Local Shop update

This should have been posted last night but I fell asleep before finishing. Work has changed and I now do five nights a week working solo so I get home tired. It’ll take a while to adapt.

The little chairs are now beneath wooly rat backsides and I await a photo of them in situ. I’ll post it as soon as I have it. I am not going to the baker’s house to take the photo myself. So far I have had no contact with anyone from work outside working hours and it would not be a good time to change that habit.

There will be a table too. I have a large stick of plum wood to make it out of. That has to happen fast because of other things that will happen soon. I’ll make it. It’s just wood, no upholstery, so it’ll be quicker.

Yesterday I told Gullible Girl that Danish cigarettes taste of bacon and gave her one to try later. She seemed convinced. I wonder if the power of suggestion is enough to make her taste the bacon? I’ll find out next time she’s on the same shift as me. She is also a good friend of Boss so I might have Boss asking ‘Did you tell her…?’

Who, me?

Boss has leaked nothing of what I told her. I know this because the first one she’d have told would be Gullible Girl, who could not keep a secret if her life depended on it. So when they gossip, it’s not about me. Hey, I never do anything worth gossiping about anyway. I’m sure I’m hardly even noticeable in there.

Cafe Girl is off limits for now. She has problems in her non-work life so I’m leaving her alone for a while. Rage and swearing I can cope with but I am not going to be the one who reduces her to tears.

There are plenty of others. Blonde Manager instructed me to skip a job tonight and said I could refer to her if Boss was angry with me. I had to suppress a smile. Boss angry with me? I’d have to dismember a customer for that to happen. Not that I haven’t considered it, mind. Even then I’d just do the puppy-dog eyes and she’d probably help me hide the evidence.

I was happy to skip a job tonight. I had too many as it was. Plus there were too many people dropping stuff. I have told the staff they shouldn’t let the customers have dairy products. It gets them over-excited, and cream is a horrible thing to have to clean up. I mean real dairy cream. Go rinse your minds out with soap! You know who you are.

Obelix has been off for a few days so today the stores were manned by Piercings. I don’t see him often. The grommet in his earlobe is bigger than it was last time I saw him. He is fortunately pretty compliant so I have not yet had to threaten him with a magnet. He even let me override Blonde Manager’s instructions regarding one of the jobs. That might be why she cancelled the other one before I and my new assistant started on that too.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people will approach and put a basket of stuff next to a till that I have in pieces. It’s pretty obvious the till is closed when all its electronics are piled up on one side and I have my head in its innards. They seem to think I can put it back together faster than Clint Eastwood can reassemble a Navy Colt. Even if I could, I have no till access because I don’t work for the shop. I work for the Secret Ninja Cleaners. I just clean the things, I don’t drive them.

If you arrive at a till where the belt is wet and not moving and where the till operator’s station looks like something from ‘Lawnmower Man’, would you start unloading your trolley? Many do. Some even get miffed at being told about one of my reasons for losing my till-driving licence.

Mopzilla is doing the job okay but he’s a bit of a miserable git. He doesn’t seem to like having a woman as a boss. I will have to have words. Especially to tell him he can’t moan about Boss to me. I’m not one to tell her but I’m not interested in hearing his moans about having a woman boss. She pulled out all the stops to get me that week off at the end of May even though she didn’t know then why it was so important to me. And she has been hugely supportive since I told her why.

She has sat on the biggest gossip goldmine she must have ever known, and she quizzed me like a mother checking out a son’s new girlfriend. Yes, she now knows some of the story behind her reclusive employee and it’s gossip gold dust. She’s kept it quiet. When it’s time to let it out I’m going to let her tell the staff first.

I think that’s only fair.