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The Checkout Girl: My Life on the Supermarket Conveyor Belt
How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket? We see them every week and they are privy to some of our most intimate secrets - those we wouldn't even share with our closest friends. To us they are the anonymous helpers for whom nothing is too much trouble. But for them, every customer has a part in a gripping soap-opera of lovers' tiffs, family feuds and extraordinary innuendos - turning the daily life of a checkout girl into a hilariously entertaining farce. As we began to contend with the recession, Tazeen Ahmad realised that the supermarket checkout was the perfect place to gauge how the nation was coping with increasing job cuts, sky-high food prices and a billion pound hole in our economy. The answer, it turns out, was with white bread, ice cream and lots and lots of potatoes. Sworn at, flirted with and at the receiving end of endless customer rants, The Checkout Girl is the deliciously gossipy memoir of life on the supermarket conveyor belt where each one of us has unwittingly had a walk-on part. Reading her story will change the way you shop forever.
262 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
July 13, 2011
This was so soooo funny. I think I found it even funnier as I have worked in retail myself though not at Sainsburys as the lady who wrote this book did. I worked at WH Smiths but it seems that the management there are quite similar to those at Sainsburys that feature in this very humourous book. I read it and at time I laughed out loud, I sympathised as I have been that girl on the checkout when the scanner wont work and the queue is snaking down the store. The whole thing about the relationships you have with customers is so true too. I was made redundant in 2009 and still people I used to serve speak to me when they see me. The stories about the customers are not even exaggerated they dont need to be as they are so true to life it is amazing. I even have done the whole dropping yourself in it by being friendly to certain customers.This is the sort of book you can dip in and out of or like me read loads of in one sitting as I couldnt put it down. its a roflol book (Roll On Floor Laugh Out Loud for those that dont do text speak)
January 15, 2013
I enjoyed this book very much indeed and read it in pretty much one sitting. I've been a checkout girl for the Co-operative and I've got to say that much of what I read here was frighteningly familiar. The line "By the end of Day One, I've learned that those at the bottom of the rung have about as many rights as the frozen chickens sitting in aisle 33" pretty much sums it up for the rights of your average COG as the author christens them. The mystery shoppers and their impossible standards, the aggressive abrupt customers and the issues surrounding age-related sales and just how customers react to being challenged for ID were pretty much in accord with my own experiences. The disinterested and arbitrary attitudes of the supervisors/managers towards the people who are actually keeping their store running was also pretty much spot on. The author also nicely encapsulates the growing hatred that your average COG will feel towards their customer and the unreasonableness of that same customer when you want to either close your till after an 8 hour shift with inadequate/non-existent breaks or refuse to accept an out of date coupon because there is a very real possibility you will either lose your job or face disciplinary measures if you do. Richard, the manager, sounds like one in a million to me - I've yet to meet a supermarket manager who is any good at his/her job/does anything productive/supports his or her staff in any way whatsoever/does not immediately blame the COGS when something goes wrong.
Some of the reviewers seem to have focused on the author using this experience as a way to enhance her own finances; however I formed a different interpretation. The author pretty early on states that she is doing this for purposes of journalism and forming an accurate impression of how the recession is affecting people on the front line. She also states at the end that she feels a little guilty about the friendships she has formed during her time at Sainsburys and she later goes on to relate her feeling that she is betraying them by the real reason she has taken the job there. If there is a fault with this book, it is the author's slightly patronising attitude to the genuine staff members. Even if she is trying to report "from the inside out", she hasn't quite managed it because always at the back of her mind, the author must have known that it wouldn't matter if she did fail her probation, because she's not really a COG at all. That's also probably why she passed and Michelle, the character who obsesses about it all the time, still hasn't as at the end of the book. It probably also accounts for her fearlessness in dressing down the managers when they attempt to unjustly mark her down for her customer service skills - ask yourself, if you really NEEDED that job and couldn't afford to lose it, would you argue with the boss like that? No, you'd be like the rest of us, meekly agreeing with anything they say, no matter how unjust, just because you need to keep in their good books and they're more likely to throw you out than that chicken on aisle 33.
