand. She was in the middle of telling her life story. I braced myself for what I thought I'd be in for. But if I know one thing, me and the old ladies get along just fine.
The manager introduced me and straight away she said her birthday was on Thanksgiving and I told her that my birthday was on the 4th of July. And just like that, the ice was broken.
Linda, the customer, hadn't been feeling well for awhile but finally felt good enough to leave the house to get some items in preparation for some out of town company that was set to arrive later in the evening. She did not want them to arrive only to discover they'd have to go to the grocery store. I told her that was very considerate of her, which she attributed to years of being a school teacher.
We took a look over her list and headed towards the produce department where she almost immediately started veering off her list, thinking that some Granny Smith apples would be good for a pie. We got back on track with a tomato, a sack of potatoes suitable for potato salad, a green onion and some celery.
I couldn't believe she drove right by the display of sweet treats as we made our way to pick up bacon, eggs and butter. She took advantage of the buy-one-get-one deals on the butter and bacon.
Down the condiment aisle, we picked up some canned pumpkin but nearly missed the evaporated milk that was looking straight at us on the shelf below. After snagging some self-rising flour and nearly taking out a few customers with the motorized shopping cart, we were off to pick up some cleaning supplies. Also, not on the list.
Finally, we got some buttermilk and I told a few more customers that she'd just gotten her license to drive a shopping cart after she nearly ran over them. That line made her laugh.
"Are you gonna have to go back to what you were doing or can you help me check out?"
Naturally, I escorted her to the self-checkout lanes and equipped her with the hand scanner. As I pulled out an item from her cart, she zapped it with the scanner. I was relieved when she produced a debit card from her purse since our self-checkout machines aren't equipped to take cash.
I walked behind her out to the parking lot, loaded up her passenger seat with her groceries and gave her a big hug. "You have been a big help to me." I wished her a happy birthday and a Happy Thanksgiving as I drove her shopping cart back to the front of the store and went back to bagging groceries.
Nov 27, 2024
As I was bagging for a cashier tonight, a customer came through the line with a curious accent. The cashier, through a thick Southern drawl of her own, asked the customer where she got her accent.
With some hesitation and in a very, very quiet voice she said,
"Ukraine."
Tomorrow we will wake up in a country that very much resembles the same country in which we fall asleep tonight. There are so many who cannot say that right now of their home countries.
My eyes welled up. I lost control of the corners of my mouth. I placed my hand to my heart and expressed my thoughts were with her. She returned the gesture and thanked me as she pushed her grocery cart toward the exit.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Dec 2, 2024
I did not have "End Times prophecy" on my bingo card for conversations I would overhear while bagging groceries.
But I should have.
Dec 24, 2024
Choosing one of the busiest grocery store days of the year to decide to "figger out how this self-checkout thang works" is not going to win you any friends amongst the clerks. It also isn't appreciated when your Boomer entitlement allows you to feel comfortable enough to snap and then wave your finger in a effort to make me race right over to scan all your groceries for you because you can't "figger this thang out."
Jan 1, 2025
This morning, on the first day of the year, on my way to work, I came upon a turkey buzzard in the middle of the road. No roadkill, no meal. Just sitting until I came along and he flew off. Then, a few feet down the road, a doe and her fawn crossed the road. They stopped, looked at me and kept crossing into the brush.
Whatever it means, I'm choosing to see them as good omens for the year ahead.
We, all of us, got to where we were going in one piece.
Jan 6, 2024
Now that I've been working at Publix for about 2 months, I'm getting a lay of the land and a sense of some of the routines for the store, which includes some of the customers. Some make multiple trips per day to the store. They'll pick up what they need for a meal from the deli or just pick up something random that their spouse told them to get. We even have one elderly lady who often gets a few small items and then takes up residence in the public sitting/eating area upstairs where a lot of the employees take their breaks. I'm becoming more and more familiar with the regular faces and they're starting to remember who I am, too.
We have one elderly gent who comes in several times a day. He's tall and lean with silver hair. His casual dress is usually athletic wear: Reebok pants and and a running shirt. He comes in for a few things around lunch time and then again in the evenings. I've seen him pick up prescriptions from the pharmacy a few times. There have been a few instances where he seemed a bit unsteady on his feet and has shuffled more than walked. But over the last few weeks, he's been like any other customer. He's very friendly to all the staff; just a very gentle, older man.
Tonight I was monitoring the self-checkout lanes (an experience for which I'm formulating a whole essay) and saw this man in the adjacent Express Lane, where my co-worker, Robert, was cashiering. The man had a large cart with a few items in it: orange juice, some food from the hot bar at the deli..nothing out of the ordinary.
