It is hard to pick where to start when there are so many wonderful personal and professional benefits to being a cashier at a supermarket. Beyond anything else, this has been the most reliable and consistent job I have ever had. Without a doubt, each day I walked into work I knew that that shift would be the same as my last shift. It was like living through the real-life version of the movie Groundhog day. Except I didn’t get a 96% rating on rotten tomatoes… Or make over $70 million in the box office… And Bill Murray wasn’t there… But, otherwise? It was February 2nd every day.
Juxtaposed with the stressful intellectual discussions that come with being a college student, the conversations I had with customers were a relief. The conversations were always easy. I never had to think of a harder question than “How are you today?” or “Do you have a customer card?”. I never had to think any deeper than how I was doing that day, or what the store hours were. Thank god, because if there is one thing that I loath about college, it is having to reach into the deep crevices of my brain to participate in stimulating discussions.
It may seem like I could practically doze off during my shifts, but don’t fret! I was always kept awake and alert by the refreshingly frigid temperatures of a supermarket. Customers may consider themselves lucky to get a little wake-up from the chill they get when they first walk into a supermarket, but it is really the cashiers who get to enjoy that chill for hours on end who are lucky. But do not worry, if not the chill from being stationed between the frozen food section, the produce section, and the door to the outside, the constant beeping of scanning bar-codes on everything from boxes of pasta and crackers to muffins and milk will keep you alert.
Also, as an environmental studies student, the supermarket gave me a new perspective on the other side of environmental conservation. I began to notice the high importance of plastic in our society. For some grocery store customers, double bagging isn’t enough. Their grapes, which come in their own plastic container, must be in their own, double-bagged bag, separate from their apple counterparts. Some days I truly contemplated the humanitarian aspect of becoming an environmentalist if the conservation of plastic meant that grapes and apples would have to fraternize in the same dingy, reusable bag.
Now how did I handle a whole semester of taking classes without becoming too absorbed by my dream job? Well, every two weeks I welcomed an envelop at the grocery store with my name on the outside and numbers I liked on the inside.
