1. Denial
The day has just begun and all is well on the home front, at least for now. You get a few odd customers every once in a while, but mostly the registers are quiet. You begin to think that the whole day will be like this. And besides, you've done four hour shifts before. This is just that, twice. How bad could it possibly be? Right?
2. Anger
Where the hell did all of these customers come from all of a sudden? It's like they came from nowhere with the explicit purpose of making your life miserable. Don't they have better things to do? Do they really need that much yogurt? I mean I know it's on sale, but, good god, are they trying to start a yogurt cult or something? How dare they come into your house, with this level of disrespect, when you've already been here for...one whole hour. Take me now, Great Yogurt God.
3. Bargaining
It's hour three and you see a customer making a beeline for your register, cart overflowing. Ugh, they look like the type who will have coupons, likely expired. Probably wants their stuff double bagged in paper with the precise gravitational pull to account for wind resistance, or some other nonsense. Please, please do not let them come to my register, you think. You'll do anything, anything, if they just turn every so slightly, making their way to the poor sucker right next to you. You need this break. You NEED it. You and the customer make eye contact. Thanks for nothing.
4. Depression
You just came back from your break, and even though you held out hope that things would be better when you got back, nothing has changed. You're still tired, maybe even more so, and not a single person has seemed to realize the cosmic hopelessness of their situation and abandoned their fruitless mission to feed before they perish, like you had secretly wished. They're all still here. In fact, they're probably stuck here forever, just like you. You're all stuck together in an endless cycle of scanning and bagging, pushing and pulling, yin and yang.That, and your line isn't getting any shorter, plus your right foot is starting to hurt. We're all just pawns.
5. Acceptance
So, you're going to die here, but at least you had a good run. You're about an hour away from freedom, but it might as well be an eternity. Time stopped meaning anything to you around 5 gallons of milk ago. Your family will miss you, but hopefully they'll remember you at your best, like when you and that customer really bonded over your favorite flavor of Oreos, or when you gave that little kid a sticker from your drawer and his whole face lit up. Maybe it hasn't all been bad. I mean, yeah it was terrible, but was it really that bad? Okay yea, it was the worst, but still. You're tired and you're broken, but you'll live to scan another day. You'll be back, stronger, smarter, and one day closer to payday.
