Posted on 03/18/2023 5:52:07 PM PDT by SamAdams76
"Sultans Of Swing" by Dire Straits is almost the perfect song.
NOTES FROM THE SUPERMARKET
Buying produce at the supermarket can be a dicey thing. You never really know how fresh it really it or where it has been.
I like to buy blackberries to swirl in my yogurt, blueberries too. In both cases, the package tells you to rinse the berries before eating. But does rinsing really clean them? How do you know all the germ came off by rinsing? The fruit looks no different than before you rinsed, except wetter. Maybe all the water really did was splatter the germs around the fruit as opposed to rinsing it completely out.
Are people bothered by this? I never got sick (that I know of) by tainted berries but I often think about it.
Now beware the "convenient" packaging of produce, such as when garlic is all so conveniently pre-chopped up for you or especially the "soup greens" package which includes a rather sad looking onion, limp greens like parsley and kale, couple of carrots, along with some sort of other root vegetable like rutabaga. The marketing intention is that these are the perfect ingredients to help make perfect soup.
All the essentials in one package.
What they don't tell you is that all these vegetables were destined for the trash bin, but instead, let's bundle them all together in a nice package, label them "soup greens", promote the convenience of it all, price it as $5.99, and the harried shoppers will scoop them up, with visions of making hearty soup at home with bone broth, leftover chicken, and maybe some designer pasta from Trader Joe's thrown in.
It's rather expensive for "make at home" soup however, especially as the produce is not so fresh. So you are probably better off pulling the fresher, loose, vegetables out of the bins individually and putting your chef's knife to work when you get back home.
However, those thin plastic bags that hang on rolls above the produce are so annoying. I always have a hard time ripping them off the roll and then getting them open is a real hassle. I just don't have the knack of getting them open easily. Then sometimes when I do get them open, I dump the produce in and it falls right through the bottom of the bag and starts rolling around the floor. Apparently there was a hole in the end of the bag that was not supposed to be open.
Nearly a half century ago, mid 1970s, I worked at the supermarket as a socially awkward young teenager. I was a sophomore in high school at the time and had hair well past my shoulders, which caused me to be mistaken as a girl all the time as I had no facial hair and my voice was only just beginning to deepen.
Anyway, I shagged carriages in the parking lot for the first few weeks until I was "promoted" to bagger, the only noticeable difference being that I was indoors and considered a subordinate to the cashier, who in those days were always female, as our store manager (a male) did not trust us boys to handle money. He would say that repeatedly, that only girls could be trusted to be honest with money and that they were the "bosses" of the boys who bagged for them.
Nonetheless, us bagging boys always jockeyed for the slots that housed the prettiest cashiers. We'd clock in for our shifts and rush to the registers to select the nicest looking cashier that was still available. But you also had to keep in mind who was coming on and going off shift. More than once, I triumphantly positioned myself behind the best looking cashier in the store (Kathleen Carroll) only to have her smile at me as she turned the light off at the slot, flipped her hair, and removed her cash drawer from the register. Taking her place would invariably be a cashier that was not quite so attractive.
The prettier cashiers full well knew the games we boys played to be their baggers. Every now and then, they would "nod off" a boy that they didn't want bagging for them and he'd have to sheepishly slide over to another slot, hopefully without the other boys noticing and seeing his humiliating rejection. Sometimes the boy being "nodded off" was me.
During these shifts, the "front end" manager would stalk up and down the slots, approving any "voids" and getting on the loudspeaker to call a particular department for a "price check". For this was before the barcode days and prices were manually stamped or stickered onto the goods. When the price sticker was removed or not legible, a "price check" would be called and some young kid from dairy, produce, or grocery, etc., would hustle over and say "eighty nine cents" or "A dollar fifty seven."
Grocery store workers had to know their prices in those days as they were typically the ones stamping them on.
Fifty years later, the front end of the supermarket really hasn't changed. You got your front end manager, the cashiers (still usually girls) and baggers (still usually boys). The ones outside shagging carriages are still always guys, for even in the age of the liberated woman, they are still not expected to work outside in the cold and rain and snow.
When I turned 16, I got to work the closing shift and that was always the best. Our store always closed at 9PM sharp weekdays and 6PM on Saturdays. (Sundays, the supermarkets were closed due to the blue laws that existed at the time).
Starting around 8PM, the store started getting really empty of shoppers. Many of the slots were empty and so the baggers and cashiers got to stand around and chat with each other for a while. That is, until our front end manager noticed, and put us to busy work such as re-filling and neatening up the paper bags or washing down the conveyor belts and registers with the Windex and rags that were always stored underneath.
At store closing, the front end manager would triumphantly lock the "seeing eye" doors and then stand there and wave away any late shoppers trying to get in by imperiously pointing at the sign on the door stating the hours and then pointing at his watch, driving the message home that they need to get back to their cars and go home.
Meanwhile, the cashiers would busy themselves counting up their drawers to make sure every penny was accounted for. Back in those days, almost everybody paid in cash so they had a lot of money to count. The baggers were set to work returning "overstock".
Overstock was the items that stacked up at the front of every slot due to customer's changing their mind on buying it or perhaps not having enough cash to pay for it all, so they would keep removing items until they had enough to pay for the remainder.