This point aside, I still found this book a really engaging read which I found difficult to put down. I'm going to lend it to all my fellow COGS; and it really did do my heart good to find that Sainsbury's sounds like a worst employer than The Co-operative (and that's saying something, believe me).
Some of the reviewers seem to have focused on the author using this experience as a way to enhance her own finances; however I formed a different interpretation. The author pretty early on states that she is doing this for purposes of journalism and forming an accurate impression of how the recession is affecting people on the front line. She also states at the end that she feels a little guilty about the friendships she has formed during her time at Sainsburys and she later goes on to relate her feeling that she is betraying them by the real reason she has taken the job there. If there is a fault with this book, it is the author's slightly patronising attitude to the genuine staff members. Even if she is trying to report "from the inside out", she hasn't quite managed it because always at the back of her mind, the author must have known that it wouldn't matter if she did fail her probation, because she's not really a COG at all. That's also probably why she passed and Michelle, the character who obsesses about it all the time, still hasn't as at the end of the book. It probably also accounts for her fearlessness in dressing down the managers when they attempt to unjustly mark her down for her customer service skills - ask yourself, if you really NEEDED that job and couldn't afford to lose it, would you argue with the boss like that? No, you'd be like the rest of us, meekly agreeing with anything they say, no matter how unjust, just because you need to keep in their good books and they're more likely to throw you out than that chicken on aisle 33.
This point aside, I still found this book a really engaging read which I found difficult to put down. I'm going to lend it to all my fellow COGS; and it really did do my heart good to find that Sainsbury's sounds like a worst employer than The Co-operative (and that's saying something, believe me).
July 19, 2015
Why, exactly, I picked this book up; I’m not sure: other than it was priced at twenty pence in a charity (thrift) shop, and looked like it might provide passing amusement. It succeeded in that.
All credit to Mrs Ahmad for identifying a previously untreated angle on a subject of common experience of broad concern, the weekly food shopping during financial recession, and to use that entreé to generate considerably more personal profit than she’d be likely to make during a life’s career working on a supermarket till.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/art... That’s the fundamental lesson to be learned here. Keep your eyes open! I have been known to occasionally shop in Sainsbury’s; however my experience has been nothing like what Mrs A., an investigative journalist, describes in this book: such as the bright conversation with customers that her employer demanded!
Is this book really non-fiction (as claimed)? Could any major supermarket check-out operator at work actually physically and simultaneously keep sufficiently detailed notes on so many customers and their conversations and purchases passing through her check-out; or asking her where in the store they can find some much needed item? I don’t know. I’d hope that she wasn’t surreptitiously using a voice recorder. Are her customers’ composites? Do I care? No. Like Mrs A, I thought it odd that so many people should bemoan spending more money than they had intended. What’s difficult about using a basic electric calculator (dedicated or on a mobile device); or even pen, paper, and mental addition to keep tabs on the growing liabilities in the trolley!
Early on I had decided that I was reading this undemanding book purely for amusement, and would apply little or no deeper thought. Yes, it IS an amusing, though shallow, read, which would be better at half the length. However sometimes in Life, days come along where one needs a book that can be read without need for too much application of thought, a way of passing time expensively (if bought at £10.99, new).
There are an awful lot of challenging, fascinating, educating, entertaining, questioning, emotive, exciting, and life enhancing books in this wonderful world of ours. Time’s precious. In the grand universe of books, “The Checkout Girl” is not a priority read; except perhaps for those who struggle to grasp the concept of planning meals in advance and making a shopping list before they enter a supermarket, and sticking to buying only what’s on their list.
