Amounts To Very Little

The relentless aching in my bones has returned. This time last year I took up my post in retail assistant work after a nine month (or so) break to study. I say study because that's what makes me sound clever and hard working, but I say break because that's how it actually feels. Sure, undertaking a course with a view to obtaining a degree at the end of it is no picnic, but when compared to working in retail, I'd gladly spend every waking moment sat at a desk writing things, pottering about in the kitchen, communing with others who share similar ideas on the world and how to express them through the medium of words, reading, listening to various styles of music, practising target archery and worrying about deadlines, submissions and results. Alas, that's over for another year and I'm back to living in the moment.

Designated work in a shopping environment essentially boils down to one of three things:

Distribution:
In order for people to buy things, they need to be put onto shelves; that is, the things, not the people. Pallets, cases and boxes of merchandise arrive in the unseen, enigmatic "back" of the store, oftentimes referred to as the store room, the warehouse, or the back, obviously. Then, it's up to the human workforce to unload individual units ready for availability. Once an item has been put out for general sale, it's just a matter of time before it is inevitably picked up by a customer for purchase, leaving that particular shelf space empty once again.
Ultimately, it seems the labour amounts to very little in the grand scheme of things.

Presentation:
There's no point in arranging shelves in such a haphazard manner than nobody understands what anything is, where anything is or how much anything may cost; that is, unless, of course, you just live for the mystery. Organisiation is the key here. After all, it's basic human psychology that people are more likely to buy things if they're clearly laid out in neat rows and stacks on display in perfect uniformity as opposed to having all the presentability of a 3-year-old's toy box. Occasionally, customers may change their minds about purchasing the item they currently have in their possession and, rather than return it to where they originally picked it up, discard it on the nearest shelf. (This notion has been known to fuel my favourite work-based anecdote of "the time I found someone had dumped a bottle of bleach in the middle of the drinks; oh, what irony!") The store worker has a role to keep the uniformity alive, keep shelf mess to a minimum and to make sure that products appear in the designated places and discourage children from picking up that bottle of a new kind of juice they've just seen which is obviously edible because "it's lemon". Inevitably, whilst tidying in one place, somewhere else in the massive throng of consumers, someone is causing exactly what you're trying to prevent.
Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it seems the labour amounts to very little.

Transaction:
When all goods have been decided upon and taken successfully to the point of sales - that is, without anything having been left behind anywhere - it's time to exchange ownership of produce in lieu of currency. Many branches of super-duper-hyper-markets and several Tesco Extras across the country allow this portion of the work to be carried out by robots, thus paving the way for mass unemployment and that one day we shall come to know as "the rise of the machines". Smaller stores, independent retailers and market stalls, however, still prefer the human touch. Still, the people shouldn't do all the work; product ID numbers, in the form of black and white lines, are recognised by a red beam of light housed inside one of humanity's future oppressors. The customer makes their purchase when all items have been processed and a final tally of money owed is requested by the assistant. A single transaction can take less than a minute meaning that, once over, both customer and worker inevitably confine the event to the darkest recesses of their short-term memory where it is instantly forgotten about.
Ultimately, the labour amounts to very little, it seems, in the grand scheme of things.

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this particular bit of prose, working in retail is very much a living-in-the-moment profession. That's not to say there's anything wrong with it; heck, somebody's got to do the work at any rate and some people may prefer the lack of long-term problems to solve and not having to take work home with them as opposed to the idea of any sustained aspects of their day to day lives.

Okay, that last bit didn't really make much sense now, did it? But I don't care. These words exist here now and you just read them. You can't un-read them. Sure you can forget about them, but they'll still be here after you've gone. You can come back and read them again if you want, but nobody - absolutely nobody - can take them away or mess the order of them up. (Except maybe a malfunctioning bit of machinery.) The idea of writing, in my head, means that once a particular thought or message has been communicated, it has the opportunity to resonate within others. Novels have lasted over centuries for just that reason. Not that I'm comparing myself to Dickens or anything; for one thing, I'm still alive. For another, my ramble of crap is being hosted virtually.

I'd like to take this opportunity to cast a brief message into our unavoidable future:
ALL HAIL THE MACHINES.