So on this particular Sunday, I got stuck with the morning shift because the woman that usually opens (Jane) was on vacation. I have no issue covering for Jane when she’s on vacation, especially since I knew she was really excited to go on this trip. Since I haven’t been trained to open yet, my boss opened the store at seven and had me come in at eight and take over. Though I’m not much of a morning person, one of the perks of the job is that we can get free coffee while we’re working, and most of our Sunday morning customers are regulars who get their coffee and their newspaper and are really nice.
It was raining heavily, and cold all morning, so of course things were slow. Boss left at around 9 to go visit a friend of his in the hospital, and asked me to call my co-worker (Rick) who was supposed to come in at 11 and tell him not to come in until noon. Fair enough, I had no problem working alone, and our butcher was there to watch the store if I needed a break, or help out with register if it got suddenly crowded (though for my own reasons I can’t stand the meat man, and didn’t plan to ask him anything unless I absolutely HAD to).
While the store was empty I made myself a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, at like 9:30, and was eating it and watching someone on the gas pump to make sure they didn’t drive off. Boss’ sister (who runs the diner that, while located in the same building, is a completely different business from the gas station I work at) comes in to get a few supplies. She notices me standing there eating and looking out the window, and goes “Wow, the top of this cooler sure is dusty. You should clean it.” She does things like this ALL THE TIME if she thinks we’re slacking. First off, she doesn’t sign our paychecks. She has no authority over us at all. Second, I was there ALONE, and while I wasn’t actively ringing out a customer at that moment, I was still doing something related to my job. Apparently to her it didn’t look like it, because I was standing there. Also, good god, I was EATING MY BREAKFAST. Heaven for-fucking-fend that a retail slave be allowed to take a few moments to have a meal, so that she doesn’t collapse partway through her eight-hour shift, huh? Everyone that works at the diner tends to be miserable with their job because this woman is their boss.
Anyways, at 10 I call Rick and tell him not to come in until noon, because it’s slow. He agrees and says he’ll see me then. I get back to work.
So boss gets back around 11:45, and meat man (who had been just sitting around for quite a while) bolts out of there. Rick gets in at noon. Things are still slow, so boss brings Rick around and shows him how to front shelves and such. It’s really just busywork, because there was no need to have two people doing register on a day like that. Rick gets done being shown what to do, comes back behind register, takes a seat on the milk crates we have there, and shrugs.
Of course, this pisses me off, because the boss showed him how to front shelves because he wanted him to DO it. Our boss is wonderful and nice, and very easy-going. He’s a family friend for us, and I know that me having this job is a favor from him to me. As such, I work extra hard, only ask for time off if I really need it, and never complain about being tired ever after long hours. If I take a break, it’s usually short, and I’m glad to cut it off if something is needed of me. When things are slow while I’m working, I go look for busywork—stocking the soda or milk cooler, cleaning things, stuff like that. So, to see my co-worker blatantly disregard something that he was TOLD to do just really got on my nerves.
So, since it’s slow, I tell Rick to give me a shout if he needs me, and go stock up the soda cooler. After that was full, I went to see if there was anything else that needed to be done, and noticed a customer looking through our (small) selection of eggs quite intently. He asked me if there were any white eggs in the back, as opposed to the brown eggs we had out. I scurried into the cooler to check, found the eggs in question, and brought them up. At the same time, I noticed that our milk cooler was pretty well empty, because I’d been unable to stock it all morning.
Once again, I tell Rick to give me a shout if he needs me, don my jacket and gloves, and head into the milk cooler. I restock milk, eggs, juice, just about everything in there, and also help my boss to clean it out and organize it a bit. The entire time that boss and I are working in the cooler (about 20-30 minutes), the doors on the store side open maybe three times, fairly well spaced apart. I figure it’s still as slow as ever, and don’t even think to step out and check to see if Rick has a line. I also figure that if they needed someone else on register, boss would tell me.
I’m sure you can imagine my surprise when I step out of the cooler and see a mob of people in front of our two registers, waiting to be rung up. I rip off my gloves as quickly as I can, tossing them onto the back counter and hurrying up... Only then noticing that boss’ wife is on the second register, ringing people. Apparently she got in just as the rush started, and jumped right on register to help Rick, so there was no need to get me from the cooler. And since most people weren’t getting things from that cooler, I didn’t notice the increased traffic.
Rick and boss’ wife finish the line, while I stand between them, bagging and getting lottery tickets down, trying to disperse the crowd as quickly as possible.
And of course, after that mob we had maybe 15 people come in the store for the last two hours of my shift.
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