All credit to Mrs Ahmad for identifying a previously untreated angle on a subject of common experience of broad concern, the weekly food shopping during financial recession, and to use that entreé to generate considerably more personal profit than she’d be likely to make during a life’s career working on a supermarket till.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/art... That’s the fundamental lesson to be learned here. Keep your eyes open! I have been known to occasionally shop in Sainsbury’s; however my experience has been nothing like what Mrs A., an investigative journalist, describes in this book: such as the bright conversation with customers that her employer demanded!
Is this book really non-fiction (as claimed)? Could any major supermarket check-out operator at work actually physically and simultaneously keep sufficiently detailed notes on so many customers and their conversations and purchases passing through her check-out; or asking her where in the store they can find some much needed item? I don’t know. I’d hope that she wasn’t surreptitiously using a voice recorder. Are her customers’ composites? Do I care? No. Like Mrs A, I thought it odd that so many people should bemoan spending more money than they had intended. What’s difficult about using a basic electric calculator (dedicated or on a mobile device); or even pen, paper, and mental addition to keep tabs on the growing liabilities in the trolley!
Early on I had decided that I was reading this undemanding book purely for amusement, and would apply little or no deeper thought. Yes, it IS an amusing, though shallow, read, which would be better at half the length. However sometimes in Life, days come along where one needs a book that can be read without need for too much application of thought, a way of passing time expensively (if bought at £10.99, new).
There are an awful lot of challenging, fascinating, educating, entertaining, questioning, emotive, exciting, and life enhancing books in this wonderful world of ours. Time’s precious. In the grand universe of books, “The Checkout Girl” is not a priority read; except perhaps for those who struggle to grasp the concept of planning meals in advance and making a shopping list before they enter a supermarket, and sticking to buying only what’s on their list.
November 14, 2011
This is like literary chewing-gum, in that it requires very little concentration or brain-power. It occasionally descends into mild unintentional farce as the author tries to convince you of her economic and sociological theories developed behind the till, and the frequent complaints can grate. But (and please whisper this) I really, really enjoyed it. Yes, really.
March 4, 2011
Very interesting. Made me realise what Sainsbury's is like as an employer.
October 29, 2012
Partly for short-term financial reasons (she needed the extra cash) and partly for long-term financial reasons (she wanted to write a book), Tazeen Ahmad decided to spend the recession working as a checkout girl in one of Britain's Sainsbury's supermarkets. She lasted for a couple of months, from November 2008 until May 2009.
Supermarket life is about as non-juicy as I expected it to be, but it was interesting to see a perspective from the other side. At Sainsbury's, for example, the checkout girls are required to carry on deep conversations (more than just "How are you doing today?") with their customers. I always figured the poor clerks were just bored and looking for a diversion, and that's why they insisted on trying to engage me in conversation. (For the record, I've never been rude to a checkout person, but I'm also not looking to spill my guts at the supermarket. I think I'm one of those polite-but-not-chatty people that Tazeen dislikes because they make her look bad in front of any supervisors who may be observing.)
One of Tazeen's primary reasons for taking the job (or so she says) was to gauge people's reactions to the recession and learn about any coping mechanisms. So as she engaged customers in the required conversation, she usually asked them recession-related questions. I'm not sure what she expected to find. Most responses seemed to be along the lines of "I know lots of people who are out of work," and "I'm shopping at this discount supermarket because finances are a bit tight." Tazeen was writing this like it was a big revelation, but it all kind of seemed like a no-brainer to me.
But the book was fun and funny, mostly breezy and lighthearted. I liked reading about the different types of difficult customers (and patting myself on the back for never being THAT type of customer). I'll be more aware of the supermarket personnel next time I go shopping.
Supermarket life is about as non-juicy as I expected it to be, but it was interesting to see a perspective from the other side. At Sainsbury's, for example, the checkout girls are required to carry on deep conversations (more than just "How are you doing today?") with their customers. I always figured the poor clerks were just bored and looking for a diversion, and that's why they insisted on trying to engage me in conversation. (For the record, I've never been rude to a checkout person, but I'm also not looking to spill my guts at the supermarket. I think I'm one of those polite-but-not-chatty people that Tazeen dislikes because they make her look bad in front of any supervisors who may be observing.)