We we baggers would race around the store returning all the unsold items. After a few weeks, we got to know where everything was in the store. Sometimes we'd run into items that were damaged or had spoiled such as ice cream and other frozen products that had been sitting around for hours. Those had to be put into a separate cart so that one of the store managers could tally up the "losses" for that particular shift.
Meanwhile, the "muzak" that played over the loudspeakers all day for the shoppers was replaced by a local rock and roll station, so we got to blast Aerosmith and Grand Funk Railroad as we rushed up and down the aisles returning overstock items and "fronting" the aisles, which meant bringing everything on the shelves to the front so it was nice looking for the next day's opening.
I did get a date with one of the cashiers. I took her to a baseball game at Fenway Park. She did not particularly enjoy the game, did not understand much about baseball, and did not date me a second time. I evidently made a poor decision taking her to a ballgame on our first date.
I had some very distressing dates as a teenager. I did not know how to properly date a woman until I got out of the military. I will have to do a separate thread on some of those situations sometime.
Also, a thread on when a woman took ME out on a date, including her choosing where to go, driving me there and back, and paying for the whole thing. Now that makes for an interesting story, which I'm not quite sure I want to even tell. But maybe I will.
So in conclusion, "Sultans Of Swing" by Dire Straits is almost the perfect song.
Well atleast in my store i see some progress.
There are boys and men manning the registers sometimes.
Seldomly, but rarely, I see a female bringing in carts. Still has a ways to go, equality wise, there.
Now hold on. You are talking about Dire Straits’ awesome song, but your headline refers to Donald Fagen’s equally-awesome “IGY.” Or did I miss something? I admit I only performed FR-authorized skimming of your excellent post.
Grocery store-wise. I offer this country-rockin’ classic, which should really be on everyone’s Saturday night playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgBy-vFHbc8
... Which probably should be followed by this one, as God Himself intended ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmVUW8SNGyg
I’m holding my breath for Solyent Green
Two separate songs. I don’t expect anybody to get the link between them but they helped inspire me to write a little about my teenager days working in a supermarket.
And well-done! I am doing more extensive skimming now, in a somewhat violation of traditional FR rules.
Seriously, good job as always!
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973)
I'll have to add that album to my playlist.
As the country folk say, it’s a good ‘un ... Have a great weekend!
Worked at a grocery store in the 70’s
We guys were required to run the cash register when it got busy. We didn’t allow carts into the parking lot. Instead they were give in drive up number that fit into a slot on the front of the cart matching the number permanently affixed.
Pick up was only guys and could be fun or miserable depending on the weather and who might be cruising by. (Our grocery store was part of an almost new shopping mall.
We were open on Sundays but before noon no beer could be sold so Saturday nights before everyone went home somebody had to cover the beer displays with brown paper. We didn’t sell wine or hard liquor, only beer. Wine and liquor was only available at state run liquor stores in those days.
We had to stock all the shelves and weren’t allowed to leave until it was done regardless of what your scheduled quitting time was. One particularly rough Saturday night I didn’t clock out until 5:26 AM Sunday morning. That was the all time record.
We had the muzak too. No rock and roll even after hours. I think a couple times somebody brought in a radio and placed it by the front end manager’s microphone and taped down the actuating button so the music came through that way. Not sure about that though...
It was called Cerretani's and here is a TV commercial from that time about the Reading store. I worked in the Revere store.
In the 1980s, they got bought out by a larger chain, Shaw's, I believe.
Anyway, pretty much everybody in the Cerretani family worked there, usually as store managers. Anybody with the surname Cerretani instilled fear wherever they went. They were all hard-asses and ran a real old-school, conservative operation. Boys were sent home for wearing clip-on ties (not allowed!) and even the slightest offenses got you summarily fired. They didn't have much of a HR department. If you were a screw up or if they didn't like you, you were out of there! If you called in sick too much, they would just tell you to stay home and they would put your last paycheck in the mail for you.
Looking back, the experience prepared me very well for my future career.
If I wasn't bagging, I was the guy having to go clean up that busted glass jar of spaghetti sauce or whatnot. I'd remove the larger broken glass shards, pour sawdust over it, and then sweep it all up.
I worked at a Purity Supreme in Boston from 1975 to 1981. Not a bad place to work. It taught me patience with people.
I'm with you. The link with the title is to IGY, but I still have no idea what it or Sultans of Swing have to do with the rest of the article.
Get the real version by Marty Robbins from the mid 50s; much better.
Sam me and you grew up in the same area and relative era.
I lucked out though by working at the three best jobs a high school kid could ever hope for.
Sammy Whites bowling alley, Showcase Cinema then in my senior year Lechmere department store in Dedham.
Those where the days...
My high school jobs, other than the supermarket, was delivering newspapers and dishwashing for a restaurant. Loved all three of them and actually the dishwasher job was the best of all my teenage jobs. Worth of its own post but the duties also included rolling kegs into the bar and tapping them, keeping the bar stocked with clean glasses, making sure the trays of cherries and fruit slices were topped off, etc. (Tip: Never order your drink in a bar with a slice of lime or lemon). The bartenders would reward me with paper cups of beer (even though I was only 16 or 17 at the time).
Anyway, lot of good stories from those days.
Loved Lechmere when I was young. They were my second department store credit card (Sears being the first). A great place to buy electronics and gadgets.
In the mid 70’s my future first college roommate worked Fenway selling food in the aisles. He was a Norwood Irish Catholic.
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