I’m looking at the punch clock. I have ten minutes to wait until I’m allowed to clock in and begin my shift. I count to sixty, but I jumped through the numbers too fast. There are still ten minutes between me and the shift. The door to the dairy cooler is opening. A man about my height is pushing it open with his back; two large hearing aids are wedged in his ears. Despite them, he still doesn’t hear me when I try to exchange words with him in the break room. I back away, leaving him room to put the black milk crates below the punch clock. I feel the sharp breeze from the cooler, from him. Beneath his two jackets he’s wearing the same red shirt as me, and if he moves right I bet I could get a glimpse of it. Nine minutes remain before my shift begins. I’m not one to understand much about aesthetics, but the punch clock contains only dull shades of dull colors. I think this is what makes the rest of the back stand out—dirty concrete is softer on the eyes than an orange trying to pass for a shade of brown.
I push my numbers. I hear the beep. I turn to the right and begin walking down a long corridor. It’s crowded with merchandise, people from the grocery department, and as much holiday cheer as you could possibly find in a grocery store. The intercom interrupts my thoughts.
“…to the produce prep room.”
I didn’t catch the name, but our prep room is only twelve feet and a door away from me. Behind this door, my entire department is walking in through the front entrance. By the entire department, I mean five other people. John Smith motions for me to exit the way I came in, holding a Christmas card for me to sign. A few shifts ago, he had approached a few of us for money, so that we could pool in for a gift for the manager. The present consisted of a Jack Daniels fruit basket and a gift cart to the steakhouse, both of which seemed perfect for him.
After I sign it, we both walk back into the prep room. John is smiling but I wouldn’t expect to see him any other way. Jack, the artist that works in our department, had given him the nickname Colgate because of this. Jack also gave himself the nickname Captain, but I don’t think he ever told me why. Almost everyone who has worked with Jack has a nickname, to which he says it’s supposed to help us connect on a more personal level, to which Bob rolls his eyes and asks which psychedelic Jack is taking. Bob’s nickname is Richard, because we can’t call him Dick in front of customers.
We’re all standing in a circle, looking down at the floor. It’s another dirty shade of concrete with sprinkles of onion husks and bits of greens. It’ll more than likely be me sweeping it tonight. Our manager is telling us about how successful the year has been as we present him with hard liquor. In his speech, he’s handing us each a small red stocking with Dunkin Donuts gift card. Even though our department is small, he would have had to have invested about $150 for all of the cards. The red stocking is about the size of my palm and smooth to the point that it’s annoying, but I know I’m going to treasure it for what it means.
“Despite being understaffed and having hours cut,” he says adamantly. “We’ve outdone all of our competitors this year. Now this includes the recession, Market Basket—“
“And the Super Wal*Mart,” Bob interrupts.
He jokes, saying that we should each take a swig of whisky before jumping out onto the produce floor. And we all laugh, knowing that at least two in the circle will actually have a few before leaving. Moments like this don’t happen in customer service—there are just too many people and too much indifference. I remember synching into an ‘us vs. them’ mentality when conversing with management. I may not have a nickname, but I don’t really feel like just a red shirt and nametag anymore. Though, should it matter whether we’re happy with our jobs or not? At the end of the week, I get the same paycheck as I would have if I completely disliked the work environment. Are the prep room friendships worth the energy? I think so.
The store floor is chaos, but we’re twiddling our thumbs in its face. If it’s not out on the floor, then we’re out of stock. There’s little loading to do, so we undertake small tasks to kill time. Three customers in a row ask me if we have any scallions in the back, I know that we don’t, but I walk back to check for each person, throwing on some fake sorrow that I couldn’t fulfill their request. This is another reason to love the holidays. Besides bringing boxes for the mountain, otherwise known as the banana display, the Captain and I are coming out with the same items on each of our carts, thus we overfill the shelves beyond the Hannaford 2-layer standard.
A woman yells for me from the organic nuts. By yelling, I mean she’s giving me a bitter look and screaming that our PLU machine is broken. I know this already. I pull a piece of scrap paper from my pocket. There’s writing on it, but I turn it over and write the PLU for the sliced almonds that she’s trying to buy. I explain that if she gives this four-digit number to the cashier, they’ll be able to weigh the product with the price and she walks away, only slightly understanding what I told her. In her hands is a piece of my day. I don’t journal in a healthy way—I collect little bits of information on scrap papers that get lodged into books or stored away in drawer full of, well, me. I watched her turn away with a piece of me in her hands. It might have only been something like describing the punch clock, but damn it, it was mine.
Back between the prep room and the cardboard bailer, the Captain and I are talking about education. He’s saying that one of the problems with the institution today is that we haven’t learned how to learn, we’ve learned how absorb. For the most part, I agree with him, adding my own personal discourse on things we’re not being taught. He stops for a moment as I lean on the prep room door. He’s holding the remains of a tomato box in the mouth of the bailer.
“I have the perfect nickname for you,” he says, letting the box hit the bottom. “Socrates.”
After a minute or so of telling him why I don’t agree with the things that Socrates believed about the nation-state, it hits me that the nature of the name is irrelevant, but the fact that I’ve earned one means that I’ve integrated with a group. No, not earned. You can’t earn an identity. It’s a means of understanding our reflection, or how we project it to others. Regardless, there’s still something there. I think about this as I’m wedging broccoli crowns onto the shelf, but the thought follows me from here to the lettuce, with which you can purchase to earn $5 off of the DVD of Eat Pray Love. Defining something like identity has to be active. The process can’t stop. If it does, we stop.
As I leave the store, the Captain tilts his hat at me and says, “Later, Socrates.” It sounds awkward and touching all at the same time. On the way back to my earth-destroying Blazer, I stop at Dunkin Donuts across the plaza. It’s a good night for coffee. It’s always a good night for coffee. The lady behind the counter doesn’t look too happy to see me. I ask her for French roast, but she hands me French vanilla, insisting that that it’s one in the same. It’s not. And it’s spiked with hemlock. I know it.
Stage Fright 