One of Tazeen's primary reasons for taking the job (or so she says) was to gauge people's reactions to the recession and learn about any coping mechanisms. So as she engaged customers in the required conversation, she usually asked them recession-related questions. I'm not sure what she expected to find. Most responses seemed to be along the lines of "I know lots of people who are out of work," and "I'm shopping at this discount supermarket because finances are a bit tight." Tazeen was writing this like it was a big revelation, but it all kind of seemed like a no-brainer to me.
But the book was fun and funny, mostly breezy and lighthearted. I liked reading about the different types of difficult customers (and patting myself on the back for never being THAT type of customer). I'll be more aware of the supermarket personnel next time I go shopping.
July 5, 2011
This was an enjoyable read about life as a Sainsbury's checkout assistant. The author worked in the supermarket for six months in 2008/2009, just as the recession was starting to take hold. The book is partly an expose of the working practices of the supermarket giant (constant observations and mystery shops, plus the expectation that every customer enjoys a good natter and that the checkout staff should initiate that- even when it's blindingly obvious that the customer is in a rush/a bad mood/ just doesn't want to talk!) but it also paints an interesting picture of how some customers treat shop staff ... Some people have really good relationships with checkout girls, sharing family news, recipes and more, but others are incredibly rude. The book is also an interesting look at how the recession affected people's shopping habits.
This book is written in a chatty conversational style, but I found that it tended to get a bit repetitive in the second half - another observation, another rude customer, another staff bitching session, ho hun. Could probably have done the job in less pages really.
Overall though I did enjoy this and I will probably try some of the recipes customers shared with the author!
This book is written in a chatty conversational style, but I found that it tended to get a bit repetitive in the second half - another observation, another rude customer, another staff bitching session, ho hun. Could probably have done the job in less pages really.
Overall though I did enjoy this and I will probably try some of the recipes customers shared with the author!
August 20, 2012
Seemingly anonymous to her customers, the girl at the till finds them the source of endless entertainment: lovers' tiffs, farcical family feuds and intimate secrets. I checked this book out of my local library as it was recommended to me by a friend, I didn't have high hopes for this book but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. In theory this book sounds very dull, it's about the author's (Tazeen Ahmad) time as a check out girl in Sainsbury's. It's written in a series of diary entries and talks a lot about the recession and the state of the economy in 2008/2009. Now this may not sounds like an exciting page turner but I couldn't put this book down, I enjoyed people watching through the author's eyes! It's amazing what information people will divulge to a complete stranger. I recommend this book if you're looking for a quick and easy read and it's definitely geared towards women, I'm not sure that boys or men would enjoy this book.
June 6, 2014
(Originally posted on Rai29BookReadNReview)
ISBN: 9780007327720
Publisher: Friday Project
Pages: 262
How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket?
The Checkout Girl by Tazeen Ahmad is about her experiences as a Checkout Girl or COG in Sainsburys supermarket at the start of the recession. Tazeen writes about the lovers' tiffs, family feuds, flirty customers, and endless customer rants & complaints she saw daily.
I enjoyed Tazeen Ahmad's book The Checkout Girl. It was well written, funny and lighthearted. I enjoyed reading about her experiences with awkard, cheeky and friendly customers alike, as well as how she dealt with her colleagues.
ISBN: 9780007327720
Publisher: Friday Project
Pages: 262
How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket?
The Checkout Girl by Tazeen Ahmad is about her experiences as a Checkout Girl or COG in Sainsburys supermarket at the start of the recession. Tazeen writes about the lovers' tiffs, family feuds, flirty customers, and endless customer rants & complaints she saw daily.
I enjoyed Tazeen Ahmad's book The Checkout Girl. It was well written, funny and lighthearted. I enjoyed reading about her experiences with awkard, cheeky and friendly customers alike, as well as how she dealt with her colleagues.
November 6, 2011
Superb book. I thought it was fiction but it's not, it's more of a blog of life as a checkout girl in Sainsbury's. Having been one myself when in the Sixth form, I could relate to a lot of it, although there were no scanners or PIN pads in my day, lol.
Brilliant, lively writing, with the recession as a background giving a common theme.
If you read this, you'll know why the checkout girls have to chatter inanely and whizz through the items as they have to acheive a items per minute scanning rate.
First class read.
Brilliant, lively writing, with the recession as a background giving a common theme.
If you read this, you'll know why the checkout girls have to chatter inanely and whizz through the items as they have to acheive a items per minute scanning rate.
First class read.
January 15, 2016
I like this book. It gives great insight into the lives of the COG's in supermarkets and what they have to deal with daily. It's amazing how rude and unreasonable some people can become as soon as they walk through those large doors and the secrets they impart to nameless faceless people they meet through out the day.
May 3, 2012
Journalist Tazeen spent six months working in Sainsbury and writes about her experiences. It was a real 'eye-opener' as I'm a regular Sainsbury shopper and have since chatted to the COGs about the book and they were intrigued - most admitting to living in terror of the 'Mystery Customer'.
It certainly gives the reader some perspective about life behind the checkouts.
It certainly gives the reader some perspective about life behind the checkouts.
October 9, 2012
Interesting behind-the-scenes of life as a checkout girl. But more like a diary than offering huge insight. Read it because I was a checkout girl in sixth form and wanted to know it wasn't just me who HATED the till bosses.
June 13, 2011
Simple language, great flow and interesting account of a checkout girl's daily experiences. Served the purpose! Now I would never look at them the same way i.e indifferently.
January 23, 2012
A bit samey, but then her experience of her job is just that! But always a pleasure to get to read pages and pages of everyday details about everyday people.
March 9, 2019
Lovely tribute to anyone who has ever been 'A. Cog' - took me right back to my youth!
March 8, 2014
To begin with I felt Tazeen Ahmed was being slightly snobbish about the reason why she became a checkout girl, but after a few pages in the story lost this edge and was a very good read.
July 24, 2016
Excellent & Funny
Real eye opener into the mind of a checkout girl, no two days are the same for any checkout girl
Real eye opener into the mind of a checkout girl, no two days are the same for any checkout girl
December 25, 2017
Reminds me of the recession time during the financial crisis, good old sainsbury, still one of my favourite supermarket in the Uk. Stories of meeting shoppers is hilarious in the book.
April 14, 2024
Tazeen Ahmad has captured the essence of working a public facing job and distilled it onto paper. Despite its publishing in 2009, this book, which chronicles her experiences, still has relevance today. Ahmad infiltrated a supermarket and worked as a check out girl just as the economic recession in 2008 was affecting the population. It was interesting to compare the scenarios and observations Ahamd described 16 years ago to what I observe today. She describes what it is like working in an entry-level job and the treatment by the public and management towards “unskilled” labor.
I really, really enjoyed this book. Having worked public facing customer service jobs before and during covid, everything Ahmad describes rings true. She combines excellent storytelling with fact finding, as well as a firsthand account of the beginning of the 2008 recession. Her humor lightens her description of tense situations, and she is unabashed with sharing her blunders as she navigates this job. She observes how people tend to disassociate and leave their manners and decorum at the door exposing their bad and off the wall behavior to frontline staff. This book is a time capsule that illustrates the point, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Some readers may take issue with the formulaic approach to the entries; however, her record is accurate to how a day working a retail (or receptionist/barista/etc.) job goes. I highly recommend reading this book and I personally will be loaning it out to family and friends.
