By Rachel Morris

Sooo time got ahead of me before the 1st week even began. I think the school thought people would be doing nothing over the Christmas period other than having a cheery good old time with family and gave us work to complete each day. Each day I was also having to work at a supermarket, trying to move into a new house, packing up two peoples belongings, unpacking, cleaning, house shopping and food shopping and trying to talk/visit my friends and family whom I haven’t spoken to in months since Sca.

So to say I’ve been busy is an understatement,  I have a little bit of anger inside of me atm and to be honest the fact that this break hasn’t been a break at all will probably bite me in the ass later but oh well.

What this means is that as much as I wanted to volunteer at a retirement home I just literally didn’t have the time and it had nothing to do with my time management skills. So what did I do instead? I people watched on my – wait for it – break (lol) at work.

Usually I either work through my break so that I can leave earlier or I go to the canteen and actually sit down to eat, this time I went up, ate really fast then proceeded downstairs to watch the masses of idiots trying to do their shopping 1 hour before we close on Christmas Eve and being utterly shocked that we don’t have that playing table with a train set for a child age 2 that’s 2ft x 5ft that was reduced yesterday. (Actually had this)

It was so funny. I started off at cards, the dads were out tonight I can tell you that. I purposefully had my bag and my phone to show I was on a break but these men don’t care “ere love do you not have any cards that say for the two of you” “No sorry, we only have for the both of you” “ffs”. I walk away. Next section is toys and by god why would people bring kids on Christmas Eve to the TOY section!?

I quietly walked up the aisle pretending to be picking a toy and avoiding their eyes whilst listening and watching their actions. There was a proper cute 5ish-year-old staring at a Thomas the tank engine Walkie talkie set whilst his mum was on the phone asking what Jess wanted.. his mum lead him down the aisle and he walked, didn’t scream or shout just kept looking back at the toy. I hope he got that for Christmas.

As mentioned before I’ve been moving into a new house so even though I was meant to be people watching I couldn’t help but wander down the home isle, no surprises but nobody was there just me having a quick look over the gold accessories.

Then after that, I went to the reduction aisle because at this time every day the reduction vultures come out and I needed to laugh. These people suddenly lose all their very “British” manners and resort to prying, snapping and even fighting like cavemen over a 10p reduction on a cabbage. It’s crazy. Today was no different.

Vicky was doing the fresh reductions and I’ll kid you not, people were pinching stuff she hadn’t even stickered up yet from underneath her trolley. There were the usual suspects all walking slyly up and down the aisle trying to make us think they were just picking up some yogurts so that they can either steal the food or the stickers you’ve just printed for a lemon and put it on the finest fillet of steak (true event). It never works and today was no different.

This particular time there was a meal under the trolley that was out of date, a guy (regular) picked it up after she told him and tried to make off with it. (It’s illegal for us to sell out of date items) so obviously Vicky shouted and asked him to return it.

It felt like a western stakeout. He was so reluctant but eventually slammed the hot pot down on top of the trolley and said: “it’s disgusting how much this place throws away, it’s not pissing coming out of your pocket!”.

Although I hate customers like this I can’t help but agree with them on that part, which is why I tried to help reduce waste a little bit with my scholarship entry. However, I wish the vultures weren’t so sneaky and horribly rude, watching as an outsider infuriated me even more…My timer went off, my break is now over.

Rachel Morris