Retail Health and Safety? That’s for wimps. And people who don’t want to die

I’m living in a death trap. I could literally die at any moment.

Everything in this ridiculous ‘fur coat and no knickers’ shop seems designed to knock me out, trip me up, drench me with water, electrocute me, drench me with water and then electrocute me, whack me hard on the head or punch me in the face.

I think it’s TBE’s (aka The Boss Erratic’s) Master Plan. She’s failed so far to kill me off with dodgy plug arrangements, splintered glass and Kamikaze mannequins, but it doesn’t mean she’s stopped trying. She’s just gone bigger (I mean the death traps have gone bigger, not, err…….. but, well, OK…if that’s where your imagination take you...).

First of all there’s the ornate - heavy - Victorian display shelves. These hang just above and behind me on the wall as I stand at the serving counter. They are practical, beautiful, and balanced entirely on two small nails hammered half arsedly into the wall by guess who?

Greek Tragedy Deathtrap. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

I’d like to say in view of their obvious precariousness (obvious to me; no other bugger even thinks about it), TBE ensures that nothing hard, breakable and liable to do harm is displayed on the shelves. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. It’s like the excitable part of a Greek wedding just waiting to happen. All day every day. Right above my head.

Then there’s the large fancy oval mirrors. TBE likes these. She thinks they make money for her. They possibly would if they were around long enough to sell. But they’re not. Why? Well, let me ask you this:

What’s the safest way to display an oval mirror? On the wall? - Well, yes.

How about wedged securely on the floor between two immovable objects? - OK, I suppose.

Laid flat? - A bit rubbish but definitely safe.

So what’s TBE’s genius way to display an oval mirror?.......

Vaguely propped upright, rolling unsecured around all over the place like a top heavy Weeble. Except not like a Weeble, because the point of Weebles is they don’t fall down.

We’ve gone through so many of these sodding mirrors, but she still won’t learn.

Definitely not like a Weeble then. (I mean the oval mirrors aren’t like a Weeble. I’m comparing oval mirrors with fat, round, wobbly Weebles, not, err…….. but, well, OK…if that’s where your imagination take you...).

A Weeble. Photo, Google licence free: Steve Berry, Flikr

Then there’s the stupidly long clothes rail, attached to the wall at each end by a single screw and nowhere else, and weighed down with far too many clothes. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course it came off the sodding wall one day. Of course it dumped clothes all over the other displays and all over the floor. And of course some sad sack of a sales assistant was underneath the rail when it went.

Me. Of course.

I was left flailing around under the rail – with most of the clothes still heavily attached and attacking me - trying to keep it from crashing to the floor with one arm (it was really bloody heavy!), whilst desperately stretching out with the other arm to reach a free standing set of rails nearby, drag them over and stuff them under the wall rail to temporarily prop it up.

I did it. Eventually. But it was not a good hair day.

Photo: Google licence free: Flikr bixentro

After surveying the damage and cursing TBE (obviously), I managed to come up with a more permanent solution; a broomstick pole holding up the middle of the rail, lashed in place using half a mile of brown packing string. Sorted.

Knowing TBE as distastefully and intimately as I do, I reasoned it would probably stay like that for about a year, but to give TBE her due, it only stayed like that for about a month and a half.

What am I still doing here?

The Spy Who Loathed Me

OK, let’s start with the statistics:

Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
https://twitter.com/paulseesequa/status/704009260066148352

1. There are three people who work in this company: TBE (aka The Boss Erratic), Colleague Crafty and me. That’s not even enough to fill a taxi.
2. The Out Of Favour (OOF) shop (where I work) is about twenty seconds away from the New Favourite (NF) shop (where I don’t work), which is just around the corner.
3. Until the day both shops become self-service operations (oh, wouldn’t TBE love that: no staff [i.e. me] to whine on about employment rights), there is one of us working in each shop. That’s two thirds of the workforce hanging out within twenty seconds touching distance of each other at any one time.
4. Given this arrangement, there is a high probability that when I am working in the OOF shop, TBE is very often just around the corner in the NF shop; twenty seconds away.
5. That’s twenty seconds away. TBE is twenty seconds away. Very frequently.
6. I haven’t clapped eyes on TBE for three and a half months.
7. Three and a half months.
8. Three and a half months is a long time.
9. Three and a half months is at least fourteen weeks.
10. Three and a half months is over a quarter of a year.

She’s just disappeared. Run away. Gone. Totally absent.

How to offend everybody, without even trying

Do you want to see a magic trick? I’ll show you a magic trick. I’ll show you how to offend every single customer in the course of a day without even trying.

It’s not my fault. Well, it might be my fault, but I didn’t mean it to be my fault.

I was trying to be subtle.

It’s like this: TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) is still successfully doing a swerve on obtaining a public Performing Rights Society (PRS) licence to play music in the shop (of course she is), so I can still only play royalty free music. Royalty free music is the audio equivalent of tearing off a massively sticky plaster from a hairy limb really really slowly whilst simultaneously stubbing your toe on a hot poker (i.e. It’s eye-wateringly, brain-shockingly, painfully, dreadful).

Original photo: congerdesign, Pixabay

This has been going on for about ten months now, and this week, I thought:

No more! I rebel! I WILL play a normal CD and the consequences be damned!

