Supermarket Jobs

Before we begin: This is just a quick introduction to the roles of your average supermarket. If you'd like to add to this, please append clearly show your edits (add your edit to the end of a paragraph in italics and mark it as your comment. I'd like my work to remain my own. Thanks, and i hope someone finds this useful! :)

Departments of a supermarket:

Fruit and Vegetables (Produce)

Responsibilities: Restocking fruit and veg throughout your shift, you will be replacing what customers are buying and you will likely be preparing the cut melons etc. You'd need to be good with customers, or at least confident talking to strangers and know your products well (or know how to spin bullshit to get people to leave you alone). This is a great bludging job, there are many periods of inactivity throughout the day where you won't need to refill any vegies. If you make sure you work really hard and fast during the busy periods then by the time it goes quite you wont have any backlog of work to finish up. Work hard in this department when its busy and it can be a very relaxing and fun job, just dont take it too seriously ;) Hours would be suitable for after-schoolers or as a part time job during the day, as all types of shifts would be available - opening, closing or midday.

Deli (ham, fresh meats etc)

Responsibilities: Serving customers. That's the big one, simple as that. As well as that you prepare the hams etc before being put in the cabinet, but your first priority is customers, second is hygene (well i guess these two are both as important as each other but you get the idea ;). To be successful here you just need to be able to put up with shit and be okay with working with meats all day, this part is important because cabinets that have been holding salami and other smelly meats all day can stink up a department easily. You will meet alot of shithead customers in this department, somehow ordering cold meats brings out the insane batshit crazy side of some people. If you're confident and can take some shit, and more importantly know when to give it (shovelling it back to the right ones can be fun) you should have a fun time in this department. The store manager will likely leave you alone, and not hastle you.

Seafood (Not always its own department, often part of the deli)

Same as seafood really! :)

Meat/Butcher

The meat unit is a good opportunity for a future career. You likely wouldnt be working in this without an apprenticeship or unless you had previous butchers experience, but really alot of your time will be spent preparing meat trays or making sausages. That involves feeding meat into a big grinder and feeding it into the tubes. Also you will be spending alot of time restocking chickens and meat trays on to show. Not terribly difficult work, but it's definitely something you would want to do before spending a full time week doing it over and over.

Grocery/Long Life

If you work in grocery you're likely just going to be drinks bitch or similar. Restock drinks throughout the day or any other high-maintenance aisles. If it wasnt for the drinks bitch the soft drink aisle would be empty after a couple of hours, as supermarkets sell so many soft drinks it needs to be refilled regularly. You'd be shocked how much coke we actually sell, alot more than toilet paper and anything else in the store for starters :)

Customer Service/Front End (Registers, service desk)

Checkout chick! Actually checkout is being more and more manned by males these days. This is occuring because guys are discovering how easy this job actually is :) Now, don't get me wrong, being a checkout chick is BORING, TEDIOUS and you stand on your feet for hours on end, but seriously it's easy. Another problem with this path, is that your whole job revolves around dealing with customers. Customers are anoying, stupid, rude, do not take no for an answer and are almost ALWAYS wrong. If you like easy, non-challenging work, swiping products if for you. Some checkout chicks like to defend their work, saying it's a tough job remembering so many fruit and vegetable codes. Yes, well, whatever, inbetween remembering codes you're spending lots of your shfit standing there doing nothing talking to the other chicks :) Special Note: Guys who really want a girlfriend, be a checkout chick :) You're guaranteed some action of some kind, if you're young it'll be good just to get you some experience in the dating world, however beware of the workplace drama that results from it.. especially if it fails, which it will after a while guaranteed :)

Nightfill (Staff who fill stock outside of working hours)

This job is done by people from all walks of life, and for all different reasons. There is no stereotypical nightfiller, as much as some people like to think (Nightfillers are often treated with disrepect because they are pretty much trained for speed and that's it). If you often find yourself awake at night and bored, and sleep during the day, you may find nightfill is a good idea for extra cash. You work after the store closes until whenever that night's deliveries are filled. You need to be able to fill fast and that's about it, any retard can be a nightfiller, but if you really are a retard then chances are you won't be staying for long, it is actually a demanding job however I feel the payoffs are worth it. Meet great people, rule the store with no customers around, can be lots of fun :)

Comment: Nightfill aren't so much treated with disrespect, rather, no respect at all. I've found that nightfill are treated with the same level of contempt as the store cleaners, ie, a necessary evil, even though without them, every store would grind to a halt. This is because Nightfill are expected to fill at three to four times the carton rate (per person) of the grocery daystaff. If you're looking for a career in supermarkets, Nightfill is the worst possable option, in that it's a dead-end. You get no thanks, and all the blame. That said, it does keep you fit, and there are no customers to bother you. Just expect the grocery managers to lie to your face on a daily basis.

Supermarket Jobs

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