Though our shoppers are cray-cray, the workers are also human, so, here’s also some stuff that fellow store workers have done…

So, as old faces retire or move to other job opportunities, new faces arrive. Most are great! Some, though, not as great.

Amongst them is a nice Ukrainian lady! Her Latvian might be really limited, but she's doing her best. And in two years, she is quite fluent with only some slip-ups or confusing words, but considering she is over 50, a refugee and in a country with a completely different language compared to what she knows, she is than good and knows more Latvian then Ruzzians who have been living in Latvia their entire lives. And she happily shows us the homework she does with her teacher and sometimes asks specific words and how to use them, because she forgets details, but excellent work, I’d say.

We used to have a street cat the lady coworkers would buy food for, a cute white and orange fluffy kitty, very polite, liked to chill by the smoking area at the back of the warehouse. But then a temp security guard came in for a few shifts and took the cat home with her. While, you know, nice, she did it randomly and without talking about it with anyone (like, what if she had been somebody's cat who just liked to visit them? There are plenty of apartments around). From what I heard, a lot of the collective just told her to never come back and then told the firm she works for to never send her to them ever again. Haven't seen her nor the cat since.

One of the cashiers bought a crap ton of fish for his aquarium. Needed help coming up with names for his black and blue fish boy – the whole Cashier Team was helping that day. He got offers from Sirius to Sonic to Chuck (Bass) to Billy to Nebula to Cosmo…he went with Darius. And then he added two more fish, a yellow and black girl now named Stella and a silver-ish and black one named Luna.

He decided to joke with the Store Director and told her about wanting to give some of his fishes to the store, for viewing purposes, as in, the calm fish could help the workers relax during breaks. He shared how funny he thought it was. Except, later he heard Store Director the next day talking with some other workers that one of the Service Managers found an old aquarium in their storage and are now wondering where exactly to put the thing in the small kitchen.

He said, "Guess Imma gonna have to encourage my fish to start making babies. Think I should give them lighting and music ambiance for the mood?"

He considers getting either crabs or lobsters for the aquarium. We jokingly asked about crocodiles. He said his apartment was too small for crocs.

Oh, he had also finally found what he had been looking for ages: a white lady kitten. Dude went to another city at butt-crack-o'clock to get her, before somebody else did. I don’t recall why he wanted that particular cat, but he had been obsessed over finding her.

The Universe clearly decided to make me suffer, as when I was pushing baskets to their place by the entrance from the SCO while I let the SCO admin out on a break, I stubbed my pinky toe badly on the little trolleys for the baskets – Head Cashier joked about 'workplace injury right there', which turned out to be true, as my pinky fingers nail cracked and started bleeding and stained my sock a bit.

Then when I was walking from the locker rooms after bandaging my crescent moon on the back cracked toenail, a part of a removed fridge had slid down enough that it banged me on the right side of the forehead and left a red mark for a few days. And then later, I banged both of my knees on parts at the register…I was clearly cursed that day.

And people were getting sick at random, anything from the cold to the flu to COVID to a seizure that requires hospitalization, so, work was fun, especially after you come back from vacation and see the new schedule and what shifts get tossed to you. It’s always a toss-up how crazy things can get when you’re not at work.

One Cashier got over Covid and returned to work, but she felt so shitty the whole day, management was considering asking her to take some more days off to recover. Only for her to suddenly loose consciousness and slump in her seat. Paramedics put her barely conscious self on the wheely bed to get her to a hospital.

She was released a day or two later and she came to the store – apparently, she managed to bite through the bottom part of her lower lip when she slumped, somehow. The scab was really visible.

A person could be hired just as you go on vacation and let go by the time you got back, because of how bad they were at the job. And we don’t want to just let people go, understand that, but we do need people that can do the job that has a lot of moving, counting and communicate with people.

Some people thrive in specific jobs more than others or even other locations. Like one Ukrainian boy, he worked fast and well, but also hit the buttons quite hard, which resulted in three incidents where he broke things that required a professional to come and fix it, but after he moved to another store, I heard he’s doing quite well there.

Most people can be trained, they can be taught, they can learn and grow. But some people, well…

We had a New Girl, fresh out of high school and wanting to get some cash and experience. Sure, why not? Hire her on, train her and since most people are away in the summer and having more staff allows the others to go on their summer vacations, it seemed like a good plan, done for years.

But she was having…problems. For one, she was constantly on the phone at the register. Now, we can have our phones on us – in case we need to call someone or such, but we generally not allowed to use them willy nilly, like say…talk with friends on whatsapp when you have a line of people. Next was, she was always in the minus at the end of the day, nearly 50 euros each time was missing from her register.

But then she stole 150 euros when she was told to go on a lunch break…and never came back. Just took the three 50 euro bills, grabbed her shit and left. When she didn't reappear after 40 minutes, Security Guard J and Head Cashier of the day went looking for her and found out what happened – she has basically stolen over 260 euros from us. Store Director tried to be reasonable and told Ex-New Girl if she brought the money back, she won't get in trouble. She didn't. So, a police report was filed. She's just 19 and fresh out of school and has messed up massively. Who would want to hire a thief now?

One guy was being trained by a Cashier, with her calling out codes for products so he can write them in the system to move the line faster. Think a few hours of that, so when one of the most commonly bought fruits appeared on the lane, Cashier asked what is its code, the New Guy just shrugged and said no idea. I think he was there for a month before he left for a different job.

Another lady, she was a bit odd, but nothing strange. While her training went fine, trouble started afterwards. Speed is something that can be worked in, but she was not following along with what was happening - like, the system is quite dumb, so when the card reader detects the store card it accepts it, but sometimes it double reads and a pop-up says it can’t double read it. Most see it and dismiss it with a button and go on, New Lady, though, just kept scanning. She scanned 16 EUR worth of products, but pushed through 60 EUR, all while not dismissing the pop-up. We are lucky the shopper was an honest one and brought it to the attention of an older worker. When asked about it, New Lady just shrugged and said she didn’t think it mattered.

Her misadventures in the SCO, well, we also have a Mobile Shopping system, that sometimes has the attendant do a manual check if everything matches before sending people on their way. New Lady just shrugged and walked away, saying she has no clue how it works…when she could ask either of the two people sitting near the SCO to help her in that regard. The Head Cashier nearly had a heart attack when she saw the 13 (thirteen) Manual Checks waiting in the system and that they were HOURS old! Again, New Lady just shrugged and said she didn’t think it mattered.

Several more attempts at training by different Head Cashiers and Cashiers, but ultimately, Store Director chose to let her go, it was just not feasible to look at what she is doing and do their own work during the shift.

Except, she decidedly ignored the change in scheduling and the message to meet with the Store Director and went up to the Head Cashier and Cashier of the day, cheerfully asking where she will be sitting that day. It took several minutes to finally have her talk with the Store Director.

Ex-New Lady wasn’t even mad, walked away by saying “Now I can focus on becoming a politician!“ We all just looked at each other at that and decided to not talk about her after that.

Doesn’t stop us from using her as a story to tell the newbies.

Part 7, completed. Well, that was SOME stories involving colleagues, not too many, just ones that I recall the easiest. Next time, Part 8 will be going back to shoppers and how nasty they can get.