The MAMAA Returns

Right, so you all know by now that your average high frequency MAMAA (Middle Aged Man Always Around) is under the tragic misapprehension that I delight in their glittering company and, during their regretful absences, yearn for their swift return in order to hear more of their enthralling stories and wondrous escapades, right?

Given this sad state of affairs it logically follows that a long-term absentee MAMAA, returning after many months, is almost bleedin’ unbearable.

MAMAA Yorkshire Casanova, turned up yesterday (calm down, he’s really not worth your hopeful imagination).

No....... Photo: skeeze, Pixabay.

Another nail in the Coffee Coffin...

The coffee machine has basically had it. I think it’s seen what a clusterfuck the Out Of Favour shop has become and has decided to slowly shut itself down in order to escape.

Picture:kerttu, Pixaby

The latest bit to go on strike is the steam/ milk frother spout.

For those of you happily uninitiated in the ways of barista-ism, there are three, ‘stick your cup under,’ parts on even the most basic commercial coffee machines, (which, of course, is what the Out Of Favour shop has):

1) The circular bit that grabs onto the big spoon thingy full of ground coffee, and filters hot water through it; 2) The hot water spout – like a kettle, only posher; 3) The steam spout – for frothing milk and generally burning your hands.

The steam spout is pretty much essential. Without it there is no frothy milk – and no frothy milk means no cappuccinos and lattes.

Obviously, not having a working frothy spout thing is a fairly massive problem for a coffee shop, and in any normal shop, with a normal boss, it would cause panic and an undignified scrabble to get it fixed as soon as possible.

But I don’t work for a normal boss. I work for The Boss Erratic (TBE), and clearly she doesn’t see this as the problem I do.

The loneliness of the Long Distance Argument

TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) and I are having a non-communicative argument about communication.

It’s non-communicative because we’re writing all our insults, digs, and acerbic points of principle down in a book*. It means we neither have to see each other or speak to each other directly, which is a splendid relief for both of us.

Picture: AgnieszkaMonk, Pixabay

Music to eat your own ears to. And repeat

I am not happy.

I am on edge.

My shoulders are tight, my teeth are clenched, and I’m developing a rather fetching twitch in my right eye.

The reason? Music.

Original picture: Prawny, Pixabay

Barista Dreams. And nightmares.

Meet Barista Boy.

Barista Boy was headhunted by TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) to work in the cafe of the New Favourite Shop.

Trouble is, the New Favourite Shop doesn’t have a cafe, it has a building site, and unfortunately Barista Boy believed TBE’s promises that the cafe would soon be up and running.

It wasn’t.

It still isn’t.

Boss Wars part V: The Battle of the Stool

So we’ve been playing silly buggers with stools, TBE (aka The Boss Erratic) and I. Or you could say I’ve been glimpsing more of TBE’s cockeyed psyche. Via seating.

You see, when the Out of Favour (OOF) shop reopened there was nowhere to sit; TBE had taken the staff seat away.

‘So what?’, you might say, ‘You should be working instead of sitting on your arse’, which is fine (harsh, but fine), except I’m alone for the whole day with no break. Having no seat means standing up for eight hours straight. My feet don’t need that, they’re ugly enough.

Photo: PaintedFeet01, Pixabay

Scrumptious, with a little extra something....

In the OOFS (Out OF Favour Shop) there is a little (teeny, miniscule) café, and in the café there is cake; delicious, homemade cake crafted by independent local bakers.

Photo: lagrafika: Pixabay

At least, that’s how it started off. Unfortunately, TBE’s (aka The Boss Erratic’s) attention to detail being what it is, the cake very quickly became less homemade and more mass made. Basically, it now comes from the local supermarket. And if anyone asks if the cake is homemade (which they do), I have to tell them, “It’s sourced locally.” Great, eh?

Being (secretly) shop bought, the cake has a ‘use by’ date, and being (not so secretly) too small to swing an irritating boss in, the café has few customers, so there is often lots of cake leftover by the, ‘use by,’ date. This has to be thrown out.

Or does it?

How to (almost) lose a good shop girl part 2: in five weeks

(Also see: How to lose a good shop girl part 1:in ten seconds)

Photo: Schuldnerhilfe: Pixabay

I was having a lovely holiday. I was feeling happy and relaxed……and then I got a text from The Boss Erratic (aka TBE). (A quick word about TBE: she always texts. She never calls. It’s a way of keeping those annoying people who want your time and attention at arms length – like employees).

The text said:

How to lose a good shop girl part 1: in ten seconds

(Also see: How to (almost) lose a good shop girl part2: in five weeks).

Colleague Cockney wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea; she couldn’t spell (deciphering her messages was an interesting task), she had a foghorn voice that was drenched in nicotine, and she talked incessantly. Her cockney accent also drew comment (mainly from shop colleagues and The Boss Erratic, it has to be said, who were a bit sniffy).

Photo: 947051: Pixabay

Communicating with Colleague Cockney via phone was very different to communicating with The Boss Erratic (aka TBE). She liked to chat, in real time. 

In contrast, TBE does everything by text (it is not unusual for me to not see or speak to TBE for three or four months at a time. But that’s another post – I’ll let you know when I’ve written it).

Still, Colleague Cockney was new, and she was learning. She was fine in the shop on her own (there is only ever one person in the Out Of Favour shop at any one time), her attitude was good; she was cheerful, popular with customers and she had a good work ethic.

But Colleague Cockney got the sack. I am reliably informed it happened like this: