My Week of Work Experience in a British Supermarket

And how I became a regional manager!

The author recounts his work experience as a fifteen-year-old sent to work at a local supermarket, where he encounters the most interesting cast of employees and customers. The experience would teach him more about the absurd realities of life than he could have ever expected.

Day one

I gazed up at the large fellow waiting for me by the entrance. His stomach protruded beneath a white shirt that appeared to be at least one size too small. A missing lower button offered an unflattering glimpse of an unnaturally hairy belly button.

I cannot recall how long I spent staring at his navel before he spoke the first word of this fated meeting.

"Sparkie".

"Sorry?" I replied.

"Sparkie". 

I stood there, uncertain how to respond. He stared at me while I stared back, although this time I made a determined effort to maintain eye contact.

"That's my name. What's your name?" He said.

Sparkie was clearly a man who chose his words sparingly.

"My name is Joe. I'm here for the work experience."

And that's how my compulsory week of work experience began.

It was the mid-2000s, and I was fifteen. As part of the school year, every pupil was required to spend a week in what our teachers rather grandly referred to as "the world of work".

Most of my friends had secured white-collar placements through their parents, but coming from a working-class family with limited means and few contacts, I had no such route into employment.

No problem. For kids like me, the school intervened, and that was how I ended up arriving for my first day at the local branch of a well-known supermarket chain.

In fairness to the school, there were few businesses in the area considered safe enough to accommodate a fifteen-year-old. The high street of my nondescript English town consisted largely of supermarkets and betting shops, and the latter had apparently raised one or two safeguarding concerns.

Apparently, four of us were meant to attend, but I was the only one who had turned up.

It can't be that bad, I thought. I'm sure Sparkie and I will be bantering in no time.

"Um, Sparkie, could you take me to the manager, please?" I asked. "I'm supposed to give them these forms."

"I am the manager," Sparkie replied.

I had not expected that.

Sparkie turned and gestured for me to follow him through a staff-only door. We continued down a corridor that seemed much longer than the building could reasonably contain.

At the end of the corridor, Sparkie led me into a small staff room furnished with a worn-out sofa and a television with a VHS player, perched on one of those wheeled stands you used to find in schools. The walls were a yellowish white, although whether this had been the original colour was impossible to determine.

"Stay here," Sparkie said. "Watch the health and safety video."

He pointed at the television, pressed a button on the attached VHS player and left.

The video lasted thirty minutes and was mind-numbing. The excessively cheerful narrator was painfully condescending.

"Yes," I muttered. "I will avoid licking exposed electrical wires." Eventually, the closing music began, and the company logo appeared. Thank God it was over.

Or so I thought. The screen went black, and a mechanical whirring came from the VHS player as the tape began to rewind. The video was on a loop!

I sat patiently, assuming Sparkie would return at any moment.  By the time the narrator had welcomed me to the family for the third time, I began to suspect Sparkie had forgotten about me. Deciding that preserving my sanity was more important than following orders, I ventured into the dingy corridor to find my way back to the shop floor.

"Oi. Where do you think you're going?"

A woman's voice cracked from behind me.

I turned around. "Oh, hello."

"You must be the new lad. You can't go wandering around without your badge."

She was in her mid-fifties, fair-haired and broad-shouldered, with a raspy Estuary English accent. She smelled strongly of Mayfair cigarettes.

Before I could respond, she pinned a plastic name badge to my shirt.

"Don't just stand there," she said. "Grab that trolley of tomato tins and follow me."

She pushed open a set of double doors and marched me to the shop floor. What followed was my first lesson in the fine art of shelf stacking.

"You've got to rotate them," she said.

"Rotate them?"

"Old stock at the front, new stock at the back. Otherwise the old ones never sell."

She snatched a tin of chopped tomatoes from my hand and inspected the date.

"See this? This goes in front of that one."

She pointed to another tin that appeared completely identical. "And all the labels face forward. Properly forward. Not sideways. Not at an angle. Forward."

I nodded diligently.

"Customers don't want to see the ingredients," she continued. "They want to see the picture."

Satisfied that I was not entirely incapable, the lady left me to finish the trolley alone. 

I settled into my work quite happily and had almost completed stacking the tomatoes when a customer approached.

"Excuse me," she said. "Do you have any chocolate digestives?"

I froze.

It was a simple question, but I had been employed for less than two hours.

"It might be over there," I said, pointing vaguely towards the other side of the shop.

She let out a long, disappointed sigh.

"You don't know?"

"Not exactly, no."

Her eyes moved to the badge the lady in the corridor had pinned to my shirt. Her expression changed.

"But you're the regional manager."

"I'm sorry?"

She pointed at my chest.

I looked down. The badge did indeed read, "REGIONAL MANAGER".

"There's been a mistake," I said.

"I should think so."

She shook her head and walked away, muttering something about standards.

Eager to recover the situation, I called out after her. I had meant to say either "No problem" or "Have a nice day", but my brain sent both instructions to my mouth at once.

"Have a problem!" I called out.

She stopped and turned around.

"I already am," she grumbled before heading for the door. 

Well, my career was certainly off to a promising start.

I abandoned the tomatoes and crossed the aisle, where I found Sparkie staring out of a window, surveying the car park below.

"I think there's been a mistake with my badge," I said. Sparkie looked at me.

I pointed to it.

He continued looking at me.

I waited.

After several seconds, he said, "Goosey must've given you the wrong one."

So that was her name, or at least her apparent nickname.

Silence between us resumed, and I felt my eyes sucked back into the black hole of his belly button. I wondered whether Sparkie intended to offer a solution.

"Badge printer's broken," he eventually said.

"Right."

"Keep that one."

"But it says I'm the regional manager."

Sparkie looked ahead. "Doesn't matter."

It had already mattered to at least one person, but I sensed Sparkie regarded this subject as closed.

My tin stacking duties soon came to an end for the day, and I made my way towards the exit, I saw Sparkie standing by the same window as before.

"Goodbye, Sparkie," I said.

He did not reply.

My first day in the world of work involved a health and safety lesson, a demonstration on the correct orientation of canned tomatoes and an unexpected promotion to regional manager.

And as the sliding doors closed behind me, I could still hear the faint mechanical whir of the health and safety tape rewinding somewhere deep inside the building.

I could never have imagined what the rest of the week had in store for me.

Day two

The second day began much as the first had ended: stacking tins.

By half past nine, I had already handled enough canned produce to survive a nuclear winter.

I was beginning to feel delirious. For the umpteenth time, I locked eyes with the Green Giant's smug face.

"Keep smiling, you great green pretentious oaf," I whispered. "See where it gets you."

My descent into madness was interrupted when I was later paired with another junior member of staff. His name was Will. He was seventeen, thin and pale, with black hair falling across one eye and several rubber bracelets around his wrists. Will was a mid-2000s emo.

Unlike Sparkie, Will enjoyed talking. This made him invaluable. Within an hour, I had uncovered even more about the supermarket.

"Her real name's Lucy," Will explained, as he planed another tin on the shelf, "Lucy rhymes with Goosey, and she's a bit loosey-goosey."

Profound.

"Don't ever call her that to her face," he warned.

The origins of Sparkie's nickname belonged to something rather more sinister.

"He used to be the hard kid at school," Will said.

I glanced towards the far end of the aisle and saw Sparkie occupying his usual spot by the window.

Will elaborated on Sparkie's place in local folklore.

"He left school with no qualifications," he said. "Although he did distinguish himself as one of its more accomplished bullies."

Apparently, he had started out on the night shift in the stockroom before working his way up to manager within a few years. It was reassuring proof that persistence could indeed make dreams come true.

"How did he get promoted so quickly?" I asked.

Will pushed a can of peas into place.

"He's good at the job."

There was no sarcasm in his voice.

"Oi, love!" Both Will and I looked up.

"You," Goosey snapped, pointing at me. "Regional Manager." I took the sarcasm as a sign of growing affection.

"Watch the till while I nip outside."

Before I could raise the minor issue of not having the faintest clue what to do, she was already hurrying towards the exit with a packet of cigarettes clutched firmly in one hand.

Fortunately, there were no customers.

I took my place behind the till and attempted as though I belonged there.

"This is fine," I told myself, attempting a casual smile and probably producing something closer to a grimace.

"Brrring! Brrring!" The telephone rang, making me jolt.

Oh gosh, what do I do? What do I do?

Outside, Goosey stood in a cloud of cigarette smoke, chatting through the open window of a parked van.

Each ring sent another bolt of nerves down my spine.

Pull yourself together, I thought. I'm now a competent and proactive member of the workforce. 

I tentatively answered the phone. "Hello?"

There was a pause.

"You're supposed to answer with the company name," a voice replied. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Joe."

"And what do you do there, Joe?"

The temptation to say "Regional manager" was paralysing. 

"Can you put Lucy on?"

"She's erm currently outside.." 

I looked through the window. Goosey was lighting a second cigarette.

"What is she doing?"

She raised the cigarette to her lips and took a long drag.

"Erm.. Breathing", I replied.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Fresh air," I blurted. "She's breathing, erm… fresh air."

"Tell her Mr Rawlings called. The staff need to be fully prepared for this week's food hygiene inspection. After what happened during our last visit, this branch cannot afford to fail again."

Once Goosey was back, I relayed the information.

"You spoke to Mr Rawlings?" She seemed amused. I returned to the monotony of stacking tins with Will. The routine continued until shortly before midday, when an elderly gentleman entered the supermarket.

It was the height of summer, yet he wore a long brown trench coat and a battered trilby, pushing a wire shopping basket ahead of him. To my mind, he looked rather like Lurch from The Addams Family.

"Excuse me," he said. "Where are the sweet peas?"

For once, this was a question I could answer with confidence. "They're right here," I said, pointing to the shelf in front of us.

He selected a single tin, placed it in his basket and made his way towards the till, quietly whistling "When the Saints Go Marching In".

"That's Frank," Will told me, "Usually buys one item and leaves. His wife died years ago. I think he just likes having somewhere to go."

By the middle of the afternoon, Will and I had finished stacking our designated tins.

