by Philip Gibson
“Store cleaner. Spillage aisle 14.”
Penny lifts her head from the mini-screen as if woken from a dream.
“Oops!” she murmurs softly to Peedie.
It’s been two months and what she calls the five stages of being a new hire at Megafoods Hypermarkets are almost complete. Stage one was fear, stage two anger, stage three boredom and now the second last stage, adaptation, is in play.
Penny propels her trolley along, monitoring her personal digital assistant as she goes. The PDA is strapped to her wrist so convenient and annoying at the same time. She checks, picks, scans and packs, then dodges past dithering customers with their trolleys and kids. Playing that game where she anticipates obstacles and steers towards emerging gaps. Peedie does the geography and tells her where to go, what to collect and even makes an uneducated guess for a replacement if the thing she needs isn’t on shelf. She loves her scanner when that happens. No broad beans, well what about sanitary towels?
Peedie is her friend. Her scanner is who she communicates with the most. But Penny also knows Peedie can’t be trusted. Peedie’s screen highlights the pick number she’s to aim for and compares that to her actual rate. The target is 190 items an hour, as Penny gets repeatedly told by Mustafa, her half-hearted boss.
“Do your best,” he says encouragingly, before adding. “Or else!”
Penny’s best is 160 and, so far, no ‘or else’ has happened. She knows the night shift is easier ’cos there’s fewer obstacles, but she’s not keen on insomnia.
“OK Peedie, aisle 16. Mustafa said no eyes there.”
She trundles along, glancing upwards to double check for cameras. She grabs a bag of chocolate mini-eggs, rips it open, tips a few into her mouth before returning the opened bag to the shelf. Then she slides some displays outwards so they teeter at the shelf edge.
“Frozen next Peedie.”
Penny likes frozen. Quick to pick and helps her keep cool. She enjoys shuffling the produce about a bit while she’s there.
“What is this person doing?” she asks Peedie. “Six deep-pan pizzas and three bags of chips. Cholesterol must be off the chart.”
***
On break she sits opposite Baz and Shanya. Twenty-nine year old mullet-man Baz keeps banging on about how he was almost in the SAS. He’s refined his role at Megafoods with military precision to shave seconds from his routine. He’s also let it be known he expects to be promoted as soon as Mustafa leaves. Baz sits ramrod straight; a coiled spring sipping green gunge he decants from a thermos into a shot glass, while following a countdown on his PDA.
Recent journalism graduate Shanya watches with disgust as Baz downs his sludge, while simultaneously phone scrolling, doughnut munching and ignoring her PDA.
“That stuff will kill you,” growls Baz.
Shanya turns to him questioningly before glancing at the half-eaten doughnut.
“Everything’s out of date. That’s why it’s here. I wouldn’t eat that shit if you paid me,” he continues as he stands up. His countdown shows 10 seconds left.
“Gotta go. Bigwigs here today and there’s more trouble. I’m guessing heads will roll. But my motto is every disaster creates an opportunity. Who dares wins, losers.”
Penny and Shanya watch him go.
“He’s such a dick,” Shanya whispers to Penny as he disappears through the canteen door.
“I don’t think food would be put out if it was dangerous,” Penny responds.
“He’s doing 220 an hour. Man’s a machine, like Murderbot.” Shanya mumbles before adding, “I’ve heard about the big bosses coming. Deli-Doris says this place is jinxed. Customers complaining, accidents happening. It’s weird.”
Penny looks doleful.
“I do my job and go home. Just like everyone else.”
“Yeah? But why are you here, Penny? I mean I’ve no choice. The world and Rupert Murdoch have decided they don’t need proper journalists, just drones who can identify an exclamation mark and are handy with an alliteration.”
“I’ve no choice either. No pension, no savings, no money and who else is going to give me a job?”
“God. That’s rough,” Shanya sympathises. “How come you don’t have a pension?”
“Long story. Bad luck mainly. Anyway back to work.”
***
Penny drops a pack of out of date canteen doughnuts into the fresh-baked rack before using her trolley to nudge a stack of Ritz cracker packs so they become more obstacle than obtainable. At the fruit and vegetable aisle she carefully removes a plastic riser that’s acting as the dam wall for a pyramid of apples.
She nods to herself, satisfied stage five is underway.
The shriek is loud and Penny can’t help looking. A cascade of coxes bounce and scatter. Trolleys brake to avoid escaping fruit and three serious women wearing lanyards of power get pinned against a display of avocados and peppers.
Penny tries to escape but can’t. Her trolley is nose to nose with Shania’s whose eyes are wide, her mouth a perfect ‘O’.
***
“OK, that’s politics covered, what about some juicy rage bait for the home pages? Jonty, you’re up.”
“OK, I’ve 500 words from a wannabe stringer. Headline is “Picker Packer Penny’s Payback!!” So, this grieving widow takes a job as a personal shopper to sabotage the supermarket company that caused her family business to go bust, but she’s caught and sacked. Stringer has a quote from Baz Boardman, an acting junior manager, who says “I knew the old girl was trouble as soon I saw her.” And an interview with the infamous Penny outlining the devious things the evil supermarket did to destroy her business. She says it finished off Peetie, her late husband. It’s not bad. Has a justice angle, a bit of David and Goliath and a sob story underdog. Hits all the right buttons!”
“Who’s the company?”
Jonty scans his laptop.
“Eh, Megafoods.”
“Megafoods? Shame. They’re on the exec list. Advertising revenue I suspect. Crash and burn, Jonty. Ah well, who’s next?”
Philip is a retired academic who lives in Paignton, Devon. He enjoys writing short stories and has been successful in having a number short listed and long listed in competitions. He recently published his first novel, a crime thriller titled ‘Oscar, Oscar, Oscar’ and his second is in planning.
Photo by Nathália Rosa on Unsplash