Shortly after he left the store in his usual, upbeat manner, he reentered looking terribly distressed. I approached him and asked if everything was ok. He said he had lost his wallet and his keys. Immediately, I went to the Customer Service desk to see if anything had been turned in. No luck. We looked around Robert's register with no luck. I offered to come with him to his car to help him look there.
It was pitch black dark, even in the well-lit parking lot. And the temperature was dropping steadily due to the winter storms swooping through everywhere. I didn't even think to put on my sweater. So, in my short-sleeved work shirt, I went looking through the man's grocery bags in his back seat. He was unable to figure out how to turn on the internal lights in his car, so I was just having to feel around the best I could.
I found his keys. They were sitting on the backseat under some items with his small notebook that he writes his running shopping list in. It was a big relief to find the keys but the wallet was still elusive.
He was in tears, crying “I have never done anything like this in my life! What am I going to do?!” I tried to keep him calm and reassure him but I had no idea where that wallet could be. We looked all over his car, which, except for the groceries, was completely uncluttered. It also seemed like a new car. Still even had the smell.
He came in several more times to the store and I started wondering if he'd left it in his shopping cart. I looked through as many as had been brought back in from the lot before I had to get back to my attending duties for self-checkout.
He was growing more and more distressed. There was growing concern among the staff and we all started speculating that he might be sun-downing or in the early stages of dementia or Alzheimer's just by how agitated and distressed he was becoming. None of us has ever seen him in the store with anyone else and we wondered if he had family to call or anyone who could come to his aid. It seemed a bleak picture.
Theresa, who works in our deli, had the same thought I did and started looking through the carts while Alex, one of our managers went upstairs to review the surveillance footage. Theresa came in from the holding area for the carts with a green and brown leather wallet.
“I found it!” It had gotten folded in the foldout top section of his cart. In the row of stacked carts, she had noticed one of those folded toddler seats was thicker than the others.
We confirmed it was his wallet by the license inside and I made a dash with it to his car. He was still rooting around in the backseat trying to find it. “Sir!” I called to him, “We found it!”
He came around from the passenger side of the car and I gave him the wallet and he gave me such a hug. Theresa came out and we all had us a moment right there in the parking lot. He was crying and apologizing to us. I was trying not to lose it entirely. And Theresa reassured him that we all lose things and there was nothing to be sorry about.
I walked him back to his car and got him inside, now with his wallet, his keys and his groceries. “I love you," he said, "And tell everybody you work with that I love them, too. Y'all are so good to me." I told him we treat our customers like family and that's exactly what he is.
Then I tried not to burst into tears walking back to the store and finishing my shift.
Feb 1, 2025
Dad-joke-on-the-job fail:
I overheard customer talk about her dog to another cashier.
"What kind is she?" the cashier asked.
"A havanese."
I said to her, "Do you have a nephew, too?"
Management then put me in time-out for 30 minutes.
Mar 5, 2025
I was cashiering today when a lady came through my lane with a cart full of groceries. One of her items was a pack of ginger beer. I asked her if she was making Dark & Stormy-s. She admitted she just drank them as-is. I had to tell her that ginger beer made me think of my friend Jerry, whose last drink on this earth was a Dark & Stormy. And that my friend Jerry was the Count on "Sesame Street." I felt a chill and a shiver wash over me as if the man was saying "Hey! I'm still here, bud!"
I miss him but I'm also kinda glad he's not around to see what's happening to our country. He'd share the outrage that many of us feel. And he'd still be sending mass emails decrying Monsanto. ❤
Mar 10, 2025
In an odd twist of daylight savings surrealism, the Christmas playlist was being piped in at work tonight. Mariah Carey has no business showing up in mid-March.
Mar 11, 2025
I had to check myself in the mirror at work today. I thought i must have sprung floppy ears, a waggy tail and a collar because I was whistled at, waved over, finger-motioned and called "HEY!" repeatedly.
When that's how folks treat the people working in their grocery stores, its little wonder we're in the shape we're in. And then you realize we haven't been "civilized" since we barged onto this continent.
Just be nice, folks.
Mar 12, 2025
In another first-at-work, a 70-something year old white woman referred to herself as a racial slur beginning with "N." She then proceeded to declare that every woman in Fairhope was out to get her.
There are days I miss my old life...and some customers have the same effect.
Mar 23, 2025
Two more from the Grocery Stories series. Consider it a BOGO, for all you Publix fans.