"That's an honest day's work," Will said, stretching out his arms. "Come on, let's get our of here."

"Shouldn't we tell someone?"

"Ahh, they don't care," Will replied, indifferent to the consequences.

We rewarded our efforts for the day with a meal at McDonald's.

Day 3

The third day began with the unexpected arrival of my teacher, Mr Cunningham.

This was an aspect of work experience I had forgotten. At some point during the week, our teacher was required to visit the placement and confirm that their pupil was alive and not being used for anything illegal.

Mr Cunningham was a slim young man from Scotland with a shaved head. While the older teachers had stopped bothering years ago, he was still new enough to the profession to make an effort. His relative youth probably made him think he could be "down with the kids", although we found his attempts painfully cringey.

He quickly found me on the shop floor kneeling beside a shelf, arranging tins of baby carrot.

He quickly found me on the shop floor, kneeling beside a shelf and arranging tins of baby carrots.

"Yo, Joe!" He beamed at me. "What's going down, bud?"

We looked at one another. Then we both looked down at the tins.

His trademark goofy enthusiasm dimmed. It seemed we were equally disappointed by the circumstances that had brought us together.

"So," he said, regaining his composure, "how are you finding things? What cool things have you learned?"

I looked towards the shelves, hoping they might suggest something meaningful.

"It's fine," Mr Cunningham said, noticing my hesitation.

"But I did manage the till yesterday," I offered.

His eyes moved to my name badge.

"Regional Manager?"

"The badge printer's broken."

"That's great, pal. So who's supervising you?" he asked.

"Sparkie."

"Who?"

"The manager."

"His name is Sparkie?"

Mr Cunningham's face seemed to briefly contort as he tried to process this.

Before Mr Cunningham could respond, Goosey's voice burst from somewhere behind us.

"Put that back!"

Mr Cunningham and I peered around the aisle to find Goosey arguing with a man in a wheelchair. 

He looked to be in his late forties and had lost one leg above the knee. The cuffs of his coat were darkened from pushing the wheels of his chair, and several plastic bags hung from the back. His clumpy hair reached down to his shoulders and his patchy beard was grey and uneven. White powder dusted the front of his jacket and the area around his mouth.

Will had joined the scene and provided us with some context,

"That's Jimmy Drift," he explained. "Also known as the Drift King. Stays at the shelter next door."

In all my youthful naivety, I said, "Looks like he's been at the doughnuts."

"That ain't doughnut sugar," Will corrected me.

Goosey appeared to be trying to wrestle a bottle of mouthwash from him.

"You know we're not allowed to sell you that!" she screamed. At the time, I couldn't understand why, and I still don't.

Whatever the reason, the supermarket was under strict instruction not to sell it to him.

"I'm buying it, you muppet!" Jimmy protested.

He held the bottle of mouthwash tightly against his chest, as Goosey forcibly tried to poach it off him.

A scene had formed as several customers had begun watching, clearly pretending to examine nearby products and positioning themselves for a better view.

Suddenly, a calm voice cut through the chaos, "put it back". Sparkie had appeared at the end of the aisle, answering the call of duty like a low-budget superhero. Sunlight streamed through the window behind him, embellishing him with a heroic glow.

Squinting back at him, Jimmy Drift looked up. Sparkie then held out his hand.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Finally, Jimmy relinquished the first of the mouthwash bottles. Thank God for that. The situation seemed to have been resolved amicably.

However, the moment Sparkie turned away, the Drift King grabbed another bottle and made a sudden break for the exit. Sparkie stepped into his path with surprising speed for a man of his build.

Jimmy reversed sharply and collided with the frozen-fish counter, sending several fillets crashing to the floor. He looked down, grabbed a frozen haddock and raised it above his head. In the subsequent stand off, neither man moved.

I suddenly remembered Will's stories about Sparkie's violent past. Even so, I could not have imagined him locked in combat with a fish wielding foe in aisle seven.

Sparkie made the first move, and stepped forward.

Jimmy swung the haddock. It struck Sparkie across the face with a heavy slap, sending him stumbling backwards. It was David and Goliath, except David was in a wheelchair and seemingly inebriated.

"He's sparked Sparkie," Will whispered.

Sparkie recovered and reached again for the haddock, but the Drift King spun his chair a full circle and hit him again in the face having pulled a maneuver I could best describe as the spinning fish slap.

Sparkie was dazed on the floor. Jimmy swung back to deliver the death blow.

"That's enough, son". 

The old man from yesterday, Frank, stood over Jimmy with one hand clamped around the fish. Frail though he was, he now cut an unexpectedly authoritative figure.

The room fell silent.

"Well, mate," Mr Cunningham said, breaking the silence, "you're certainly getting a broad range of experience. Honestly, I had forgotten he was even there.

"I'd better get on, hehe," he said, edging nervously towards the door. "Other students to visit."

The crowd began to drift away, until all but one lady remained. She had auburn hair, a dark suit and polished shoes, with a small leather folder held beneath her arm. Unbothered, she calmly finished writing something down.

It would seem our health and safety inspector had arrived.

To be continued..