C)day at work 3

I am putting packets of chestnut mushrooms on a shelf and pondering
the possibility of going sick, but remember there is a piece in the
form which asks if you were wearing proper footwear at the time of the
injury. I am not sure what the proper footwear is for kicking Mike off
back door, but I bet it's not plimsoles. Even if "it hurt me more than
him" qualifies as an accident it would still be my fault for not
wearing the steel capped boots they have on back door, but they don't
make them in size four. I wonder if that's sex descrimination, and if I
sued I'd get enough never to have to work again?

Wonderfully, Mike is not here today, so I don't have to remember not to
limp when I take my crates outside, or try to work out a better
response is to his teasing

The crates are supposed to be separated into stacks of the same size
and colour because, as Mike repeats, wearily at my stupidity "the depot
colour codes its departments : dairy, grocery, produce chilled,
unchilled." I started pointing out to him that two crates of the same
salad can often come in different colours, but it was like telling a
child Father Christmas doesn't exist, so I split them now. However,
most people don't, if he's not there to shout at them. So, today the
yard is crowded with teetering 5' - 6' stacks striped black, shallow
black with blue handles, deep black, pale green, green, black - with
little stacks of pale flat blue fish ones for contrast. Sparrows
chirrup and flitter through this plastic forest to where yesterday's
bread spills out of a plastic sack by the skip.

There is a new person filling for Mike. His back to me, he throws his
arms in the air, wailing "I give up, I give up!" Turning, he has a
gentle face twisted into hurt betrayal of his hopes for this new job.
He sees me wondering where to put my load : there aren't any sorted
stacks visible, and I don't want to make things worse by putting them
in the wrong place if he has a plan, but it's as if my load is one drop
too many in a full glass : his hysteria spills over. "Oh, leave them
anywhere, ANYWHERE, what difference does it make?"

Josh, one of the students off produce comes up, about to dump a load
into the general chaos but is caught by the chaos in the new person's
eyes as he, with a half cackle, half sob, reaches out, grabs the
nearest tower and topples it at our feet. As the crates clatter on the
concrete Josh's eyes flicker pity, fear, the understanding that order
must be restored? He picks up the scatter and sorts it. He and I go to
the back of the wall, and in the seeming rubble find some low, long
abandoned stacks correctly sorted and add to them, like archeologists
building a complete dinosaur skeleton from bone fragments.

The new person (he doesn't yet have a name badge) watches as one who
doesn't want to move incase he wakes up. Then the duty manager comes
out, and Josh and I know we'd better get back to our own jobs. I say to
the new person that at least it's a lovely day, to be working
outside.

The next time I go out it is pissing down. But he seems much happier,
and proudly shows me round the two completely stacked boards he's
extracted from the dissorder. Their holding string is tied in neat
bows. When I am almost as wet as he is, I ask if he wants a coat. He
says it's too late and begins whistling jauntily.

Back in the buffer room, Fred (our acting produce manager while Maggie
is away with stress) kneels, cheerfully sawing with a large bread knife
at a section of shelf edging. There is a stack beside him and they are
all 2 inches too long for our shelves.

He asks me to take a look at herbs. All the shelves are emptying, but
the chiller is too. Apart that is from the new knobbly purple things
which came without labels; none of us know what they are, so they are
being moved from veg to fruit, and now rather desperately salad, in the
hope they might strike a chord with someone culinarily adventurous or a
customer from the land where they grow. As the unknown knobbly things
came without a sell by date either, it is possible they might grow
eventually themselves. This will be handy for those days when we run
out of everything else, as it's very important not to have empty
shelves, even all that's on them is the same thing.

Fred comes out to attach his section of shelf edge, and the boys on the
shopfloor eagerly volunteer to cut some more.

All I could find for the herb section are two boxes of mint plants. I
arrange them round the large sign with the bright green photograph of
the wide selection of herbs we stock, while trying to guess which out
of stock herb each customer who catches my eye is about to ask
for.

Next time I go out back the boys are having an eating a raw onion
competition

I dare them to try one of the purple knobbly things, but they won't eat
something they don't know. That serpent in the garden of Eden knew what
it was doing asking Eve.