I really, really enjoyed this book. Having worked public facing customer service jobs before and during covid, everything Ahmad describes rings true. She combines excellent storytelling with fact finding, as well as a firsthand account of the beginning of the 2008 recession. Her humor lightens her description of tense situations, and she is unabashed with sharing her blunders as she navigates this job. She observes how people tend to disassociate and leave their manners and decorum at the door exposing their bad and off the wall behavior to frontline staff. This book is a time capsule that illustrates the point, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Some readers may take issue with the formulaic approach to the entries; however, her record is accurate to how a day working a retail (or receptionist/barista/etc.) job goes. I highly recommend reading this book and I personally will be loaning it out to family and friends.
April 17, 2020
The Checkout Girl was written mid 2000 when we had the big economic crash and it's life through the eyes of a checkout girl I liked it as it like Bridget Jones written in diary format so you can dip in and out easily but as someone who loves people watching or those half heard conversations or in her case creating a life from what is in the trolley/basket made me think more carefully on my weekly shop!! Light fun easy to read- totes opposite of my normal read so it must be good!
December 25, 2017
Got to 31% before I finally decided to give up reading further. This book was interesting for a while but became yawn-inducing when nearly every conversation with customers at the checkout counter was about the recession. Nearly one third into the book, nothing new had come up. Ya...wn...
September 18, 2021
Still relevant years after publishing!
November 3, 2011
A book about working as a checkout girl at Sainsbury's supermarket - wouldn't that be boring? Why yes, yes it is. It seemed as though this book was written to make the reading experience echo the tedium of working on the tills.
It's written as a series of diary entries, and every day is very similar: no comfy chairs to sit on, rude customers, the occasional joke, more rude customers, and never-ending complaints about the cost of food and the state of the British economy. It reminded me of my time working for a national retailer.
The book lacked an overall storyline, and seemed to have no investigative journalistic purpose other than exposing how boring it is to work in a supermarket, and how rude people can be when they're stressed from shopping.
There are some brighter moments - mainly from customers buying pregnancy testing kits, customers who budget carefully and don't fall for special offers (so they don't end up swearing when they see the final bill), and trolley boy - the quirky staff member who is full of random facts. I also enjoyed the author's angry letters she composed in her head to Gordon Brown/Rude Customers/Sainsbury's managment.
The one redeeming feature was that I was reminded how much I don't want to go back to working in retail.
Overall, not recommended. This would have made a good feature article in a magazine. It should never have been made into an book.
It's written as a series of diary entries, and every day is very similar: no comfy chairs to sit on, rude customers, the occasional joke, more rude customers, and never-ending complaints about the cost of food and the state of the British economy. It reminded me of my time working for a national retailer.
The book lacked an overall storyline, and seemed to have no investigative journalistic purpose other than exposing how boring it is to work in a supermarket, and how rude people can be when they're stressed from shopping.
There are some brighter moments - mainly from customers buying pregnancy testing kits, customers who budget carefully and don't fall for special offers (so they don't end up swearing when they see the final bill), and trolley boy - the quirky staff member who is full of random facts. I also enjoyed the author's angry letters she composed in her head to Gordon Brown/Rude Customers/Sainsbury's managment.
The one redeeming feature was that I was reminded how much I don't want to go back to working in retail.
Overall, not recommended. This would have made a good feature article in a magazine. It should never have been made into an book.
June 11, 2011
"One customer has left his ailing wife in the car. ‘And because of that not only have I saved my ears from all her moaning, I’ve saved money and time. Twenty minutes flat, it took me.’"
Some of the anecdotes were amusing and some of the treatment by members of the public shocking, but in the main this was a fairly boring look into what is, of course, a fairly boring job.
"'You just don’t know what to do with them. Stop thinking too hard. Keep it simple. Cook them on their own with garlic. Cook them in a tomato sauce with chicken. Throw them in a risotto. They’re not a nondescript, part-of-the-furniture kind of vegetable. Once you know how to cook them, you won’t look back.' I’m not convinced, but I love the fact that he tries to advocate the virtues of the not-so-cool cousin of the cucumber."
