Entry #2: The Truck

In my entry titled "The Truck," I plan to clear up a few misconceptions that customers have as far as product availability and my rights as a produce worker - and how they all tie into the arrival of our nightly truck.

So much depends upon a bearded male in a Harley Davidson t-shirt parking a semi beside the grocery stores. Almost every evening that I work, my routine consists of hard work when I first arrive (usually including "breaking down the truck," ie. removing all the boxes of product from the pallets they're delivered on and organizing them against the cooler/backroom walls), dwiddling around and shooting the shit while waiting for the truck to arrive, and then a flare of energy and hard work for the last hour or so of my shift. On incredibly slow days, or incredibly quick days where product swarms out the backroom and it's left nearly barren, most of my pay comes from sitting on my ass and talking about pop-culture movies with my coworkers while we wait for the truck to park behind the store and hear that annoying ring on the walkie as the truck driver asks for a manager to let him/her inside.

As it ties into "the truck," sometimes customers ask for a product that's been completely sold out and in response I have to drone the same, "maybe it will be on the truck - it usually comes anywhere between 5 and 8." Some customers say that they'll return, others live too far away and act like I'm a total obstacle preventing them from safely acquiring their 1lb baby cut carrots.
If the truck has already arrived, I tell them that it's parked and to try back once they're done with their shopping and I'll check to see if the item is dropped off yet. I had to repeat this same fucking speech at least a dozen times today, because of an unexpectedly busy day that resulted in all of our bananas, baby cut carrots, green peppers, bagged carrots, and zucchini being completely sold out.

Anyways, I was sidetracked a bit. Where does the annoyance with the customers occur? Customers assume that I'm the prick who makes the daily orders. I don't order shit! The only workers that make orders are the manager, the assistant manager, and the one asshat who's worked in the department for over 10 years - which I assure you every store has; The "asshat" at my store is a pretty alright dude though, so no disrespect. Ordering isn't something that every menial worker does. This isn't the sixties: I don't make orders, I don't sit around and "pollish apples" (I don't know if this is a joke, but elderly people always ask me outside of my workplace if I just stock items and pollish apples), and I haven't tried every single fruit and vegetable in the department nor am able to tell you if this is a "good crop" of whatever the fuck you're eyeing. I honestly wish I could tell you if it was a good crop. As if I'm watching the Cavs and they commit a foul and it goes uncalled, I want to remain loyal to the home team and I would hate to admit the customer, as much distate I usually have for him/her, should be right. I wish my workplace allowed me to sample every crop or every new product; from what I've been told, workers used to be entitled to sample back in the sixties and before. How am I supposed to answer about a product if it's something I don't know dick about? How am I supposed to accurately know a product and its actual shelf life if it's something I would never buy myself? I'm never going to buy certain fucking vegetables, so I can only go by heresay as to when they taste the best or when they start to lose flavor. Some vegetables I barely know how to tell when they're going bad until they're moldy or rotten, and I'm not alone. I could be so much more informative if I had experiential knowledge of every product.

Also directed towards people stuck in the past - I don't make prices. Why do people bitch to me about high prices, as if they're under my jurisdiction? I'm the lowest totem on the totem pole, it's not like all of the employees meet in a circular room and knitpick over the matter of pricing. Pricing is handled by the slimy dickheads at corporate.