Last week, I was one of the few who opened the store at 7, assuming the duty of monitoring the self check-out (SCO) lanes. There's not a whole lot of activity at that time in the morning except a few rushing in and out to get something on the way to work or school.
On this morning, an elderly lady came up to one of the SCO registers and began scanning her items. Now, this is easy enough to do on any item with a barcode, but becomes trickier with produce items that you have to look up on our menu system. Then item must be weighed and you'll be asked to identify your produce's container, including none at all if you opt not to use one.
From among the items in her cart, this lady placed a bunch of bananas in a produce bag on the scanner bed and adopted a facial expression I have come to know very well on customers. It's the look that says, "I don't have a damn clue what I'm doing."
I cheerfully walked over to her and asked if she'd like some help.
Then the woman just snapped.
"NO! NO! NO!" She yelled "LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"
Two coworkers who were at an adjacent register looked on with their mouths hanging open.
I took 10 steps back when she turned around with a fake smile and a sing-song tone and said "I realize you were just trying to be helpful. That was very KIND of you."
I told her to have a nice day in such a tone as if my voice had just bathed in maple syrup.
Then she came back because she forgot something and I left her the hell alone. I did, however, grant her membership into an organization I created called The Southern Crochety Old Ladies Delegation, or S.C.O.L.D.
By stark contrast, a story from today. One of the best parts of my job's location is that I get to see locals I don't get to see enough of, including musician friends like Grayson Capps and Molly Thomas.
Molly came through my checkout line one day and we caught up about her forthcoming album and all the inventory you accumulate as you grow your catalog of recorded works.
Well, today she had a little surprise for me in the form of a T-shirt she'd found through a friend's shop that spoke to the "burden" of all that inventory. It reads "Records and Books Are Heavy!" Thanks, Molly! You made my day!
Y'all support them and local musicians and artists wherever you are.
Apr 2, 2025
Grocery Story time:
Yesterday was not a proud moment for me. As far as I know, the infractions weren't enough to terminate my employment, but I just found myself in a couple of weak moments (I think a lot of us are finding ourselves in those at present) and I responded in such a way as not to reflect the utmost in customer service.
A man in his late 50's had come through the self-checkout lanes and had scanned all of his items save one single bottle of Nesquick. In a very gruff tone, the man barked, "I can't get this thang to scan. I've tried over and over." Sometimes cold items can have moisture on the barcode, which will cause it not to scan. So, I made sure that area was clear and tried several times to scan on the scan bed and with the scan gun. To no avail. I entered the product number in the item selection menu and added the item to his cart. The man said nothing and just stood there as if I wasn't there doing anything. I got out of his way and he paid and collected his bags. I returned to my post by the automatic doors in front of the self-checkout area. As customers depart, I usually tell them to have a nice day or something similar. When this man was walking out, in a moment of weakness and frustration with his total discourteousness, I boldly (and passive aggressively) said, "YOU'RE WELCOME!" To which he didn't even look at me, said "Thank you," and kept walking.
The second snapshot from yesterday involved a man buying Sara Lee "Artesano" bread. He was around my age with frizzled hair, beard, shorts and a tie dye t-shirt, looking like he'd just left the Dead playing on the home hi-fi. As he was passing his items over the scanner in self-checkout, he scanned the bread and stopped. He then left all his items to go back down the bread aisle. This meant I had to monitor his register station in case the auto-cancel feature popped up due to inactivity. He came back and said "Yeah, why is this bread ringing up $4.69 when it's priced at $4.49?" I pulled out my phone which has our inventory app and scanned the bread's barcode and verified the price at $4.69. "Yeah, it's priced $4.49 on the shelf. I'll show you." Typically, the SCO monitor is not supposed to leave the area in case somebody with light fingers takes advantage of a moment when nobody's watching, but I followed the man and he proved his point. We walked back to his register and I changed the price. "You guys don't do the 'Publix Promise' anymore?" He reminded me of the company's policy that if an item rings up differently from the price on the shelf, the customer gets the item at no cost. So, I took the item off his cart. Again, not a thank you to be uttered. I just said a few choice things under my breath and told my Front End Coordinator about the price issue.
I get that a LOT of people relish the self-checkout experience because it is, by it's very name, meant to be contactless and autonomous. But when people do need help (which is why one of us is stationed there) I wish the help they received was met with a bit more humility and courteousness. But given the climate of our nation right now, my previous illustrations, which are indicative of our cultural mindset, don't surprise me a damn bit.
You'll all be glad to know, I'm sure, that tomorrow is my day off. I know I sure as hell am.