Ahmad's not glorifying the work, which is something, and she's genuinely happy when discussing certain colleagues and managerial staff. But overall, I thought this was something of a humdrum work.
Some of the anecdotes were amusing and some of the treatment by members of the public shocking, but in the main this was a fairly boring look into what is, of course, a fairly boring job.
"'You just don’t know what to do with them. Stop thinking too hard. Keep it simple. Cook them on their own with garlic. Cook them in a tomato sauce with chicken. Throw them in a risotto. They’re not a nondescript, part-of-the-furniture kind of vegetable. Once you know how to cook them, you won’t look back.' I’m not convinced, but I love the fact that he tries to advocate the virtues of the not-so-cool cousin of the cucumber."
Ahmad's not glorifying the work, which is something, and she's genuinely happy when discussing certain colleagues and managerial staff. But overall, I thought this was something of a humdrum work.
September 23, 2012
I have read a previous similar ebook about life on the checkout and was advised from reviews this is a better book for the english market. However I don't agree, I found it bland a bit boring. I was hoping for a bit more 'meat' to the stories but they somewhat all faded into the background. She was discussing the 'recession' that is affecting everyones shopping, however the stark reality is that it went on longer than they thought and that supermarkets rob us of all our money anyway.
She did it as a mission to understand supermarkets and write about them, and also as a little bit of extra cash. However having personal experience on a till I really didn't feel like I could relate to this one much. Her writing style didnt muster much excitement and I found my way trudging through the pages. It felt a little outdated and it felt like she was trying to hard.
She did it as a mission to understand supermarkets and write about them, and also as a little bit of extra cash. However having personal experience on a till I really didn't feel like I could relate to this one much. Her writing style didnt muster much excitement and I found my way trudging through the pages. It felt a little outdated and it felt like she was trying to hard.
February 19, 2012
An exciting enough premise for a book but not executed very well. Amazon's Kindle is a fantastic creation and with that seems to have come a plethora of books similar to this e.g. life as a teacher, paramedic, doctor etc and this one is about, as the title says, a checkout girl.
I think anybody who has worked in retail can relate to this book. Some of the stories are funny, and some of them are downright ridiculous. The practices of the company the author worked for were a bit shocking as well, including the amount of checks they carry out on their staff during the day etc.
Overall it was an okay read but nothing amazing. The fact that it is cheap on Kindle means it sells a lot, a lot like all the other similar books.
I think anybody who has worked in retail can relate to this book. Some of the stories are funny, and some of them are downright ridiculous. The practices of the company the author worked for were a bit shocking as well, including the amount of checks they carry out on their staff during the day etc.
Overall it was an okay read but nothing amazing. The fact that it is cheap on Kindle means it sells a lot, a lot like all the other similar books.
March 27, 2013
As a former checkout girl myself I found this to be an interesting read. Seeing another person's point of view was nice, albeit the fact that the girl in question was a writer only undertaking the job to write about it took away some of the naturalness from the read. Heavy with statistics and facts and figures which many check out girls/shop assistants don't care two figs for (believe me, I know) it was informative to a degree and at times sweet, sad and funny. A light read, in the end, but not quite as good as it could have been.
September 20, 2009
Took me a long time to get through. The book covered a woman who took a role at Sainsburys to make some extra money. The time period was within the past year as the economic crisis unraveled.
I did find the scenarios the lead character encountered redundant after a while. There were customers who fell into distinct buckets in terms of how they were handled along with co-workers. I enjoyed the first half of the book but did lose interest after that.
I did find the scenarios the lead character encountered redundant after a while. There were customers who fell into distinct buckets in terms of how they were handled along with co-workers. I enjoyed the first half of the book but did lose interest after that.
February 25, 2012
A slightly monotonous read about a very monotonous situation. Some of her observations were a bit clichéd and at times her tone bordered on patronising. But it has made me think about supermarkets in a different way and it was a fascinating look at Britain in a recession. Perhaps it would be even more interesting with some distance, maybe in 10 or 20 years time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews